February 17, 12

NEWS / Federal Court Bars California Woman from Preparing Federal Tax Returns

Los Angeles Tax Preparer Allegedly Reported False Information on Returns

A federal court has permanently barred Maria Teresita Viray from preparing federal tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today. The civil injunction order, to which Viray consented, was signed by Judge George Wu of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.



According to the government complaint in the case, Viray, of Reseda, Los Angeles County, Calif., operates businesses called TVDM Tax Services, MTV Tax Services and New Horizon Tax Services, and has prepared thousands of federal tax returns since 2008. The complaint alleges that Viray reported bogus deductions for charitable contributions and business expenses on her customers’ tax returns and that she fabricated documents to provide to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to substantiate the false claims she made on the returns. The complaint states that Viray told one customer that she had a special printer that allowed her to change the dates and amounts on charitable contribution receipts.



According to the complaint, Viray’s tax return preparation resulted in an estimated loss of over $45 million in tax revenue to the United States from 2008 to 2010, in addition to IRS resources devoted to recovering erroneous refunds and collecting unpaid taxes and penalties from her customers. The injunction order requires Viray to provide the government with a list of all persons for whom she prepared federal tax returns for tax years 2007 through 2010.



The Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained injunctions against hundreds of unscrupulous tax-return preparers and tax-fraud promoters in the past decade. Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department www.justice.gov/tax .

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/February/12-tax-229.html

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