Carrie Ann Shafer was kicked out of the tax preparation business by U. S. District Court Judge Gary Fenner in April and apparently the Oronogo woman has fallen on hard times.
In a letter to Judge Fenner, which was entered into the court record today, Ms. Shafer said she is broke, struggling as a single mother, and the hard drive on her computer crashed.
That will keep her from complying with the judge's order that she turn over to the government all records which identify names, addresses, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers and Social Security numbers of people for whom she has prepared tax returns.
Ms. Shafer said her business, TC's Taxes and More "was permanently closed in January of 2005. The files with all the information on the clients was taken by Tim Noonan. I have no other info other than what was in those files."
Judge Fenner issued his order that Ms. Shafer stop preparing tax returns after U. S. Attorney Todd Graves submitted documents indicating she had claimed "fictitious or inflated itemized deductions for various expenses, including medical and dental expenses, charitable contributions, and unreimbursed employee business expenses."
Graves said that with one customer Ms. Shafer claimed "an inflated child-care expense credit based on child-care services that Shafer knew had never actually been provided to, or paid for by, the customer."
Graves also said Ms. Shafer had encouraged one of her clients to lie to the Internal Revenue Service.
In her letter, Ms. Shafer claimed she did not understand what the problem was and did not understand the letters she had received from the court. "In addition," she wrote, " I cannot afford attorney, as the only income is my child support. I did not purposely set out to do anything wrong. I am a single mom of two girls living on a limited income"
Her next sentence was a little unclear. "All of my clients know what is going on several a mad that I closed my doors and then several that understand why and are supported. In addition, yes, a few are mad at me."
Things are only getting worse, Ms. Shafer said. "I do not have the funds to do anything, as I had to scrape up pennies to buy a stamp for this letter."
The letters Ms. Shafer was supposed to send to her clients were to let them know that they would be responsible for paying any taxes that were not paid as a result of deductions that were allegedly fabricated or exaggerated by Ms. Shafer.
Though Ms. Shafer says her business closed in January, one of the reasons the government asked for the injunction against her, Graves said, was because she was already preparing 2004 tax returns.