Federal Court Bars Colorado Man from Preparing Federal Tax Returns

WASHINGTON – A federal court has permanently barred George Thomas Gaines of Aurora, Colo., from preparing federal tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today. The civil injunction order, to which Gaines consented, was signed by Judge Robert E. Blackburn of the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.

The government complaint in the case alleged that Gaines and his companies, G&G Tax Service and American Benefits, prepared federal income tax returns for customers that used fictitious businesses to claim false tax deductions and improper earned income tax credits. According to the complaint, more than 96 percent of the audited tax returns prepared by Gaines between 2004 and 2007 understated his customers’ tax liabilities.

Return preparer fraud is one of the IRS’s “Dirty Dozen” tax scams for 2011. In the past ten years, the Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained injunctions against hundreds of tax return preparers and tax fraud promoters. Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department website.