Federal court orders father, son in Detroit to halt preparing tax returns

A federal court has temporarily halted a father and son's Detroit income tax preparation company from conducting business for filing returns with falsified deductions, officials said.

A U.S. District Court judge in Detroit on Monday issued a preliminary injunction against Herman “Eddie” Simmons and Richmond Simmons as well as the Profile Income Tax Company, officials with the federal justice department said. The company also does business as the Simmons Income Tax Company, officials said.

Authorities accuse the Simmons of filing tax returns on behalf of clients with false and inflated deductions for charitable contributions.

At least a dozen of the company's customers told federal agents that they had never discussed the deductions with the defendants and that they had no idea why their returns contained the reported figures, David Hubbert, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, said in a statement.

In issuing the injunction, the court said the defendants "engaged in a pattern of willfully claiming false or inflated deductions to understate their clients’ liabilities."

Attorneys for the Simmons claim the defendants made "honest mistakes" in the returns and reported what clients told them, federal authorities said. The judge rejected the argument and said "No reasonable tax preparer would proceed in such a grossly uninformed and willfully ignorant manner," according to officials.

cramirez@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @CharlesERamirez