{"id":62272,"date":"2026-02-06T17:17:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T22:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=62272"},"modified":"2026-02-06T17:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T22:17:11","slug":"polk-county-tax-preparer-sentenced-for-defrauding-the-irs-for-nearly-13-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/02\/06\/polk-county-tax-preparer-sentenced-for-defrauding-the-irs-for-nearly-13-million\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a0Polk County tax preparer sentenced for defrauding the IRS for nearly $13 million"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Polk County tax preparer is facing nearly five years in prison for falsifying tax returns for himself and other people he was assisting, according to officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A federal judge sentenced Jeffrey Dixon of Lakeland to four years and nine months in federal prison while ordering him to pay nearly $13 million in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Justice said this started in January 2019 through July 2023, when Dixon prepared or assisted in the preparation of 458 false and fraudulent tax returns for 319 taxpayers, including himself. The tax returns reportedly contained fraud W-2G forms, among other falsified documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Court documents explain the returns had fabricated figures for gambling winnings and losses, and federal tax withholding amounts based on the fake gambling winnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The total intended tax loss from the tax returns Dixon prepared was over $42.3 million, with an actual total loss of over $12.9 million, which the IRS paid out to taxpayers, including Dixon, either as tax refunds or credits applied to prior debts, the DOJ says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal officials report that Dixon personally profited $1.09 million with payments from his taxpayer-clients or refunds he received directly from the IRS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dixon pleaded guilty in August. He is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aiding and assisting in the filing of false and fraudulent tax returns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTax fraud isn\u2019t a shortcut\u2014it\u2019s a fast track to prison,\u201d Ron Loecker, Special Agent in Charge, IRS Criminal Investigation, said in a statement. \u201cIRS Special Agents work tirelessly to protect the integrity of the tax system and ensure that those who steal from the American public face justice. IRS Special Agents will continue to pursue anyone who thinks they can game the system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of his sentence, the court also entered an order of forfeiture of over $1.09 million, the proceeds of the criminal conduct and to pay restitution of over $12.9 million to the IRS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Polk County tax preparer is facing nearly five years in prison for falsifying tax returns for himself and other people he was assisting, according to officials. A federal judge… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDJcL2Rvd25sb2FkLTUtMS53ZWJwP2ZpdD0zMzAlMkMxNTMmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJcdTAwYTBQb2xrIENvdW50eSB0YXggcHJlcGFyZXIgc2VudGVuY2VkIGZvciBkZWZyYXVkaW5nIHRoZSBJUlMgZm9yIG5lYXJseSAkMTMgbWlsbGlvbiIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.i8zsjsNnFn-M8kP6aybm624qsn12HbipAq48IYk-IxQMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":62273,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/download-5-1.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[13546],"class_list":["post-62272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-polk-county-tax-preparer-sentenced-for-defrauding-the-irs-for-nearly-13-million"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62274,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62272\/revisions\/62274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}