Federal Court Bars Southern California Man from Preparing Federal Tax Returns

A federal court in Los Angeles has permanently barred a Rancho Cucamonga, California, man from preparing federal tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today.

The permanent injunction order, to which Robert L. Cardoza consented, was entered by U.S. District Judge Ronald S.W. Lew for the Central District of California.

The complaint alleged that Cardoza prepared returns that fraudulently claimed tax deductions for his customers, including bogus deductions for medical and dental expenses, charitable contributions, unreimbursed employee business expenses, and car and truck expenses.  According to the complaint, Cardoza also falsely represented to his customers that he was a certified public accountant and that he had obtained a master’s degree in business administration and a doctoral degree.  According to the complaint, since 2008, Cardoza prepared over 5,000 federal tax returns and his fraudulent return preparation resulted in the loss of millions of dollars to the U.S. Treasury.

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 Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained injunctions against hundreds of unscrupulous tax preparers.  Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department website.

Related Materials:

United States v. Robert L. Cardoza
Final Judgment of Permanent Injunction Against Robert L. Cardoza