The court also ordered the defendants to provide their customer lists to the government and to mail copies of the court order to former clients.

 

In preparing federal tax returns to submit to the Internal Revenue Service, the court determined that the defendants consistently understated their customers' true tax liabilities based upon unreasonable positions that they knew or should have known were not supported by substantial authority.

 

The defendants prepared customers' tax returns claiming either the earned income tax credit for customers who do not qualify for the credit, or overstating the credit amount to which customers are entitled, according to the Justice Department. Additionally, defendants have continued this unlawful practice despite three separate investigations by the IRS, each of which found numerous violations of federal tax law and resulted in thousands of dollars in monetary penalties.

 

Altogether, defendants' activities between 2006 and 2009 might have resulted in more than $1 million in understated federal income tax liabilities for their customers.

 

The U.S. government last week filed a lawsuit against a Chicago tax return preparer in an effort to bar him and his company from preparing federal tax returns for others, according to the Justice Department.

 

The civil injunction suit alleges that Charlie Wilson and Chicago-based business CBD Tax Service claim bogus deductions and credits on customers’ federal tax returns. Wilson allegedly included fabricated claims for charitable deductions, employee business expenses, and other deductions on tax returns that he and his business prepared since 2006.

 

From 2006 to 2009, CBD Tax Service prepared approximately 6,527 federal income tax returns for customers with an unusually high refund rate of more than 98 percent and in 2009, alone, Wilson himself prepared at least 894 tax returns with a 98 percent refund rate, according to the government complaint.