Tax preparer jailed for making false claims to evade tax 

A tax preparer has been sentences to three years of jail for false credits and fictitious losses, according to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

CRA has announced that George Nkoke Nnane (Nnane) of Richmond Hill, Ontario was sentenced on February 6, 2020 in the Superior Court of Justice in Toronto to three years in jail on one count of fraud under the Criminal Code of Canada, and to 12 months in jail on a second count of fraud under the Criminal Code of Canada, to be served concurrently. Nnane was found guilty by a jury of these charges on October 29, 2019.

A CRA investigation revealed that Nnane, the Chief Executive Officer of a tax preparation business, Golden Capital Management Inc. (GCMI), prepared individual tax returns for GCMI’s clients with false charitable donations credits, as well as fictitious business and rental losses. These false claims enabled GCMI’s clients to evade a total of $1,971,212 in federal tax for the taxation years 2009 to 2013 inclusive.

The investigation also revealed that GCMI did not report net income totalling $503,138 on its corporate income tax returns for the taxation years 2009 to 2013 inclusive, and failed to remit goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) totalling $52,701 for the quarterly filing periods from 2009 to 2013 inclusive.

All case-specific information above was obtained by CRA from the court records.

Between April 1, 2014, and March 31, 2019, the courts convicted 25 tax preparers/promoters for tax evasion, both personally and for actions on behalf of clients. The courts sentenced the tax preparers/promoters to a total of $2.5 million in fines and 38 years of jail time.