There are good tax preparers, bad tax preparers, and bozo tax preparers. There have been two recent stories about the latter group—tax preparers, please don’t copy their methods.
>From San Jose, California, comes the story of Melinda Newens. The former Jackson-Hewitt employee had a neat method of making sure she had a profitable year: she increased the deductions on her clients’ tax returns, adding phony deductions. She did this to increase her fees, as she took fees from the refunds (that’s a violation of ethics rules). In any case, her scheme collapsed when the IRS found out about it. The loss to the Treasury was over $1 million. Ms. Newens received two years at ClubFed, and has been barred from being a tax professional in the future.
Harold Hunter used to be a tax preparer in Stanton, Mississippi. He’ll soon be a ClubFed resident (for ten months). Mr. Hunter was kind to his clients; he, too, invented fraudulent deductions for his clients’ returns. He pleaded guilty last year and was just sentenced. As part of his plea agreement, he will also no longer be a professional tax preparer.
Tags: BozoTaxPreparer