Mel Madarang
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — With many Marylanders filing their taxes before the April 17 deadline, criminals try to find ways to wreak havoc through fraud.
However, Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot says his agency is on top of preventing fraudulent returns from being processed. He announced on Tuesday that 20 more tax preparers have been added to the already suspended 34 preparers so far this year.
Not all of the perparers are from Maryland. Three preparers were located in Virginia, Texas and even as far as California, according to Franchot.
The agency has been smooth with filed taxes so far, processing over 1.5 million tax returns and returning almost $2 billion in refunds to Marylanders.
Although activity picks up closer to the April deadline since a lot of people tend to wait till the last minute to file taxes, Franchot says that most of the tax fraud is seen in the earlier part of tax season.
He says criminals who would use information they’ve stolen and unethical preparers file early in an attempt to bypass fraud detection units.
“We are intercepting them, putting them aside, not paying for them. We are also suspending processing of all tax returns coming from tax preparers that we judge to be highly irregular,” Franchot said on fraudulent filed tax returns.
A list of all the suspended preparers were indicated in a press release:
KC and Son Tax Service, 4831 Belair Road, Baltimore, MD 21206
OAS, 13127 Wonderland Way, Suite 2, Germantown, MD 20874
Immaculate Money LLC, 1612 Shady Glen Drive, District Heights, MD 20747
Geneva Sanders, 504 Placid Court, Apt. K, Odenton, MD 21113, and 202 Easton South, Apt. 2, Laurel, MD 20724
Brightway Professionals and Associates, 4810 St. Barnabas Road, Suite 201, Temple Hills, MD 20748
All Choice Tax & Payroll Services, Inc., 1401 Mercantile Lane, Suite 200K, Upper Marlboro, MD 20774
Keystone Tax Solutions K2, 6323 Brown Ave., Baltimore, MD 21224
New Valley & Co., also known as Prologix Tax, 11140 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852, and 5929 Schering Road, Baltimore, MD 21206
BOFMOT, 9208 Fairlane Place, Laurel, MD 20708
Bencok One Inc., 5623 Reisterstown Road, Baltimore, MD 21215
Annoited [sic] Tax & Consulting Service, also known as ATP Too, 100 West Road, Suite 100, Towson, MD 21204, and 2717 Landvale Ave, Baltimore, MD 21218
Alcantara Driving School Corp., 1620 Elton Road, Suite 201, Silver Spring, MD 20903 and 1310 Merrimac Driver, Silver Spring, MD 20903
Ardy Sowe Tax Service, 7703 Loughborough Place, Beltsville, MD 20705
Freedom Tax Services, 1268 E North Ave., Baltimore, MD 21202
Rhodes & O’Neil Accounting, 1108 East Main St., Suite 702, Richmond, VA 23219
Safe STEM Institute, 22054 Shaw Road, Suite B, Sterling, VA 20164
Double R Taxes, 2318 N Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218
Precise Financial, 8950 Westpark Drive, Suite 102A, Houston, TX 77063
Gabriel Ajak, 9304 Forest Lane, Suite 5108, Dallas, TX 75243
Michael Smith, 1719 E Jefferson Ave., Pomona, CA 91767
Franchot says his agency has suspended 150 tax preparers in the last couple of years, and only one preparer appealed the suspension.
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