Federal Court Permanently Bars Stratham, N.h.,
Tax Preparer from Preparing Taxes for Others

WASHINGTON – A federal district judge in New Hampshire has permanently barred Faith A. Bartlett, individually and operating as Atlantic Bookkeeping & Tax Services and Newbury Business Services Inc., from preparing federal tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today. The court also ordered Bartlett to provide her customer lists to the government and to mail copies of the court order to her clients. Bartlett consented to the civil injunction order.

According to the government complaint in the case, Bartlett had been an enrolled agent with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) since 1979, but allowed this certification to expire in January 2009. On October 30, 2009, Bartlett was interviewed by representatives of the IRS about her tax preparation activities. Bartlett told IRS representatives that she accepts whatever information her customers provide her without question and that she performs no analysis or review prior to filing the returns to determine if the information on the returns passes a “common sense” test.

In addition, Ms. Bartlett told IRS representatives that she does not always: (1) meet with her customers prior to electronically filing their tax returns; (2) return documents provided to her by her customers; (3) sign the returns which she prepares for others for compensation; and (4) secure authorization from her customers to electronically file their tax returns.

The IRS has examined 62 returns prepared by Bartlett for 37 of her customers for the 2006, 2007 and 2008, tax years. The IRS has incurred an actual tax loss to date from these examined returns of approximately $699,000.