Date: March 10, 2022 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov A certified public accountant who also served as a professor of accounting and income tax at LaGuardia Community College was sentenced Wednesday to 14 months in federal prison for committing tax fraud. He was also ordered to pay restitution of $166,906. This sentence resulted from an investigation by IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI). "This defendant was not only a teacher, but also a certified public accountant who was entrusted to abide by a certain level of professional conduct. His actions displayed a blatant disregard for the U.S. tax system," said Tom Fattorusso, special agent in charge of the IRS-CI New York Field Office. "Fortunately, numbers don't lie, and IRS-CI uncovered that the tax returns prepared by Abdelhalim included false information." Ahmed Abdelhalim used his Queens-based tax preparation business, Master Tax Consultants Inc, to prepare and submit numerous false income tax returns, as well as related IRS schedules and forms on behalf of his clients for tax years 2012 to 2016. For example, Abdelhalim submitted fraudulent Schedules A that reported inflated or fictitious deductions like gifts to charity and unreimbursed employee expenses not actually incurred by his clients. He also submitted Schedules C that reported businesses that his clients were not involved with and losses for those companies that his clients did not incur. This resulted in a loss to the U.S. government of nearly $167,000. On October 6, 2021, Abdelhalim pleaded guilty to Title 26 USC § 7206(2) aiding or assisting the preparation of a false or fraudulent document. The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York and Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Grubin. IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, boasting a nearly 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 21 field offices located across the U.S. and 11 attachés stationed abroad.
