Since its 2001 announcement that it would target tax fraud schemes and tax prep hucksters, the Justice Department has won more than 200 court-ordered injunctions.
The 200th injunction was ordered by a federal judge in Michigan, the department announced last week.
The specific case barred Joyce M. Stone, her son Charles J. Freed and their company, Stone and Associates, of Hillsdale, Mich., from preparing any income tax returns for another person or entity. According to the government filings and an Internal Revenue Service audit of returns prepared by Stone, Freed and another defendant, the defendants understated their customers' tax liability by an average of nearly $6,300 per return. The court noted that Stone, Freed and a third defendant have prepared more than 3,000 returns for customers since the start of 2005, including 1,786 in 2006.
An injunction is a civil court order prohibiting a party from a specific course of action, and is often the fastest way to stop the promotion of tax fraud.
"With each passing day, tax fraud promotions -- including fraudulent return preparation -- can ensnare more customers and cost the federal Treasury and honest taxpayers more and more in unpaid taxes and fraudulently obtained refunds," said Assistant Attorney General Eileen J. O'Connor, of the Justice Department's Tax Division, in a statement.
More information about the Tax Division's injunction cases from 2001 to 2006 is available on the Justice Department Web site at
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