Feds Seek Bar of Philly Preparers
The Department of Justice is asking a federal court to bar three Philadelphia-area tax preparers from preparing federal tax returns for others. The government seeks to block Deron Joe, Edmund Dassin and James Tokpawhiea, Liberian nationals who are legal permanent residents of the United States, from engaging in the tax preparation business. The suit alleges that most customers of their business, Urban Tax Professionals, are also from Liberia and were referred by friends and relatives.
The defendants prepared returns for which the Internal Revenue Service has disallowed at least $1.4 million in tax credits claimed on customer returns. They allegedly falsely claimed the first-time-homebuyer credit and the earned-income tax credit to boost refunds. Joe and Dassin are alleged to have instructed one employee to claim the first-time-homebuyer credit on every return he prepared and that the trio claimed false dependents and phony deductions for employee business expenses.
