Taxable Talk

Every so often a client asks me to send a mortgage company a letter noting that I prepared their tax returns, and verifying their income for those years. I haven’t been asked to send a letter to a mortgage company where I invent numbers and falsely claim that I prepared someone’s return. (If I were to be so asked, I’d quickly say “no thanks.”) Of course, one always needs to be aware of the Bozo contingent.

From Bakersfield comes the story of Patricia Ann King. She ran The Tax Kings, which did tax preparation work in Bakersfield. From the Department of Justice press release:

King prepared and provided to her co-defendants false and misleading verification letters that purported to verify loan applicants’ self-employment history and income, among other information. King received compensation payments from the co-defendants for providing the verification letters. King knew that the verification letters were to be submitted by the co-defendants to lenders in support of applications for loans for the purchase or refinance of properties and that the lenders would rely on the letters to approve the loans. King admitted that her actions caused lenders to incur losses of approximately $530,000.

She pleaded guilty to aiding and assisting in the preparation of a false tax document and three counts of mail fraud. She also admitted to impersonating a CPA.

I have been coming around to Joe Kristan’s view of the IRS regulating tax professionals. Ms. King had a license from CTEC, the California state body that licenses non-CPAs/EAs/Attorneys who prepare tax returns. (I verified her license–though it expired last November–on the CTEC website.) Her taking the required continuing education courses didn’t stop her from committing four felonies. The IRS being the regulatory body won’t stop bozo individuals from committing bozo actions. But I digress….

In any case, Ms. King will be sentenced in April.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 13th, 2012 at 8:11 pm and is filed under Scams, Tax Fraud. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.