Joseph Octave, owner of Kapital Financial Services in North Carolina, pleaded guilty to preparing and filing false tax returns. Six of Octave’s employees also pleaded guilty to the same crime.
From 2014 to 2019 Octave and his employees falsified clients’ tax returns by claiming false deductions, earned income tax credits, business losses, and education credits that the clients were not eligible for in order to increase refunds to be paid by the IRS.
Octave trained his employees to file false tax returns and gave them cheat sheets and scripts for dealing with clients. He instructed employees to discuss nothing beyond the refund amount with clients.
As the owner, Octave received the largest share of the $700,000 earned by the company in tax preparation fees and faces up to eight years in prison. His employees face a maximum of five years in prison each.