By Mark Abrams

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — A Philadelphia tax preparer was indicted by a federal grand jury today on charges that she prepared fraudulent returns for clients, netting them hundreds of thousands of dollars in refunds they were not entitled to receive.

Proesecutors say 48-year-old Shawn Sisco ran a home-based tax preparation service called Sisco Accounting.

She was indicted by a grand jury on 31 counts of fraud and related charges for a scheme that ran from 2006 to 2009.

Assistant US attorney Floyd Miller says the IRS division which probes tax returns for fraud schemes detected irregularities in documents Sisco prepared for several clients.

Miller says Sisco inflated the tax returns with bogus deductions, such as “medical and dental expenses, in some cases totally nonexistent or, if they existed at all, they were inflated; charitable contributions; even deductions for cell phone expenses.”

Miller says that IRS paid out $166,000 in refunds on those returns that now must be repaid with interest by the individual taxpayers.

He says as the preparer, Sisco, faces the criminal charges and could pay a steep fine and do jail time.