A Las Vegas tax preparer and her son are facing federal prison time after admitting to a years-long scheme that involved filing fraudulent tax returns and pocketing over $1.1 million in stolen refunds.
Iris Hondermann, the owner of a local tax preparation business, and her son, Ivan Odiaga, pleaded guilty in federal court today to conspiracy to defraud the United States.
According to court records, the pair spent four years—from 2017 to 2021—systematically inflating tax returns with fake business losses and bogus COVID-19 credits to trigger massive payouts from the IRS.
In total, the duo attempted to secure more than $5 million in undeserved refunds for their clients. However, the government revealed that the clients weren’t the only ones being misled. Hondermann and Odiaga frequently siphoned off portions of those refunds, totaling upwards of $1.1 million, into bank accounts they personally controlled without the taxpayers’ knowledge.
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The investigation also uncovered that Odiaga had been hijacking the professional identity of another tax preparer. Despite receiving multiple warnings from the IRS, Odiaga used another person’s unique identifier to file approximately 279 tax returns.
“Hondermann and Odiaga prepared tax returns for clients that included one or more false items, including business profits and losses, COVID-19 sick and family leave credits, and residential energy credits,” officials stated in court documents.
The announcement of the guilty pleas was made by First Assistant United States Attorney Sigal Chattah and Acting Special Agent in Charge Jarom Gregory of the IRS Criminal Investigation unit.
The mother and son are now scheduled for sentencing on June 8, 2026. Each faces a maximum of five years in federal prison, along with supervised release and heavy financial penalties. While the statutory maximum is set, a federal judge will determine the final sentence based on U.S. Sentencing Guidelines.
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