COURT BARS BUFFALO AREA MEN AND BUSINESS FROM PREPARING INCOME TAX RETURNS

Hamburg-Based Operation Reportedly Inflated Customers’ Deductions

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A federal court has permanently barred Brian Duffek of Orchard Park, N.Y.; Patrick O’Connor of Lake View, N.Y.; and Duffek, O’Connor & Associates, Inc. of Hamburg, N.Y., from preparing federal income tax returns, the Justice Department announced today. Judge William M. Skretney of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York entered the permanent injunctions, to which all three consented.

The government’s complaint alleged that the defendants prepared income tax returns for customers improperly claiming deductions for fictitious or inflated charitable contributions. Additionally, the government alleged that the returns prepared by the defendants claimed fictitious and inflated employee expenses for such items as work clothes, teaching and coaching supplies, student and athlete rewards, and cellular telephone expenses.

According to an Internal Revenue Service estimate contained in the complaint, the federal income tax returns prepared by the defendants understated the tax liabilities of their customers by over $2 million. The permanent injunction requires the defendants to notify their customers of the injunction within 21 days.

More information about this case is available at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/txdv05183.htm.

Since 2001 the Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained more than 215 injunctions to stop the promotion of tax fraud schemes and the preparation of fraudulent returns. More information about these cases is available at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/taxpress2007.htm. More information about the Justice Department’s Tax Division is available at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/