Tax fraud at Jackson Hewitt franchises

Jackson Hewitt Tax Services Inc., the nation’s second-largest tax preparer, is in trouble with the Federal Government for helping (even encouraging) its clients to file false tax claims.

In one instance the filer had claimed a fuel tax credit so massive that the filer would have had to have driven almost 1,400 miles every day.

Many of the stores that are being looked into catered to customers that wanted to get refund anticipation loans and the managers allegedly told the preparers working for them that "we are not the IRS" and were not responsible for preventing their clients filing phony tax returns.

The Justice Department has accused the franchises, that were totally or partly owned by Farrukh Sohail, of tax fraud against the government of more than $70 million. Amazingly (to me) the Alabama based attorney for Mr. Sohail has said that his client will not voluntarily stop preparing tax returns at the Jackson Hewitt franchises. Apparently Mr. Sohail is “hoping to work things out” with the Justice Department and IRS.

I'm not so sure that the man should be allowed to prepare tax forms any more since the employees at the firms were apparently encouraged to ignore what might be suspected as fraudulent information, and file claims for their clients even when it was obvious that the W-2 forms were fake and deductions falsified. The suits files claim that the managers and employees were receiving kickbacks on the false returned that they filed.