The feds are cracking down on a Chicago-area tax preparer, slapping him with a lawsuit aimed at shuttering his business for good. Sir-Michael Davenport, owner of My Unity Financial & Tax Preparation LLC, is accused by the Justice Department of cooking up bogus business losses to beef up refunds for his clients, court papers reveal.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the government's suit claims Davenport was far from a guardian angel to his clientele, allegedly filing fraudulent tax returns to reduce what they owed and inflate their refund checks, in a classic case of seeing what they can get away with, the suit not only charges Davenport with playing fast and loose with deductions but also with staying in the shadows by avoiding signing off on the returns as a "ghost preparer," an act that's a massive IRS no-no.
According to the Justice Department's announcement, Davenport might have made a name for himself as early as 2018, and by 2021 he was knee-deep in tax return fabrication, the IRS grimacing at the sight of up to 81% of the returns he prepped vomiting out average business losses of $31,879. It's a financial fiasco that Deputy Assistant General David A. Hubbert says has cost Uncle Sam a pretty penny, estimating the tax damage for 2021 alone at north of $700,000.
The government is firing on all cylinders, warning taxpayers to keep their eyes peeled for slippery preparers with their free directory of federal tax preparers and tips to spot shifty so-called "ghost preparers", the IRS even offers guidance on what credentials a trustworthy tax guru should have, so people don't fall for these traps; furthermore, Sy-Michael Davenport just joined a rogue's gallery of hundreds outed by the Justice Department over the past decade, their names plastered online to stop them from wreaking further havoc.
If you smell a rat and think one of these enjoined scammers is back at their old tricks, the Tax Division's got an open line for you to spill the beans. But as the ledger closes on another fiscal year, the message is clear: If someone's promises around tax time seem too good to be true, they probably are – and the feds are watching.
