COURT BARS MISSOURI WOMAN FROM PREPARING TAX RETURNS

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Justice Department announced today that a federal court has permanently barred Carrie Ann Shafer, of Oronogo, Missouri, from working as a federal tax return preparer. Shafer operated a return-preparation business called “TC’s Taxes and More,” serving customers in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The injunction order, signed yesterday by Judge Gary A. Fenner of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri in Springfield, also orders Shafer to notify her customers of the injunction and to give the Justice Department her customers’ names, mailing and e-mail addresses, and Social Security and telephone numbers.

In granting the order, the court found that Shafer fabricated or inflated customers’ deductions for various items, including medical and dental expenses, charitable contributions, and business expenses. According to court filings, Shafer allegedly prepared over 1,000 federal tax returns for the 2003 tax year and prepared an unspecified number of federal tax returns for the 2004 tax year.

“People who prepare false or fraudulent tax returns cheat their customers and unfairly shift the tax burden to honest American taxpayers,” said Eileen J. O'Connor, Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division. “The Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service are working vigorously to stop their systematic abuses of the tax laws.”

More information on this case is available at: http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/txdv05054.htm. This case is part of nationwide crackdown on return preparers who give false advice. The government has filed numerous lawsuits seeking injunctions against return preparers who prepare false or fraudulent federal tax returns. More information about these cases is available at: http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/taxpress2005.htm. More information about the Justice Department’s Tax Division can be found at: http://www.usdoj.gov/index.html