A federal court in Denver has permanently barred Curtis L. Morris of Elizabeth, CO, from preparing federal tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced this week. The civil injunction order, entered by Chief U.S. District Judge Wiley Y. Daniel, approves a magistrate judge's decision that found that Morris, who operates a business called Numbers & Beyond, prepares federal tax returns claiming large, fraudulent tax refunds.

The court found that Morris prepares various false Internal Revenue Service (IRS) forms, such as Form 1099-OID, to request fraudulent refunds based on phony claims of large income tax withholding. The court order says the scheme is rooted in the long-discredited "redemption" theory which, according to its proponents, allows taxpayers to access secret Treasury accounts to satisfy their tax liabilities. According to the court, proponents of the frivolous scheme claim that phony IRS forms can be used to access these fictitious Treasury accounts. The court found that Morris made fraudulent refund claims exceeding $56 million.

Return preparer fraud and bogus refund claims based on false Forms 1099-OID are two of the IRS' "Dirty Dozen" tax scams. In the past decade, the Justice Department's Tax Division has obtained hundreds of injunctions against tax-fraud promoters and dishonest tax return preparers. Information about these cases is available at www.justice.gov/tax/TEN.htm.

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