Westminster tax preparer

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Travel. From 2012 to June 2019, Nguyen and his co-conspirators filed hundreds of tax returns using personal identifying information (PII) belonging to other individuals without their permission to generate fraudulent tax refund payments from the United States.

One of Nguyen’s alleged coconspirators was John Tran, who is believed to be either 57 or 61 years old, of Fountain Valley, an Orange County Social Services Agency case worker from July 1994 to October 2018, who stole the Social Security numbers and other personal identifying information (PII) from his clients – many of them recent immigrants.

Tran and his co-conspirators used this stolen information to fraudulently obtain money from the federal government, the State of California, the County of Orange, and financial institutions. Nguyen used the stolen identities that Tran provided to create fraudulent Forms 1099-MISC that falsely showed payments made to the identity theft victims by companies, including those controlled by Tran and other accomplices.

Nguyen prepared and filed federal income tax returns using the Tran-provided stolen identities.

Nguyen then used the purported payments on the fraudulent Forms 1099 as income to the identify theft victims, making them appear to qualify for tax credits, including the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit.

In turn, the reported payments to the identity theft victims were used by Nguyen’s clients to offset business revenues and reduce the taxes.