There’s a common thread among these tax professionals: You’ll be getting a refund. That sounds good until you realize that you really shouldn’t have, and that you will likely get in trouble later.
Our first preparer might be saying, “Well, I did get two returns correct.” Unfortunately, the IRS and the US Department of Justice allege he get 74 others wrong. The DOJ asked a federal court to bar Ernice Joseph and his Miami tax preparation firms, Ebenezer Tax Services Inc and Primo Tax Service Inc, from preparing federal returns for others. Why? Here’s what the DOJ states:
The complaint alleges that Joseph and his businesses prepared returns that unlawfully claim the Earned Income Tax Credit by reporting fictitious businesses or business income on clients’ Schedule C – Profit or Loss From Business. Joseph and his businesses prepare returns that claim education and other credits to which the taxpayers are not entitled in order to overstate their refunds. According to the complaint, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) examined 76 returns prepared by Joseph and/or Ebenezer Tax Services and found that 74 contained a deficiency. The complaint alleges that, altogether, Joseph and Ebenezer Tax Service’s activities may have caused more than $20 million in loss to the U.S. Treasury. In addition, the complaint alleges that the revenue lost from Primo Tax Service’s activities could exceed $25 million.
Our next preparer is one step further along than Mr. Joseph. William Naes of St. Charles, Missouri, was permanently barred from preparing returns for others. Why? Well, things were too good to be true:
The government alleged that Naes prepared returns that fraudulently claimed tax deductions for his customers, including bogus deductions for charitable contributions and unreimbursed employee business expenses. According to the complaint, Naes also fabricated business expenses on Schedules C-Profit or Loss From Business, concocted a fake business for at least one customer and failed to properly identify himself as the paid preparer on many of the returns he prepared.
Neither Mr. Joseph nor Mr. Naes appear to be under criminal indictment; our other two preparers weren’t so lucky. Julius Williams owned and ran his tax preparation business in College Park, Maryland. He catered to temporary workers from Jamaica. His clients got a great deal: Phony Schedule C businesses, phony deductions, phony Earned Income tax credits, and phony education credits led to real refunds. Mr. Williams did one nasty thing to those clients: He stole those ex-clients’ identities to help his current clients. After all, they were back in Jamaica, unlikely to file another US tax return, so why waste a good identity? Finally, Mr. Williams cheated on his own taxes. He pleaded guilty and must make restitution of $1 million; he’s also looking at a term at ClubFed.
Our final Bozo preparer is Daniel Jones of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Mr. Jones operated a business called Tax Doctor Plus. I use the past tense because Mr. Jones will be heading to ClubFed for the next 37 months. He did have a lot of satisfied clients: he used phony tax credits, phony Schedule C’s, phony Schedule A expenses, and phony W-2s to increase his clients’ refunds. He also falsely claimed to be a CPA.
Some common sense applies when you’re reviewing your tax return. First, always review it–don’t just sign it. And if it shows you worked at a business you didn’t or you have a credit for college education expenses when you attended college twenty years ago, there’s a problem. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.
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