Apple Valley Tax Preparer Sentenced for Scheme Fraudulently Collecting Over $1 Million

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APPLE VALLEY, Ca. – A 70-year-old Apple Valley man was sentenced to over 2 years in prison for collecting well over $1 million in fraudulent tax returns.

The tax preparer, who portrayed himself as a certified public accountant was once licensed but his license expired 30 years ago, officials said. Scott Douglas Cutting Sr. was sentenced on the morning of Thursday, October 10, 2019, was sentenced to 2 years and 2 months in federal prison as part of the scheme, which generated over $1 million in refunds. In addition, Cutting was ordered to pay $1,392,765 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.

Cutting was found guilty of six counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false and fraudulent tax returns in April 2019, following a 3-day trial. “Cutting had tax refunds – which typically were hundreds or thousands of dollars from each fraudulent tax return – directly deposited

into his own bank accounts, often giving his clients nothing or only a small portion of the refund,”

Department of Justice officials said. Part of his scheme was having low or no-income people file false claims for income credits. The electronically filed returns were submitted to the IRS without Cutting including his name as the preparer. Some of those which he filed for were deceased and he would use their information without any type of authority to do so. Cutting continued between 2008 and 2016, used this information to submit false tax returns, only to give the person seeking the tax refund little or no money.

In all, the 477 tax returns brought in $1,392,765 in refunds, all which was direct deposited to Cutting’s accounts.