McHenry County Blog

A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office:

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SEEKS TO SHUT DOWN CHICAGO TAX PREPARER

Chicago Man Allegedly Falsifies Customers’ Returns to Maximize Earned Income Credit

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department announced that it has asked a federal court in Chicago to bar Bruce E. Grant and his business, Quick Check Limited, from preparing tax returns.

The civil injunction suit alleges that Grant falsifies customers’ income on their tax returns, frequently by fabricating business income and expenses, in order to claim the maximum earned income tax credit (EITC) for them.

The EITC is a refundable credit available to certain low-income people.

The maximum credit in 2010 was $5,666.

Due to the method used to calculate the EITC, individuals with higher annual incomes may be entitled to a larger credit.

Some tax preparers refer to the range of earned income generating a maximum EITC as the “sweet spot.”

According to the complaint, Grant fabricated businesses and reported fake business income and expenses on his customers’ tax returns to achieve reported income in the EITC sweet spot.

The complaint alleges that Grant pleaded guilty in 2006 to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, based on allegations that Grant charged customers a fee for listing a false dependent on the customers’ tax returns.

The government now seeks to bar Grant permanently from preparing federal tax returns altogether.

According to the complaint, Grant’s Social Security number identified him as the paid preparer on 2,555 individual income tax returns prepared in 2011.

Of these returns, 2,543 request a refund, an extraordinarily high refund rate of 99.5 percent.

In the past decade the Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained injunctions against hundreds of tax-return preparers and tax-fraud promoters. Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department .

The first time I noticed Jack Franks enabling Chicago was the Red Light Camera bill.

That made the Speed Camera bill possible.

Now Democrat Franks is the chief joint sponsor of the bill allowing Chicago and other local governments to get the state to collect overdue fines from citizens.

Although there is only one Chicago legislator on the sponsorship list, the bill was filed by House Speaker Mike Madigan.

Isn’t that special?

So suburban and Downstate legislators will take the heat for this bill that gives government still more power to extract money from the citizenry.

And, whose committee approved the bill?

If you guessed Jack Franks’, you will get some not-yet-stale Valentine’s Day candy.  (Pick up required.)

Franks thought the bill was so good that he convinced LaSalle County’s Frank Mautino to put him on as the first joint sponsor the day the bill passed…which was two days after Madigan handed over the bill to Mautino.

All lickity split.

Who says the Illinois House can’t move rapidly when plucking more feathers out of the taxpaying goose is on the agenda?

Can’t you just hear Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel calling the Speaker?

“Mike, I need a favor. I need to get a bill passed to allow me to collect fines from suburbanites.”

“I’ll take care of it,” the Speaker replied.

And he did.

With the help of Marengo’s Jack Franks.

In his interview with the Chicago Tribune, Franks said it was “‘a common sense type of bill’ at a time when local governments are feeling a major cash crunch.”

He went further:  “It’s also a question of fundamental fairness.  You shouldn’t get a windfall from one government when you owe another government some money.”

Of course the almost 50% of the American public who don’t pay income taxes won’t be hurt.

Maybe deductions should be made from earned income tax credits, too.  30% get them.  Why should they be exempt from this fine extraction mechanism?

Oh, I forgot.

This is just aimed at us taxpayers.

In the State Senate, local legislators voted as follows:

• Pam Althoff – Not Voting
• Dan Duffy – Yes
• Chris Lauzen – Yes

In the House, the local votes were

• Jack Franks -Yes
• Kent Gaffney – Yes
• Mike Tryon – Yes

Only one legislator dared to anger the local government lobbyists:

Chris Nybo