JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ASKS FEDERAL COURT TO BAR ARIZONA COUPLE FROM PREPARING TAX RETURNS FOR OTHERS

Mesa Couple And Their Firm Allegedly Prepared 253 Returns
With Frivolous Positions

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Justice Department announced today that it has asked a federal court to bar Beverly J. and Darrell J. Hill, of Mesa, Arizona, from preparing income tax returns for others. The government’s complaint, filed today in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, alleges that the married couple and their company, Superior Claims Management, prepared and filed for customers at least 253 federal income tax returns falsely claiming that wages are not subject to income tax. The complaint states that the returns fraudulently claimed tax refunds totaling more than $1.2 million.

According to the suit, the Hills offer to prepare and file original income tax returns and amended prior-year returns that omit all wage income and request refunds of all withheld and paid taxes. The Hills allegedly attach to each return they file a five- or six-page document falsely stating that wage income is not taxable. This argument has been repeatedly rejected by courts across the country.

“People who charge good money to prepare bad tax returns are cheating their customers and wasting government resources by requiring the IRS and Justice Department to identify and stop the scam,” said Eileen J. O’Connor, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Tax Division. “Federal law gives courts the power to stop them.”

The complaint also asks the court to order the defendants to give the Justice Department the names, Social Security numbers, mailing and e-mail addresses, and phone numbers of their customers, and to post a copy of the injunction on their website.

This injunction suit is part of an effort begun in 2001 to stop the promotion of tax scams and the preparation and filing of false and fraudulent returns. The Justice Department has obtained injunctions against more than 100 promoters and tax preparers since 2001. More information about this and other tax injunction cases can be found at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/taxpress2005.htm <taxpress2005.htm>. More information about the Justice Department’s Tax Division is available at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/index.html .

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05-141