FLORIDA—The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is seeking to shut down a Florida tax return preparer.
The DOJ said it filed a civil injunction suit to permanently bar Dieuseul Jean-Louis, of Miami-Dade County, both individually and doing business as DJL Multiservices, from preparing federal tax returns for others.
The United States also seeks an order requiring Mr Jean-Louis disgorge to the United States any ill-gotten preparation fees.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on May 3, alleges that Jean-Louis prepared over 2,000 federal income tax returns from 2019 through 2023 that intentionally understated customers’ tax liabilities and overstated the refunds to which they were entitled.
According to the complaint, Mr Jean-Louis used various schemes to claim false deductions and credits. These reportedly included falsifying itemized deductions, knowingly reporting fake or inflated business expenses, and fraudulently claiming various credits such as the Fuel Tax Credit and American Opportunity Credit without customers’ knowledge.
The complaint alleges that Jean-Louis falsified customers’ income and filing statuses to increase the Earned Income Tax Credit amount.
The complaint also asserts that Mr Jean-Louis furnished copies of returns to customers that were different from those filed with the IRS, where the returns filed with the IRS claim a higher refund. Jean-Louis allegedly retained the additional refunds for himself without the customers’ knowledge.
According to the complaint, Mr Jean-Louis’s conduct harmed the United States, resulting in a loss in tax revenue of more than $2.3 million for the 2021 and 2022 tax years alone.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General David A. Hubbert of the Justice Department’s Tax Division made the announcement.
