The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida issued a permanent injunction earlier this week against Miami tax return preparer Dieuseul Jean-Louis, which bars him from preparing or assisting in the preparation of federal income tax returns, working for or having any ownership stake in any tax preparation business, assisting others set up business as a preparer and transferring or assigning customer lists to any other person or entity.
The court also ordered Jean-Louis to disgorge $245,275 in ill-gotten gains he received from his return preparation business. Jean-Louis agreed to both the injunction and ordered disgorgement.
According to the complaint, Jean-Louis, doing business as DJL Multi-Services, prepared returns for customers that claimed, without their knowledge, various false or fabricated deductions and credits, including falsifying charitable and mortgage interest deductions, knowingly reporting fake or inflated business expenses and fraudulently claiming various credits like the Fuel Tax Credit and American Opportunity Credit.
The complaint further alleged that Jean-Louis falsified customers’ income and filing statuses to increase the amount of the Earned Income Tax Credit and that Jean-Louis has prepared thousands of tax returns for customers for over a decade.
The complaint also asserted that Jean-Louis furnished to his customers copies of returns that were different from the returns filed with the IRS, where the return filed with the IRS claimed a higher refund, which allowed Jean-Louis to retain the additional amount for himself without the customers’ knowledge.
