GEORGIA FEDERAL COURT HALTS INTERNET TAX SCAM

Court Permanently Bars Georgia Man from Selling Tax Fraud Scheme

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Justice Department announced today that a federal court in Atlanta, Georgia has permanently barred Jonathan D. Luman of Stockbridge, Georgia from selling a tax scam known as “The TaxBuster Guide.” The court also ordered Luman to provide the government his customers’ names, mailing and e-mail addresses, and phone and Social Security numbers; to notify his customers of the injunction; and to post a copy of the order on his website.

Luman’s scam, sold over the Internet, falsely promised customers that they could declare themselves exempt from federal tax laws. The court stated in its order that claiming to be a “sovereign citizen” and renouncing one’s Social Security number were actions “clearly designed to hide income from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for tax evasion purposes,” and that Luman “knew or had reason to know” these statements were false.

“People who buy schemes purporting to eliminate their federal taxes are not only wasting their money, but also risking serious penalties and possible prosecution,” said Eileen J. O’Connor, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Tax Division. “The Justice Department and the IRS are working methodically and effectively to detect and stop the promotion of such schemes.”

Joan S. Ulmer, a trial attorney with the Justice Department’s Tax Division, handled the case, which J. Katherine Smith, a revenue agent with the IRS’s Small Business/Self Employed Division, investigated.

More information about this case is available at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/txdv04789.htm and http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/txdv04605.htm. More information about the Justice Department’s Tax Division can be found at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/index.htm.