Federal Court Permanently Bars Five Texas Tax Return Preparers from Preparing Returns for Others

A federal court in Waco, Texas has permanently barred Patricia Foley aka Sissy Foley; Amanda Smith; April Leann Morgan aka April Leann Ercanbrack; Cassandra Egbert and Joshua Stifle, individually and doing business as Accounting System Services and doing business as A Kind Bookkeeping and Tax Service from preparing tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today.  The five defendants agreed to the stipulated order of permanent injunction, which U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. entered on Dec. 19.

The complaint alleges that the defendants prepared income tax returns for their customers that contained false, improper or inflated business expense deductions on Schedule F (Profit or Loss from Farming) on their returns.  These activities led to the defendants’ customers filing tax returns that unlawfully understated income and tax liabilities and overstated refunds, according to the suit.

The injunction requires the defendants to turn over to the United States a list of all persons for whom they prepared federal tax returns or claims for a refund for tax years 2009 through 2014.  The order granting the injunction further authorizes the United States to monitor the defendants’ compliance with the terms of the order.]\

Return preparer fraud is one of the IRS’s 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 unscrupulous 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.