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Newport News woman sentenced for tax refund scheme and ID theft

Posted at 4:47 PM, Mar 01, 2018
and last updated 2018-03-01 19:04:50-05

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – A 33-year-old Newport News woman was sentenced to 54 months in prison for filing false tax returns and identity theft.

According to court documents, Neivda Hicks helped at-least 53 people between 2013 and 2016 file tax reports that had false information designed to reduce the amount of tax due, and owing, in efforts to increase a resulting tax refund.

Hicks also manipulated tax information in regards to education expenses, as well as business profits and losses through falsely claimed periods of self-employment.

Investigators also caught Hicks of using family members, and inmates who her husband was serving time with in a local jail, as dependents on taxes files.

She also failed to identify herself as a paid return preparer on the returns she filed on behalf of others, which gave the appearance of having been filed by the actual people she had filed the taxes for.

Separately, Hicks  manipulating her own tax information from 2012 through 2015, filing at least 32 materially false income tax returns on behalf of herself and others.

Through these returns, Hicks requested over $200,000 in federal income tax refunds.  Of this amount, over $150,000 derived from the materially false information Hicks had included in the associated returns.