Baton Rouge tax preparer arrested on felony fraud charges

BATON ROUGE – A Baton Rouge woman faces felony charges for allegedly falsifying hundreds of state income tax returns in a fraud scheme that cost Louisiana taxpayers more than $120,000.

Naomi Renee Bass is accused of fabricating business losses for clients who, in many cases, were not even business owners. The inflated losses led to the issuance of an estimated $121,000 in fraudulent state income tax refunds.

Bass was arrested on Thursday, August 31, 2017, and booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on charges of Principal to Filing or Maintaining False Public Records and Principal to Illegal Transmission of Monetary Funds. She is the 68^th person arrested under a joint anti-fraud initiative of the Louisiana Department of Revenue and the state Attorney General’s office.