Months after being sued by California Attorney General for $34 million, Roni Deutch has closed her law firm and surrendered her license. The “Tax Lady” has made it into the news many times since last August when the court prohibited Deutch from destroying evidence and she proceeded to shred millions of pages of documents at her firm.
Then, on April 20, 2011, the California Attorney General asked the court to hold Deutch on contempt of court and imprison her up to 5 days for each violation.
In addition to shredding documents, Deutch also violated a preliminary injunction by not issuing $435,000 in refunds to her clients.
Roni Deutch did not go quietly. She is claiming that the Attorney General’s office destroyed her business and caused her business to decrease by 90% since the allegations. This will not be the last we hear of Roni Deutch since she still has a hearing on July 22nd on contempt of court and can face some very steep fines as well as jail time.
Roni Deutch claims that she still has 4,000 active clients and does not know who is going to help them now since the state of California shut her down. Attorney General Kamala Harris claimed that less than 10% of her clients actually settled their liabilitys successfully. This shows that her clients are better off handling the situation on their own or going to another company. A question many of her active clients may have is if they are going to get a refund for incomplete services. The answer is most likely not. Deutch claims her firm has no money left and is $10 million in liability.
In the past year there have been several other companies that have been accused of bilking clients out of millions of dollars in this industry. It has become very important for individuals seeking tax help to do their research on the company they plan to work with. Tax relief scams and companies with bad business practices are typically pretty easy to spot if you know what to look for. A good starting point to researching a company is through the BBB.
I spent thousands of Dollars and I’m dealing with I R S and I do not have the money to Hire a POA, very upset and losing everything, I’am honestly Depressed!
Take the heat
There’s a potential violation by going behind the receiver’s back,\ Moore told Sacramento Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne W.L. Chang, adding he expected to have \conclusive evidence\ by week’s end.
Moore alleged that calls to Deutch’s toll-free telephone line (888) TAX-LADY were being diverted to a call center and then to a tax resolution business operated by Deutch’s brother, Scott Juceam, as well as to other firms opened by former Deutch associates, in violation of an April 20 court order.
Read more: blogs.sacbee.com/crime/archives/2011/06/tax-lady-roni-d-1.html#ixzz1OAUppv00
I needed help and hired Roni Deutch to get my taxes owed lowered which they said they could do, the only thing they did was take my money and got me no relief at all. After cancelling there service was received a letter telling me the amount of refund I would be receiving, only that refund never came after numerous calls, the BBB contacted them with no response, I have sent a letter to the Attorney General of Sacramento also, I have not received an answer from the Attorney General as of yet. She shouldn’t be allowed to take money she can’t pay back.
I was also defrauded by this fraud artist, to the tune of $5500 for “services” they completely botched or never completed, resulting in ANOTHER Tax lien being issued against me that I had to hire ANOTHER firm to straighten out. She should never practice law again and if she’s just diverting business on the phones to other businesses she’s connected to they should ALL be charged with aiding and abetting her fraud for direct personal benefit.
This is what happens when we let attorneys police themselves, folks.
wow,i’m sorry you guys. I too was bamboozled by this firm. I owed 10k in taxes, only to pay them 2k to do absolutely NOTHING. Hell, i could’ve paid that 2k towards by tax bill
In the July 8 filing in Sacramento Superior Court, state attorneys say that between January and June this year, Deutch gave away more than 3,600 leads estimated to be worth $364,700. The filing says the leads were sent to newly formed tax-resolution businesses run by her brother Scott Juceam and his business partner Robert Forsythe of Juceam Group, and by Gregory Flahive, owner of Sacramento firm Prestige Law Corp.
“By draining (the firm) of its most valuable asset, her transfer of theses sales leads deprived her creditors … from collecting on their claims,” the complaint read.
Juceam, Forsythe and Flahive are named as co-defendants with Deutch.
We were bilked out of over $9,000.00 here in Vegas by her firm! Not sure what they are doing to her here in Vegas – however, kharma is a bitch!!
I don’t understand why anyone would take such risks,loose everything,instead of simply working with the IRS and pay their taxes????