JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SEEKS TO BAR FLORIDA WOMAN FROM PREPARING FEDERAL TAX RETURNS FOR OTHERS

Tax Preparer Allegedly Claimed False Fuel Tax Credits Exceeding $70,000

WASHINGTON – The United States has sued a Ft. Lauderdale-area woman, seeking to bar her from preparing federal income tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today. According to the government’s complaint, Carole Exantus of Plantation, Fla., operated a company called JS Corporation that repeatedly prepared federal income tax returns claiming false deductions. The complaint alleges that Exantus and her employees at JS Corporation engaged in a pattern of claiming fraudulent credits and deductions for their customers.

The most common fraudulent claim, the complaint asserts, was to include in her customers’ returns a claim for a fuel tax credit for gasoline and other fuels allegedly purchased by her customers and used in their occupations and businesses. The fuel tax credit is reserved for off-highway use of fuels, such as in the agricultural industry, and yet, according to the complaint, Exantus claimed the credit for customers who had office jobs.

The complaint further alleges that the returns prepared by Exantus and her employees often claimed that her customers had bought more fuel than their incomes, as reported in the same returns, could have paid for. The IRS reviewed 74 returns prepared by Exantus and JS Corporation for tax years 2005 and 2006 that included false fuel tax claims exceeding $70,000, according to the government complaint.

“The Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service are dedicated to shutting down tax preparers who file fraudulent returns and abuse fuel tax credits,” said Nathan J. Hochman, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Tax Division. “Since 2001, the Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained injunctions against more than 355 tax return preparers and tax-fraud promoters.”

Information about the Tax Division’s efforts to enjoin tax-fraud promoters and preparers is available on the Justice Department Web site.