A Chicago woman has been accused by the U.S. of preparing fraudulent tax returns by faking donations to charities and inflating rental losses from real estate properties.

The federal government says Rita J. Augustus, owner of Windy City Insurance Agency Inc. and Windy City Tax Service, prepared 4,283 tax returns from 2005 to 2009 with an “unusually high refund rate of over 94 percent,” according to court records. The government estimates it lost about $20 million in revenue as a result. Get the full story »