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L.A. Area Preparer Booted from Business E-mail
Written by The Progressive Accountant   
Monday, 20 February 2012 15:27

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A Los Angeles-area tax preparer has been permanently barred from preparing federal tax returns for others. The Justice Department alleged that returns prepared by Maria Teresita Viray of Reseda, Los Angeles County resulted in a loss of more than $45 million in tax revenue from 2008 to 2010. Viray operated TVDM Tax Services, MTV Tax Services and New Horizon Tax Services and had prepared thousands of returns since 2008. The IRS said it had also devoted resources to recovering erroneous refunds and collecting unpaid tax and penalties from her customers. The government alleged that Viray reported bogus deductions for charitable contributions and business expenses for her customers and fabricated documents to substantiate the claims. She allegedly told one customer that she had a special printer that enabled her to change the dates and amounts on charitable contribution receipts.




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Comments (1)
Preparer Fraud
1 Wednesday, 22 February 2012 16:28
JJ
While this story reflects 1 person that has been caught and banned from preparing returns, the IRS has NO provisions to stop this type of arrangement. I have met with clients--unsophisticated as they may be--who knew what the preparer was doing. I was asked to help out when the IRS examined 2009 returns (and yes, the same issues exist w/2010 returns). I have tried to report the preparer (and have supporting documents created by the preparer for bogus deductions). In the past week, the IRS has suggested that I report the person using the tax shelter forms. It took 10-15 calls through the practitioner hot line and nearly 4 months to get that far. Maybe the IRS should temporarily move some of their personnel from the audit group to address frauds of this type. I feel sure more will be collected as these issues are resolved than will be collected from an exam (which may or may not generate revenue).
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