COURT PERMANENTLY BARS TWO LOUISIANANS FROM PREPARING TAX RETURNS AND PROMOTING TAX-FRAUD SCHEMES

Lafayette Men Told Customers Wages Not Taxable

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Justice Department announced today that a Louisiana federal court has permanently barred Richard A. Fuselier and Richard J. Ortt and their organization, Compensation Consultants—all of Lafayette—from preparing tax returns for others and from promoting tax-fraud schemes. In entering the injunction order, Judge Tucker L. Melancon of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana in Lafayette also barred the defendants from representing customers before the IRS, and ordered them to notify their customers of the injunction and post it on their websites.

The court found that Fuselier and Ortt promote several tax-evasion schemes, including the “claim of right” and “not for profit” schemes, which are based on the false position that wages cannot be taxed. The court found that the men promote their schemes through word of mouth and over the Internet, and charge customers $500 per year. The court also found that Fuselier and Ortt instruct customers to submit bogus tort claims against the government when it denies the customers’ fraudulent tax-refund requests.

“People who fail to pay their federal income taxes, or who encourage others not to, are risking serious penalties and possible prosecution,” said Eileen J. O’Connor, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Tax Division. “The Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service are working diligently to stop the promotion of tax fraud.”

Pursuant to an earlier court order in the case, the defendants gave the Justice Department a list of their customers.

More information about this case is available at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/txdv05085.htm and http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/txdv04769.htm. The Justice Department has sought and obtained injunctions against a number of other tax-scam promoters and return preparers. Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department website at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/taxpress2005.htm. Information about the Justice Department’s Tax Division can be found at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/index.html.