WASHINGTON – The United States has asked a federal court to permanently bar a Birmingham, Ala., man from preparing federal tax returns for customers, the Justice Department announced today. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, alleges that Douglas E. Dent fabricates large tax withholdings that result in large bogus refund claims on customers’ tax returns. According to the complaint, each of the 47 federal tax returns prepared by Dent since 2008 has requested a fraudulent refund, often in amounts exceeding $100,000. The total amount of bogus refunds Dent has sought for customers exceeds $14 million. The government alleges that Dent often uses false Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Forms 1099-OID to report both fictitious interest income and tax withholdings. Return preparer fraud and bogus refund claims based on false 1099-OID forms are identified by the IRS as two of the 2010 “Dirty Dozen” tax scams. Since 2001, the Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained hundreds of injunctions to stop the promotion of tax fraud schemes and the preparation of fraudulent returns. Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department website.
Source: US Department of Justice
