OHIO COURT SHUTS DOWN NATION'S FOURTH LARGEST TAX PREPARER

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT 
Thursday, November 7, 2013

Federal Court in Ohio Shuts Down Nation’s Fourth-Largest Tax-Preparation Firm and Bars CEO from Tax-Preparation Business

Judge Finds that Instant Tax Service Franchisor Defrauded Customers, Obstructed the IRS and Violated Court Orders on Lending Practices

A federal court has entered a permanent injunction ordering ITS Financial LLC, the parent company of the Instant Tax Service franchise, to cease operating, the Justice Department announced today.  The injunction order, which was signed yesterday by Judge Timothy S. Black of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, also bars Fesum Ogbazion, the sole owner and CEO of ITS Financial, from operating or being involved with any business relating to tax-return preparation.  The court issued the order following a two-week trial in Cincinnati in June 2013.

Instant Tax Service, which is based in Dayton, Ohio, claimed to be the fourth-largest tax-preparation firm in the nation.  According to the court, ITS Financial had about 150 franchisees that filed over 100,000 tax returns each year in 2011 and 2012.  Two other entities owned by Ogbazion, Tax Tree LLC and TCA Financial LLC, were also defendants in the case and were also ordered to cease operating.

The court found that Ogbazion and his defendant companies had:

·          Filed tax returns for customers without their permission and encouraged franchisees to do the same;
·          Clandestinely trained and encouraged franchisees to prepare and file tax returns prematurely with paycheck stubs that omitted and understated income and inevitably resulted in the submission of false federal tax returns;
·          Defrauded customers, who were largely low-income, by marketing false and fraudulent loan products to lure them into the tax-preparation offices;
·          Defrauded customers by requiring franchisees to charge phony and exorbitant fees;
·          Forged customers’ signatures on loan checks and used those forged checks to operate Ogbazion’s businesses;
·          Willfully failed to pay over $1 million of their own employment taxes and lied about assets in connection with the collection of those taxes, while hiding money in a secret bank account and defrauding the United States and third party creditors;
·          Lied on government forms and encouraged franchisees to do the same;
·          Obstructed government agents and materially assisted franchisees in circumventing Internal Revenue Service (IRS) law-enforcement efforts involving the suspension of electronic filing identification numbers; and
·          Told franchisees to lie to government agents in connection with IRS compliance visits.

The court credited an IRS study concluding that the tax harm caused by Instant Tax Service franchisees in five cities in a single tax-filing season was between $10 million and $25 million.


“Defendants’ harm to the public is extensive and egregious, indeed appalling,” the court stated.  “This is especially so given the nature of Instant Tax Service’s core customer – the working poor – who are particularly vulnerable to [the] Defendants’ fraudulent practices.”

The court further stated:  “Defendants’ repeated attempts at trial and in argument to downplay the gravity of their lawlessness was stunning.  The court concludes that even today [the] Defendants have not fully recognized their culpability.  Ultimately, the nature, scope and gravity of [the] Defendants’ offenses, and the unrepentant attitude toward their commission, demonstrate the necessity for a complete injunction putting the Defendants permanently out of business.”

The court also concluded that Ogbazion and ITS Financial violated the terms of a preliminary injunction order that the court had entered in October 2012 with their consent.  The court found that, despite their agreement to obey various lending and consumer-protection laws during the 2013 tax filing season, they violated several of those laws by discriminating against active-duty military personnel on loan applications and by failing to obtain a state lending license in a timely manner.  The court determined that they violated the preliminary injunction by causing their franchisees to provide tens of thousands of customers with Truth-in-Lending Act disclosure forms falsely stating that the loans carried no finance charges and an annual percentage rate (APR) of zero.

“We are gratified by the court’s decision, which serves to protect hard-working taxpayers who were targeted by Instant Tax Service, and also safeguards all honest taxpayers from the harm done by fraudulent tax filings,” said Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Keneally of the Justice Department’s Tax Division.  “As described by the court, this company grew large through abhorrent means – filing returns without customer authorization, forging customer signatures, pushing fraudulent loan products, and much more.  As the court’s decision recognizes, a business model based on false and fraudulent conduct cannot be allowed to prevail.”

“The court's decision sends a clear message to those who might be tempted to abuse the public trust provided to the tax preparer community,” said Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel.  “Those who deceive their customers and defraud the U.S. Treasury will face swift legal action that puts an end to their corrosive conduct."  

Assistant Attorney General Keneally thanked former and current Tax Division trial attorneys Nathan Clukey, Sean Green, Russell Edelstein, Jose Olivera and Gregory Van Hoey, along with paralegal Mahana Karimi, for their efforts on the case.  She also thanked the many IRS attorneys and agents who participated in the investigation.

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 department’s Tax Division has obtained injunctions against hundreds of unscrupulous tax preparers.

FEDERAL COURT BARS LAS VEGAS TAX SERVICE FROM PREPARING TAXES

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Friday, December 28, 2012
Federal Court Bars Alleged Co-Owner of Las Vegas Instant Tax Service Franchise from Preparing Tax Returns
Company and Other Alleged Co-owner Also Subject to Restrictions
A Nevada federal court has permanently barred Benyam Tewolde from preparing tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today. Tewolde and his wife, Yordanos Kidanits, are the alleged co-owners of an Instant Tax Service franchise that operates at multiple locations in the Las Vegas area. Instant Tax Service is a nationally franchised tax preparation company based in Dayton, Ohio.

Kidantis and the franchisee, Koraggio LLC, were also permanently enjoined from engaging in certain abusive practices. The civil injunction orders, to which the defendants consented without admitting the allegations against them, were signed on Dec. 27 by Judge Miranda M. Du of the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada.

According to the government complaint, the defendants helped employees at their Instant Tax Service franchise offices to engage in a variety of misconduct, including:
Preparing phony tax-return forms with fabricated businesses and income,
Falsely claiming education credits,
Claiming false filing status,
Claiming false dependents,
Selling deceptive loan products,
Filing tax returns without customer consent or authorization, and
Preparing bogus W-2 forms, based on information from employee paystubs
The complaint further alleged that Tewolde personally prepared fraudulent returns.

The injunction permanently bars Tewolde from preparing or filing federal tax returns for others, training tax preparers and owning or managing a tax preparation business.

Kidane and Koraggio are enjoined from violating the federal tax laws and consumer protection laws. The court order requires them to hire a monitor at their expense who will periodically report to the Justice Department to ensure compliance with the injunction. The order also bars Kidane and Koraggio from marketing abusive loan products, including holiday, or instant cash loan or advance products offered to customers based on information obtained from the customer’s paystub.

The case is one of
five similar lawsuits that the Justice Department brought against Instant Tax Service franchises earlier this year. One of those suits is pending against the nationwide franchisor of Instant Tax Service and its owner, Fesum Ogbazion, in Dayton. The court in that case has entered a preliminary injunction, and trial on the government’s request to shut down the Instant Tax Service franchisor permanently is scheduled for next May.