Justice Department Seeks to Shut Down Chicago Tax Return Preparer | OPA

The United States filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois today seeking to bar a Chicago area tax return preparer from preparing federal income tax returns for others. 

The complaint alleges that Melissa Gasca, individually and doing business as Su Familia Income Tax, and a related tax preparation business, FinancialPlus Services Inc., prepared nearly 5,000 federal income tax returns during 2017-2020, including over 900 returns in 2020. According to the complaint, in a substantial number of these tax returns, the defendants significantly overstated the customers’ tax refunds by falsely reporting inflated Form W-2 federal income tax withholdings.

By repeatedly understating her customers’ tax liabilities, the complaint alleges, Gasca and her tax preparation businesses caused the United States to lose over $5 million in tax revenue from 2017 to 2020.

Acting Assistant Attorney General David A. Hubbert of the Justice Department’s Tax Division made the announcement.

Return preparer fraud is one of the IRS’s Dirty Dozen Tax Scams and taxpayers seeking a return preparer should remain vigilant. The IRS has information on its website for choosing a tax return preparer and has launched a free directory of federal tax preparers.

In the past decade, the Department of Justice 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.