The owners of a McDuffie County tax preparation service have been sentenced to prison for filing dozens of fraudulent tax returns, obtaining hundreds of thousands of dollars in excess IRS refunds for clients.
Annie Bailey, 67, of Thomson, was sentenced to nearly two years in prison and her son, Tremarcus Bailey, 43, of Thomson, was sentenced to almost three years in prison after they pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States, said Jill E. Steinberg, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge J. Randal Hall also ordered the Baileys to pay $683,046 in restitution and to each serve three years of supervised release after their prison terms.
There is no parole in the federal system.
As described in court documents and testimony, Annie Bailey owned Bailey’s Tax Service in Thomson and her son, Tremarcus, was an employee, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia. The company prepared income tax returns on behalf of customers since 2000.