A California man has pleaded guilty to conspiring with others in schemes involving millions of dollars in inflated tax returns and exploiting the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
California Man Pleads Guilty to Tax and PPP Loan Fraud
According to the Department of Justice, Thanh Ngoc Rudin and his brother along with others conspired to commit two sets of fraud schemes. One involves filing false income tax claims on behalf of at least nine professional athletes and another involves falsifying records to fraudulently get Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. The two schemes resulted in total losses of more than $25 million.
The Charges
On the first count Thanh Ngoc Rudin, 58, who was a principal of Mana Tax Services, a tax preparation business, and his co-conspirators conspired to prepare and file with the IRS. This includes a series of false and fraudulent income tax returns on behalf of at least nine professional athletes. The false tax returns reported fabricated business and personal losses to generate refunds the athletes were not entitled to receive.
The co-conspirators told the professional athletes that Mana Tax also could amend prior year tax returns to correct purported errors made by the athletes’ previous accountants to get additional refunds they were not entitled to receive. Mana Tax then charged the athletes a fee of 30% of the resulting refund.
On the second count, Rudin and his co-conspirators used Mana Tax to apply for PPP loans on behalf of several small…
