PHOENIX – A Phoenix tax preparer, Connie Cozzolino, owner of Connie’s Tax Services, her son Richard Luttrull, and Jennifer Lohss have been indicted by a State Grand Jury for fraud involving tax returns.
The trio have been charged with Fraudulent Schemes and Artifices, Illegal Control of an Enterprise, 24 counts of Preparing False Tax Returns and Forgery for Allegedly Preparing Arizona Personal Income Tax Returns that contained fraudulent information for tax years 2012-2018.
According to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, investigators found that “without the knowledge or consent of the taxpayers, Cozzolino, Luttrull, and Lohss (aka Jennifer Drziewicki), prepared Arizona income tax returns that included improper, inflated, or fictitious itemized deductions for items such as medical and dental expenses, unreimbursed employee expenses, or gifts to charity. It is further alleged that for the 2018 tax year, W-2 wage income was improperly reported on Schedule C as income from a sole proprietorship to circumvent the change in the law removing unreimbursed employee expenses from itemized deductions in most situations.”
The scheme to allegedly include the fraudulent deductions resulted in approximately $19,000 in inflated refunds and evaded taxes. The taxpayers in this case will be responsible for filing amended returns and repayment of the excess refund or the additional tax due plus any interest. ADOR does not impose a monetary penalty on taxpayers who have been victimized by a tax preparer.