Court Finds Miami-Area Tax Preparer and His Business in Contempt for Violating Permanent Injunction

On June 23, 2020, a federal court in Miami, Florida issued an order holding Vilbrun Simon and Simon Accounting & Tax, LLC in contempt for violating a permanent injunction that bars them from preparing or filing federal tax returns for others.

The United States filed a complaint on Nov. 28, 2017, alleging that Vilbrun Simon and Simon Accounting & Tax, LLC, along with codefendants Saintanise Agenord and Wilcienne Pierre, prepared returns that understated their customers’ tax due and overstated tax refunds claimed by their customers. After a three-day trial, the court issued a judgment and permanent injunction on March 26, 2019, that barred the defendants from preparing returns for customers.

Following a hearing on June 15, 2020, the court found that Vilbrun Simon and Simon Accounting & Tax, LLC violated the permanent injunction in two ways: (1) by failing to post signs outside their storefront informing their customers of the ban, and (2) by continuing to prepare tax returns for others. For these violations, the court held Vilbrun Simon and Simon Accounting & Tax, LLC in civil contempt and found that compensatory sanctions were warranted, with the amount of the sanctions — representing the fees they received for returns prepared in violation of the injunction, and the costs the United States incurred to investigate and bring their violations to the court’s attention — to be determined. 

Return preparer fraud is one of the IRS’s Dirty Dozen Tax Scams and taxpayers seeking a return preparer should remain vigilant. The IRS has information on its website for choosing a return preparer and has launched a free directory of federal tax preparers.

In the past decade, the Tax Division has obtained injunctions against hundreds of unscrupulous tax preparers. Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department’s website. An alphabetical listing of persons enjoined from preparing returns and promoting tax schemes can be found on this page. If you believe that one of the enjoined persons or businesses may be violating an injunction, please contact the Tax Division with details.