HENDERSON (KTNV) — A Henderson certified public accountant has pleaded guilty to aiding and assisting in filing false tax returns for his role in an investment scheme to sell false tax deductions.
Court documents and statements made in court claim Lance K. Bradford is the founder and manager of an accounting firm called LL Bradford & Company as well as operating a real estate business that developed office buildings and other real property. Investigators state as part of the real estate development activities, Bradford also operated and controlled a real estate investment partnership equity.
According to the Justice Department, in 2011, Bradford began offering LLB clients an "investment opportunity" where clients made payments to his partnership entity and, in exchange, received a large tax deduction of "approximately five to seven times the amount of money the client invested."
Investigators state Bradford advised that the clients' payments would entitle them to claim the large tax deduction based on losses derived from the partnership entity even though tax laws didn't permit the sale of such deductions in exchange for an investment or money and the partnership did not incur the losses or depreciation in the amounts Bradford was selling.
Justice Department officials said Bradford also didn't report the purported investments as losses on the clients' tax returns as promised and instead, caused the clients' returns to report large false deductions for cost of goods sold, professional and consulting fees or nonpassive losses.
In total, Bradford's scheme caused a tax loss to the IRS of at least $8 million.
Bradford pleaded. guilty on Tuesday and is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 16, 2024.
