Justice Department Sues to Shut Down Texas Tax Return Preparers

The United States has asked a federal court in Waco, Texas, to permanently bar several tax preparers individually and through the business Accounting System Services, doing business as A Kind Bookkeeping and Tax Service, from preparing federal tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today.

The individually named defendants are Patricia Foley aka Sissy Foley, Amanda Smith, April Leann Morgan aka April Leann Ercanbrack, Cassandra Egbert and Joshua Stifle.

The complaint alleges that the defendants prepared income tax returns for their customers that contain false, improper or inflated business expense deductions on Schedule F (Profit or Loss from Farming) of their returns. As a result, the government contends the defendants’ customers have repeatedly reported and paid less tax than they actually owe. The complaint alleges that the tax harm caused by these understatements could be as much as $500,000.

Return-preparer fraud is one of the IRS' Dirty Dozen Tax Scams for 2014 . The IRS has some tips on their website for choosing a tax preparer. In the past decade, the Tax Division has obtained injunctions against hundreds of fraudulent tax preparers. Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department 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.

Related Materials:

United States v. Patricia Foley, etc., et al.
Complaint for Injunctive Relief