Date: May 21, 2025
Contact: [email protected]
ROCKFORD — A Rockford woman pleaded guilty on Tuesday in federal court to preparing and filing false income tax returns for others.
Gretchen Alvarez operated a tax preparation business called Sick Credit Repair Tax and Legal Services. Alvarez represented herself as an income tax preparer and held herself out to clients as a person trained in and knowledgeable about the preparation and filing of federal income tax returns. Alvarez did not have an IRS-issued Preparer Tax Identification Number to prepare federal income tax returns.
Alvarez admitted in a plea agreement that in 2019 and 2020 she misrepresented taxpayers’ eligibility for education tax credits and deducted fictitious business expenses from their taxable income. Alvarez fraudulently reduced the taxpayers’ tax liabilities and improperly qualified taxpayers for refunds that were greater than those to which the taxpayers were entitled. The total tax loss was $356,881.00.
Alvarez faces a maximum sentence of three years’ imprisonment. This offense also carries a maximum fine of $100,000. U.S. District Judge Iain D. Johnston set sentencing for Sept. 17, 2025, at 1:30 p.m.
The guilty plea was announced by Andrew S. Boutros, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Ramsey E. Covington, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of IRS Criminal Investigation. The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan S. Kim.
IRS-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.