A federal court has ordered a Louisiana CPA to stop claiming improper tax deductions for the business expenses of his mariner clients.
Steven W. McCann, who operates SWMc Services in the Houma, La., area, has agreed to the civil injunction order. According to the government complaint filed in the case, McCann prepared nearly 1,000 federal income tax returns claiming fraudulent employee expense deductions for customers who work as mariners.
The government alleged that these deductions were false because the expenses McCann claimed for his customers were never paid by the clients. Instead, their employers provided the items being deducted, including meals and other incidental expenses. In 2007, a federal court in Los Angeles barred another CPA, Martin A. Kapp, from promoting a similar scheme.
"The IRS and Justice Department are committed to stopping tax preparers who continue to promote the mariner's tax deduction, which courts have held is frivolous," said Nathan J. Hochman, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Tax Division, in a statement. "The Justice Department has obtained injunctions against more than 365 tax return preparers and tax-fraud promoters since 2001."
