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Tax Protestor Dummies > Slavery
Reparations Scam
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MONDAY, JUNE 16, 2003
WWW.USDOJ.GOV |
TAX
(202) 514-2007
TDD (202) 514-1888 |
GEORGIA FEDERAL COURT ACTS TO
STOP
"SLAVERY REPARATIONS" TAX SCAM
Morris James, Sr. Promoted Fraudulent
"Slavery Reparations Tax Credit"
WASHINGTON, D.C. - A federal court in Macon, Georgia today barred
Morris James, Sr. and his company, the National Resource Information
Center, Inc., from promoting a nationwide slavery-reparations scam.
Judge Duross Fitzpatrick of the U.S. District Court for the Middle
District of Georgia signed a preliminary injunction order barring
James from selling packages that promote false claims for tax credits
or refunds and from preparing tax returns or other documents claiming
credits for reparations. The court also ordered James to turn over
his customer list to the Justice Department.
"Claiming tax refunds or credits for slavery reparations is
illegal," said Eileen J. O'Connor, Assistant Attorney General
for the Tax Division of the Department of Justice. "The Justice
Department is taking vigorous action to stop the promotion of schemes
that undermine the federal tax system and leave honest taxpayers
footing the bill."
Papers filed by the Justice Department in the case allege that
James has promoted the slavery-reparations tax credit by selling
"tax information packages" at meetings held in churches
throughout the United States. According to the Department's filings,
James and his organization sold the packages to more than 6,300
customers.
The IRS has included slavery-reparations scams on its "Dirty
Dozen" tax-scam list, which can be found at: http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=107493,00.html.
Efforts by the IRS and Justice Department to shut down tax scams
based on slavery reparations and similar claims have resulted in
a 97 % drop in these claims in recent years, according to testimony
this April before the Senate Finance Committee by Dale Hart, who
is now Commissioner of the IRS's Small Business-Self Employed Operating
Division.
The Justice Department has previously obtained injunctions to stop
five other reparations-scam promoters or return preparers: Willie
Haugabook, also of Montezuma, GA; Eddie and Erma Mims of Sylvania,
GA; Robert Foster of Richmond, VA; and Andrew L. Wiley, of Durant,
MS. For more information on these cases go to: http://www.usdoj.gov/tax.
The Department has also criminally prosecuted reparations promoters,
resulting, for example, in the April 2003 guilty plea entered by
James Dean Buckley, in which he admitted committing tax fraud by
charging a Mississippi couple to file a federal income-tax return
on their behalf and claiming he could get them an $86,000 refund
because they are African American; and the October 2001 conviction
of Vernon T. James of Carrollton, Texas for preparing false, fictitious,
and fraudulent federal-income-tax returns claiming the reparations
credit. Last year, a federal judge sentenced Vernon James to six
and one-half years in prison and ordered him to pay $1.2 million
in restitution.
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03-354
Preliminary
Injunction (PDF)