Tax Preparer Pleads Guilty to Fraud Counts

A Sylmar tax preparer accused of generating commissions by filing clients’ returns with false donations to a church based at his residence has pleaded guilty to three counts of tax fraud as part of an agreement in which six other counts were dropped, thS. Attorney’s office announced Tuesday.

Rudolf Kies, 56, pleaded guilty to the charges Monday and is to be sentenced June 19 in U. S. District Court for Los Angeles. He faces a maximum sentence of nine years in jail and $450,000 in fines.

Contacted at his residence Tuesday, Kies said he will continue to prepare tax returns, his only source of income. Originally, he pleaded innocent but said he changed his mind because “it takes money to fight” the charges.

Indicted in February on nine counts of tax fraud, Kies was accused of including on his clients’ returns more than $50,000 in donations that he knew were false. The indictment said Kies suggested to the clients that they claim they had made deductible contributions to the Mission Church of America, which Kies established.

According to an Internal Revenue Service investigation, Kies was paid about 10% of the $14,000 in tax payments that his clients saved by filing the false returns during 1983 and 1984.

The IRS had also charged that the mission never got the donations. Kies incorporated the mission in 1976, and the IRS granted the church tax-exempt status.