Federal Court Bars Chicago Woman from Preparing Federal Tax Returns

WASHINGTON – A federal court has permanently barred Martha A. Jones of Chicago from preparing federal tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today. The civil injunction order, to which Jones consented without admitting the allegations against her, was signed by U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feinerman for the Northern District of Illinois.

The government complaint in the case alleged that Jones included fabricated charitable contributions, employee business expenses and other deductions on tax returns that she prepared since 2005. The complaint alleged, for tax years 2005 through 2008, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) examined 56 of the returns that Jones prepared and found inaccuracies in all of them. According to the complaint, the tax losses to the United States from Jones’s misconduct could exceed $1 million.

The complaint also alleged that Jones failed to sign her customers’ returns as the paid preparer, even after being advised by the IRS that she was legally required to sign them. The court order requires Jones to provide the government with a list identifying all persons for whom she prepared federal tax returns for tax years 2005 through 2009.

Return preparer fraud is one of the IRS’s “Dirty Dozen” tax scams for 2011. In the past decade, 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.