A federal district judge in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida has permanently barred Jeanne Covington, of Tampa, Florida, and her company, Jeanne’s Tax Preparation and Bookkeeping Inc., from preparing federal income tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today.
The suit alleges that Covington has prepared returns that unlawfully understate income tax liabilities and overstate refunds through a variety of schemes, including fabricating or inflating business expenses that Covington’s customers never paid or incurred. The complaint also alleges that Covington prepared returns that wrongfully claimed tax credits, including education credits and the residential energy credit. Altogether, the government complaint alleges that Covington’s activities may have caused millions of dollars in loss 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 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.
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