A Longwood, Fla.-based tax preparer has been ordered to repay $949,952.47 he received in preparing fraudulent tax returns. A federal court in also barred Jason Stinson from the tax preparation business for charing as much as $999 for preparing returns without informing clients.Stinson, who operated Nation Tax Services, had stores in Birmingham and Fairfield, Ala.; St. Petersburg and Tampa, Fla.; Albany and Augusta, Ga.; and Greenville and Raleigh, N.C. He has been barred from preparing federal returns for others and from owning or operating a tax return business.
The court said Stinson's stores targeted "underprivileged, undereducated poor people." Stinson and his preparers falsified information on customer returns to qualify for the maximum Earned Income Tax Credit by "claiming bogus dependents, fabricating unreimbursed employee expenses and charitable contributions, and fabricating business income and expenses."
The court indicated, for example, that one return had an individual with $35,000 in annual income reporting about $16,000 in unreimbursed business expenses.
Besides charging customers more than $600 for preparation, Stinson took fees from the refund, rather than charging them upfront.