Three Palm Beach, Fla., area preparers have been barred from the tax preparation business. A federal court has ordered the preparers, Fred Pickett Jr., Jalisa Steele and Fred Pickett III, and their companies cannot prepare federal returns for others.The three operated the Five Star Tax Agency, Five Star Financial Services Inc., and Millenium [sic] Tax Professionals in Belle Glade, Fla., in Palm Beach County. Steele and Fred Pickett III are children of Fred Pickett Jr.
The trio allegedly used a variety of techniques to inflate client refunds. These included fabricating businesses and business-related profits or losses, manipulating, maximizing, or falsely claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit, claiming false education credits, claiming spurious fuel tax credits, fabricating retirement account contributions and deductions, and failing to provide customers with complete copies of their tax returns.
The three reportedly prepared about 8,000 returns since 2011 in locations in Belle Glade, Clewiston, Moore Haven, and La Belle, Fla.
The government accused the three of trying to evade IRS detection by creating Premiere Financial Services of the Glades in December 2016 and applying for an electronic filing identification number in November 2016, under the name Primier Financial Services. The new company operated from the same stores as the other Pickett businesses.