ORLANDO, Fla. – Following a News 6 investigation into a tax preparation business accused of falsifying customers’ income tax returns, the company’s three owners have been sentenced to federal prison.

Franklin Carter, Emmanuel Almonor, and Jonathan Carrillo operated Neighborhood Advance Tax, a chain of 12 Central Florida tax preparation offices that promised to get customers the “maximum refund”.

[VIDEO: Central Florida tax preparers plead guilty to fraud charges]

Carrillo and Carter later opened a similar company called Taxmates in some of the same strip mall storefronts previously occupied by Neighborhood Advance Tax, prosecutors said.

The three business owners were arrested last year and have since pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the United States.

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