The Tax King—at least, the St. Louis version thereof—is heading to ClubFed. Eyob Tilahun owned the Tax King tax preparation firm in the St. Louis area. He wasn’t charging low prices; his typical fee was $400 to $650. And he asked for tips of $100 to $1000. Sounds like a good business model to me.
Of course, I didn’t mention the other things he did. Let’s head back to the DOJ press release from May:
In the pleading guilty today, Tilahun admitted that Tax King’s return preparers were trained and instructed to increase their customers’ refunds by falsifying certain information on their tax returns. The false information that was placed on the returns included: (1) false Business Income and Schedules Cs which caused the clients to qualify for larger Earned Income Credits (“EICs”); (2) false wages, which again caused the clients to qualify for larger EICs; (3) false education expenses which enabled the clients to qualify for American opportunity education credits; and (4) false information regarding fuel taxes which qualified the clients for federal fuel tax credits.
I think I’ve talked about how all these credits can be used for fraud in the past. Congress might want to consider not having so many tax credits…but I’m likely talking to the converted.
Well, sentencing came up last Friday. Mr. Tilahun will have 38 months at ClubFed to think things over. He’ll also have to make restitution of something over $2 million. Maybe that’s why I haven’t embraced this business model.
For individuals shopping tax professionals, remember that if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. If you make a lot of money, you’re likely going to pay a lot in tax. There is no tax fairy to make your taxes go away.