May 04, 2024
By Highpoint Digest News
Washington, DC – (Highpoint Digest) – The Justice Department filed a civil injunction suit on Friday to permanently bar Dieuseul Jean-Louis, both individually and doing business as DJL Multiservices, from preparing federal tax returns for others. The United States also seeks an order requiring Jean-Louis to disgorge to the United States his ill-gotten preparation fees.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleges that Jean-Louis prepared over 2,000 federal income tax returns from 2019 through 2023 that intentionally understated customers’ tax liabilities and overstated the refunds to which they were entitled. According to the complaint, Jean-Louis used a variety of schemes claim false deductions and credits, including falsifying itemized deductions, knowingly reporting fake or inflated business expenses and fraudulently claiming various credits like the Fuel Tax Credit and American Opportunity Credit, all without customers’ knowledge. The complaint alleges that Jean-Louis falsified customers’ income and filing statuses to increase the amount of the Earned Income Tax Credit.
The complaint also asserts that Jean-Louis furnished to customers copies of returns that are different from those filed with the IRS, where the returns filed with the IRS claim a higher refund. Jean-Louis allegedly retained the additional refunds for himself without the customers’ knowledge.
According to the complaint, the United States has been harmed by Jean-Louis’s conduct, resulting in the significant loss in tax revenue of more than $2.3 million for the 2021 and 2022 tax years alone.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General David A. Hubbert of the Justice Department’s Tax Division made the announcement.
Return preparer fraud is one of the IRS’s Dirty Dozen Tax Scams and taxpayers seeking a return preparer should remain vigilant against dishonest tax preparers. The IRS has information on its website for choosing a tax return preparer and has launched a free directory of federal tax preparers. The IRS also offers guidance on the credentials and qualifications that taxpayers should seek from their return preparer.
Source: Department of Justice
Image courtesy of the Department of Justice
