Justice Department Seeks to Shut Down Chicago Tax Return Preparer

WASHINGTON - The United States has sued a Chicago tax return preparer seeking to bar him and his company from preparing federal tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today. The civil injunction suit alleges that Charlie Wilson and his Chicago business, CBD Tax Service, claim bogus deductions and credits on customers’ federal tax returns.

Wilson allegedly included fabricated claims for charitable deductions, employee business expenses and other deductions on tax returns that he and his business prepared since 2006. According to the government complaint, from 2006 to 2009, CBD Tax Service prepared approximately 6,527 federal income tax returns for customers with an unusually high refund rate of over 98 percent and, in 2009 alone, Wilson himself prepared at least 894 tax returns with a 98 percent refund rate.

In the past 10 years the Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained injunctions against hundreds of tax-return preparers and tax-fraud promoters. Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department website.