Justice Department Secures Permanent Injunction Against Georgia Tax Return Preparers

A federal court in the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, has permanently enjoined two tax return preparers doing business in Lawrenceville, Georgia, from preparing federal income tax returns for others. 

According to the court’s April 5 order, Ramon Maduro and Blanca Dalila Elvir Alvarenga, individually and doing business as Maduro Tax Services Corp. and Maduro Global Service Firm Inc., prepared and filed numerous false tax returns that understated the tax their customers owe and improperly claimed tax refunds to which they were not entitled. The court found that defendants (1) misidentified the person preparing tax returns; (2) manipulated head of household filing status selections; (3) claimed ineligible dependents on tax returns to manipulate filing statuses, generate false Child Tax Credits and Additional Child Tax Credits and produce artificially inflated Earned Income Tax Credits; (4) included false information on Schedule C of Forms 1040; (5) manipulated income to generate false or inflated credits; and (6) misrepresented their due diligence efforts to determine customer eligibility for the credits they claimed. The court further found that the defendants engaged in this conduct on a continued and repeated basis and absent an injunction, the United States is highly likely to face irreparable injury as a result of this ongoing practice.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General David A. Hubbert of the Justice Department’s Tax Division made the announcement.

Return preparer fraud is one of the IRS’ Dirty Dozen Tax Scams and taxpayers seeking a return preparer should remain vigilant. (More information can also be found here.) The IRS has information on its website for choosing a tax preparer, has launched a free directory of federal tax preparers, and offers information on how to avoid “ghost” tax preparers, whose refusal to sign a return should be a red flag to taxpayers. The IRS also has a checklist of things to remember when filing income tax returns in 2022.

In addition, IRS Free File, a public-private partnership, offers free online tax preparation and filing options on IRS partner websites for individuals whose adjusted gross income is under $73,000. For individuals whose income is over that threshold, IRS Free File offers electronical federal tax forms that can be filled out and filed online for free. The IRS has tips on how seniors and individuals with low to moderate income can get other help or guidance on tax return preparation, too.

In the past decade, the Tax Division has obtained injunctions against hundreds of unscrupulous tax preparers. Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department’s website. An alphabetical listing of persons enjoined from preparing returns and promoting tax schemes can be found this page. If you believe that one of the enjoined persons or businesses may be violating an injunction, please contact the Tax Division with details.