GEORGIA — A federal judge barred Joan Leger and her company from preparing federal income tax returns, federal officials announced this week.
Leger and her company allegedly overstated refunds through false and inflated deductions and credits, federal officials stated.
Leger, who resides in Stone Mountain, Ga., is a paid tax preparer. She and her company have prepared almost 6,000 tax returns, federal authorities said.
Officials said Leger allegedly understated her customers’ tax liabilities and overstated their refunds by creating or inflating deductions, wages, income, expenses or credits in order to maximize the earned income tax credit, as well as wrongly claimed other credits and deductions.
Altogether, officials said the complaint alleges that Leger’s activities may have resulted in a loss of more than $2 million to the U.S. Treasury.
Return preparer fraud is one of the IRS’s Dirty Dozen Tax Scams for 2013. The Internal Revenue Service has tips for choosing a tax preparer: www.irs.gov/Tax-Professionals/Choosing-a-Tax-Professional. In the past decade, the Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained injunctions against hundreds of unscrupulous tax preparers. Information about these cases is available on the Justice Departmentwebsite.