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ANOTHER DE-CODER CRACKED

June 05, 2008

No matter how many times these things get shut down, new ones spring up to milk the gullible:

WASHINGTON – A federal court has barred a Tacoma, Wash., woman from selling a tax scam, the Justice Department announced today. The civil injunction order, entered against Sharon Kukhahn, will remain in effect indefinitely.

Kukhahn operates businesses called IMF Decoder, Paralegal Research Advocates and Advocates for Justice, Liberty and Freedom. The Tacoma court found that Kukhahn’s IMF Decoder scheme falsely purported to “decode” Internal Revenue Service (IRS) computer transcripts of customers’ taxpayer accounts to show that the customers were not liable for federal income tax.

Just because it doesn't work doesn't mean it can't be expensive:

U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle held that Kukhahn knew or had reason to know that her decoding scheme was false. The court found that Kukhahn charges her customers between $1,750 and $3,195 for her decoding services. According to the court order, the IRS has determined that Kukhahn’s scheme caused revenue losses of approximately $4.9 million as a result of her customers’ failure to file tax returns and pay taxes. The court ordered Kukhahn to give the Justice Department a list of her customers.

It won't be much fun to be on that list.

Link: Justice Department Press Release

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