Federal Court Shuts Down Louisiana Tax Return Preparers

A federal district court in Shreveport, Louisiana has permanently barred defendants Angelina Adams aka Angelina Morris and Angie’s Tax Service LLC from preparing federal tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today. The defendants consented to the permanent injunction after the government filed a complaint.

The complaint alleged that Adams of Princeton, Louisiana and her tax preparation business, Angie’s Tax Service LLC, located in Ringgold, Louisiana, repeatedly and continually prepared tax returns that understated liabilities and overstated refunds. Their alleged schemes included fabricating Schedule Cs, Profit or Loss from Business, to secure bogus earned income tax credits; deducting false employee business expenses and moving expenses on Schedule As, Itemized Deductions; and claiming unsupported education credits.

In one example cited in the complaint, Angie’s Tax Service prepared a customer’s returns to report over $25,000 and $20,000 in Schedule C, Profit or Loss from Business, losses for an electrician business in the 2013 and 2014 tax years, respectively. The complaint alleged that the customer had no such business. In another example, the complaint alleged that Adams prepared a customer’s return to report $24,484 in unreimbursed employee business expenses although the customer incurred no out-of-pocket expenses for her job. As alleged in the complaint, the use of fraudulent unreimbursed business expenses by the defendants may have generated more than $10 million in fraudulent deductions.

Return preparer fraud is one of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)’s Dirty Dozen Tax Scams for 2017 and taxpayers seeking a return preparer should remain vigilant. The IRS has some tips on their website for choosing a return preparer and has launched a free directory of federal tax preparers.

In the past decade, the Tax Division has obtained injunctions against hundreds of unscrupulous tax preparers. Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department’s website. An alphabetical listing of persons enjoined from preparing returns and promoting tax schemes can be found on this page. If you believe that one of the enjoined persons or businesses may be violating an injunction, please contact the Tax Division with details.