Here is an update on the two major tax representation firms, Tax Masters and JK Harris – companies who spent millions of dollars on advertising for tax representation clients.
TaxMaster’s Fate
In Texas a jury has returned a $195 million verdict against Houston-based TaxMasters, Inc., for violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The TaxMasters CEO made hollow promises about fighting for taxpayers and their pocketbooks in television ads. The evidence proved that the firm didn’t even bother to show up when it came time to fulfill those promises; instead mislead and defrauded their customers. Can you speill S-C-A-M?
Taxpayers, who been offered free consultations with tax specialists by TaxMasters, were instead linked to specialists trained in sales, not tax matters. TaxMasters would do no work until all it’s fees were paid up front; you can imagine the anxiety and panic this triggered in people who were having 90 per cent of their pay check levied or their bank accounts seized. Currently TaxMasers has filed for bankruptcy following on the heels of another Tax Resolution company JK Harris.
JK Harris’s Fate
JK Harris is currently being liquidated due its recent bankruptcy leaving creditors and clients in a lurch. The bankruptcy was sought to pre-empt Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott who had charged JK Harris & Company, LLC with materially misrepresenting their ability to help taxpayers resolve their unpaid tax obligations.
According to the state’s enforcement action, JK Harris failed to : provide promised services, misrepresented its employee’s professional skills and experience, and overstated its ability to reduce debts it owed to the Internal Revenue Service. Further JK Harris accepted large, prepaid fees from customers whose tax liabilities the firm knew – or should have known – it could not reduce.
What To Do Now?
Thousands of taxpayers across the country, who paid these firms, are now left at the mercy of the IRS; they are in desperate need of qualified tax help. Tax Crisis Institute is fully prepared to help individuals pick up all the pieces and deal with the IRS. Call us today.
Dana M. Ronald
Tax Crisis Institute
May 10, 2012