The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida has issued a permanent injunction against Dexter Bataille, a tax return preparer from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The court ordered Bataille to shut down his business, Capital Financial Group Holdings LLC, and barred him from preparing or assisting in preparing federal income tax returns or transferring his customer lists. Additionally, Bataille was ordered to pay $134,400 in ill-gotten gains from his return preparation business. Bataille agreed to both the injunction and the payment order.
The complaint alleged that Bataille prepared customers’ returns that fraudulently claimed various false or inflated deductions and credits. These included fabricated profits and expenses to generate inflated business losses, misreported filing statuses and dependent claims, and false reports of household help income.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General David A. Hubbert of the Justice Department’s Tax Division made the announcement.
Taxpayers are advised to remain vigilant against unscrupulous tax preparers. The IRS provides information on its website for choosing a tax return preparer and has launched a free directory of federal tax preparers. The IRS warns taxpayers to avoid "ghost preparers" and lists other improper acts that some tax preparers engage in to exploit their customers.
In the past decade, the Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained injunctions against hundreds of unscrupulous tax preparers. Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department’s website. An alphabetical listing of persons enjoined from preparing returns and promoting tax schemes can be found on this page. If you believe that one of the enjoined persons or businesses may be violating an injunction, please contact the Tax Division with details.
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