Pembroke Pines couple must pay IRS back $444K ‘inflated’ tax refund, court rules
A Pembroke Pines couple must cough up over $444,000 to the Internal Revenue Service after officials said they submitted “imaginative” tax documents that led to a wrongly issued refund check, according to federal court records.
In a Nov. 21 opinion issued by Judge David A. Tapp, April Harry Quinones and his wife, Janeth Quinones, were found to have “actively attempted to defraud” the IRS in 2021 after a false joint tax form led to them being issued a $444,323.86 tax refund in 2022.
“Grossly inflated” income and withholdings and overpayment interest made up most of the nearly half-million-dollar check, according to the filing.
In 2020, the Quinoneses reported jointly earning $3,659,528 of taxable wages and had $470,902 withheld in federal income taxes, submitting their individual W-2 forms as proof, records show. From these self-reported numbers, they originally requested a $904,325 refund from the IRS, according to the court.
Harry Quinones — who works as a technology operations manager — claimed he made $1,713,046 in taxable income and had nearly $397,000 withheld across income tax, Social Security and Medicare, records show. The court says he actually earned $95,169 in taxable wages that year and only had roughly $22,000 deducted.
His software developer wife tweaked her numbers similarly in her own “sham document,” according to Tapp’s opinion.
Though she claims she made $1,946,482 in taxable wages and had over $380,00 withheld, the court says she only earned $108,138 in wages and had about $21,000 deducted.
According to the court, the pair now owes $10,792 in back taxes for 2020.
The Quinoneses’ creative accounting — which officials said started in 2018 after they decided to forgo the help of a tax professional — “originated in his (Harry Quinones’ ) vague understanding of the operating ‘margin’ used by his father in the Philippines decades earlier,” according to the filing.
They first took to using “intangibles” to bloat their actual income, withholdings and expenses, multiplying each by six and upping the multiplier as the years went on, records show. By 2021, reads the court document, the couple was using a multiplier of 54.
The Quinoneses acknowledged the unusual calculations before the court and didn’t deny that they received the half-million refund check, instead arguing that their misinterpretation of tax law was an “honest mistake” because the IRS didn’t explain it to the pair, the filing says.
Neither responded to the Pembroke Pines News’ request for comment on Nov. 25.
According to Tapp, the couple’s failure to cite a “statute, rule or advice of a tax professional” that could justify their use of “intangibles” makes it impossible for the court to believe they acted in “good faith,” reads the document.
Regardless, the judge added, it proved no defense against the IRS’ right to claw back the refund.
A Nov. 24 judgment ordered the Quinoneses to pay back the over $444,000 check with interest added to the overdue debt.
