Accountant gets probation
for filing false tax returns

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By Treena Shapiro
tshapiro@starbulletin.com

A Waipahu woman was sentenced to five years probation, 200 hours of community service and a $10,000 fine yesterday for six felony counts of filing false state income tax returns.

Dina Caleda, a tax-return preparer for RB Tax Service, had been indicted on 47 misdemeanor and felony counts last August, but pleaded guilty to six under a plea agreement.

The state investigated RB Tax Service when its clients filed excessive and fictitious itemized deductions and claimed on their state returns the Foreign Earned Income Tax Exclusion under the premise that Hawaii was not a state.

"A tax-return preparer encouraging people to commit criminal acts is outrageous," said Deputy Attorney General Rick Damerville.

Caleda had asked for a deferred sentence, but Circuit Judge Michael Town denied the motion on the grounds that in addition to helping her clients falsify tax returns, the accountant did not file her own general excise tax and income tax returns for 1995, 1996 and 1997.

"We, as professionals, need to be as impeccable as we can and set a good example," Town said.

Town said Caleda must submit proof of her tax payments by May 1 of each year. She must also write a letter of apology to the state director of taxation.

Caleda apologized to the court, saying, "My intentions were not meant to harm anybody."

Two more tax-return preparers from RB Tax Service will be sentenced later this month: Richard Basuel II on Nov. 13 and Rosalinda DeGuzman on Nov. 20.

Another preparer, Vivian Soong, was recently indicted and will be arraigned this month.