Justice Department Asks Federal Court to Shut Down Southern Florida Tax Return Preparer and Require Her to Give Her Fees to the United States | WPN World People News

Lena Cotton of Wellington, Florida, and her business, Professional Accounting Ldc LLC, located at 3676 Collin Drive in West Palm Beach, Florida, prepare false federal income tax returns for their customers, according to a new civil suit filed by the Department of Justice. The complaint, filed in federal court in West Palm Beach asks a federal judge to bar Cotton and her business, from preparing tax returns for others and order the defendants to disgorge the gross receipts they obtained from the preparation of federal tax returns that made improper claims.

The complaint alleges that the defendants prepare tax returns for customers that understate liabilities and overstate refunds by falsifying information, fabricating deductions, and claiming bogus credits. The complaint alleges that one of their signature schemes is manufacturing education credits for expenses that customers never incurred. For instance, the complaint alleges that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has uncovered at least 31 instances of the defendants claiming, for purposes of education credits, that customers attended Palm Beach State College, previously known as Palm Beach Community College, even though the school has no record of their attendance during the relevant time periods.

The complaint further alleges that the defendants frequently selected incorrect filing statuses for their customers, claimed other false tax credits, and misrepresented the extent to which customers used their personal vehicles for work purposes. According to the complaint, a review of 1,034 returns prepared by the defendants for tax years 2012 through 2014 uncovered misstatements on 671 returns (64.9 percent) that cost the United States over $900,000 in tax revenue.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice