Patricia Rivers, Tax Return Preparer Fraud, Illinois 2023

A federal court in the Northern District of Illinois has shut down two Chicago-area tax return preparers, Patricia Rivers of Country Club Hills, Illinois and her daughter-in-law Ki’esha Gary of South Holland, Illinois, as well as their company, Alpha II Omega Tax, due to their involvement in tax return preparer fraud.

According to a civil complaint filed in the case, Patricia Rivers, Ki’esha Gary, and Alpha II Omega Tax prepared federal income tax returns that made false and fraudulent claims to reduce her customers’ tax liabilities and increase their tax refunds, primarily through a scheme to fabricate sole proprietorship business losses on the customers’ returns.

The complaint also alleged that Patricia Rivers, Ki’esha Gary, and Alpha II Omega Tax inflated their customers’ tax refunds by reporting false charitable donations and exaggerated or bogus unreimbursed employee expenses, bogus rental deductions, inflated tax withholding, and overstated education credits. On at least one occasion, Patricia Rivers was alleged to have falsely reported her own home address as a rental property to generate losses on her customer’s income tax return. Another customer alleged that Patricia Rivers amended a customer’s return without consent to retaliate against her by increasing her tax liability.

In an order entered on March 31, the court found that the tax loss to the government from the 2018 returns of just 38 of Patricia Rivers’ customers was $278,461 and that, given that this was “only a small number of the thousands of income tax returns prepared by Patricia Rivers,” the actual loss to the United States was higher.

The court found that Patricia Rivers repeated and continuously prepared income tax returns in a manner that violates federal law, and that because her intentional disregard for tax laws continues, a permanent bar on tax preparation activities was warranted. Thus, the Court entered a permanent injunction preventing Patricia Rivers, Ki’esha Gary, and Alpha II Omega Tax from preparing income taxes or engaging in tax-related business in the future.

Tax return preparer fraud is one of the IRS’ Dirty Dozen Tax Scams and taxpayers seeking a return preparer should remain vigilant. The IRS has information on its website for choosing a tax preparer, has launched a free directory of federal tax preparers, and offers information on how to avoid “ghost” tax preparers, whose refusal to sign a return should be a red flag to taxpayers.

In addition, IRS Free File, a public-private partnership, offers free online tax preparation and filing options on IRS partner websites for individuals whose adjusted gross income is under $73,000. For individuals whose income is over that threshold, IRS Free File offers electronical federal tax forms that can be filled out and filed online for free.

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