JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SUES TO BAR ALLEGED TAX-FRAUD SCHEME

Suit Alleges Disbarred Seattle Lawyer Set Up Bogus Offshore Corporations to Help Customers Violate Tax Laws

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Justice Department announced today that it has filed a civil injunction suit in federal court in Seattle to block a disbarred Seattle lawyer from promoting alleged tax-fraud schemes. In the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, the government alleges that Bruce Hawkins helped customers set up bogus corporations in Nevis, West Indies so that customers could falsely claim their funds were held in foreign-controlled corporations and thus not subject to tax. Hawkins also allegedly helped customers set up sham Nevada corporations to help customers treat non-deductible personal expenses as tax-deductible business expenses.

The lawsuit asks the court to order Hawkins to give the Justice Department a list of his customers’ names, addresses, e-mail addresses, Social Security numbers, and telephone numbers.

Abusive offshore transactions are on the IRS’s 2006 list of the Dirty Dozen tax scams. The list is posted at http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=154293,00.html.

Since 2001, the Justice Department has sought and obtained injunctions against more than 160 tax-scam promoters and fraudulent return preparers. Information about these cases is available at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/taxpress2006.htm. Information about the Justice Department’s Tax Division can be found at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/index.html.