FEDERAL COURT IN TAMPA ORDERS TAX FRAUD PROMOTER TO STOP PREPARING BOGUS TAX RETURNS, PROMOTING FRAUDULENT TAX SCHEME

Documents Must Be Turned Over To The Justice Department

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A Federal District Court in Florida has ordered David Bosset of Spring Hill, Fl., to stop preparing bogus tax returns and promoting a fraudulent tax scheme. Bosset had claimed that only income from foreign sources is subject to United States income taxes. The court, which handed down its ruling yesterday, also ordered Bosset to provide the Justice Department a complete list of clients back to1998, including their social security numbers and other information, and to send the Department copies of every federal tax return or other document he prepares or sends to the IRS on behalf of others. The order also applies to Bosset's "agents, servants, employees, attorneys and those persons in active concert or participation" with him.

Papers filed in the federal court include a statement from one of Bosset's clients alleging that she paid over $11,000 to Bosset or his associate after being told they would solve her family's problems with the IRS. The income tax returns Bosset prepared for her falsely declared that she had zero income, on the frivolous grounds that income earned in Florida is not taxable. The client said she is now worse off than before she met Bosset.

"It is impossible to tell how much money the court has just saved the Federal Treasury and law-abiding taxpayers by ordering Mr. Bosset to stop preparing and filing false income tax returns," said Eileen J. O'Connor, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Tax Division. "This court's action should alert people who promote or rely on this or other bogus tax schemes to the fact that their days of defrauding the public are numbered."

The Justice Department's suit against Bosset is one of four cases recently brought to stop the promotion of the foreign-source income scheme. In one of the other suits, the Department obtained an injunction in January 2002 against Harold E. "Hal" Hearn, an Atlanta-based CPA, prohibiting him from preparing returns based on, or promoting, the foreign-source income argument. The third case, filed against Thurston Bell in federal court in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is still pending. In the fourth case, the Department filed a suit on March 14, 2002, against Douglas P. Rosile, Sr., a Venice, Florida-based former accountant, which seeks to permanently enjoin Rosile from preparing tax returns and from promoting the foreign-source income argument. The under-reporting of tax liabilities stemming from Rosile's actions alone was estimated at $36 million.

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