This Won’t Help Confidence in the IRS

From South Florida comes a story of one IRS employee who allegedly liked to help taxpayers…just in the wrong way. Charles Corbitt worked for the IRS in West Palm Beach, Florida. He was charged with wire fraud today and is looking at 20 years at ClubFed if found guilty. He’s accused of “helping” taxpayers prepare returns for 2009 through 2012 and making sure they included residential energy credits. There’s just one issue supposedly with those returns (I’m sure you’re ahead of me): Those taxpayers didn’t qualify for residential energy credits. Oops.

Mr. Corbitt allegedly took part of the refund as his fee for preparing the returns. His fee was based on the size of the refund (according to the indictment); that’s a violation of ethics rules. He also allegedly inflated other itemized deductions.

As I said in the headline, the IRS desperately needs some good news…but there hasn’t been much this year.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2014 at 7:39 pm and is filed under IRS, Tax Fraud. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “This Won’t Help Confidence in the IRS”

  1. Tax Roundup, 9/4/14: IOU? No basis for you! And: IRS may say TANSTAAFL. « Roth & Company, P.C says:
    September 4, 2014 at 6:44 am

    […] So you think regulation of preparers by IRS will stop fraud?  IRS Employee Accused Of Tax Fraud.  If they can’t keep themselves honest, they aren’t likely to prevent preparer cheating. Of course, preparer regulation isn’t about stopping fraud or improving tax compliance. It’s about grabbing power and helping well-placed friends.  Russ Fox has more. […]