Some Tax Return Businesses May Be Cheating You: Be careful of them.

By Ali Bulhan [email protected]

After my best wishes and Salaams, I want to share with you something of great importance to everyone of you and your family. It is time to file your income tax returns and most of us will get something back from the IRS.  For most of us, it is time long waited… to pay off a loan, buy a car, or fulfill a lifetime dream with whatever you get back..  But who do you go to when you want to file your taxes or who do you trust, to be exact? Do you really know that some of our own people whom we trust with our money and our identity are there NOT to help us but to cheat us? And sadly, most of us will get overexcited with that big, fat check and run to the bank to cash it right away without checking if the amount on the check matches with your return on the IRS records. Do you know if you have been overcharged the filing fee?  That is exactly what some people are in business for. Subhaan Allah! They will either take a share of your refund or they will charge you hidden fees that you won’t even know unless you look at it meticulously. This happened to my younger brother last year when I looked at his refund and saw that he was charged $200 filing fee even though the fee should have been $50. We went to the guy who filed his taxes and he admitted that there was an error but he will pay us back and we got another check for what he called an “error” but I would call a “theft.”  The same thing happened to my mother few years ago by another so-called Somali Tax Expert.  I wouldn’t say their names in public but people like this deserve to be isolated because they are the bad apples in our community that will undermine our progress. The tax filing business is booming these days and there is a good reason for that, but I fear so many of our illiterate people will lose so much money to these guys who are there to rip-them-off. They act to be professionals but they forget that they could go to jail for cheating poor people and misusing government money.

My best advice to you all is to know who you are dealing with. Some will act to be religious and honest but don’t trust anybody with your money and with your identity. If they are there to steal your money, imagine what they can do to your social security number. If you are claiming your children, it doesn’t matter how many children you claim, you will get the same amount of money in most cases, so they can sell one of your children’s social to someone else.

If you want to know how much you will get back exactly, call the IRS office or check on their website at www.IRS..gov and click where it says “My refund.” The filing fee should not be more than $50 or $60 and you can always negotiate that too. Because you are getting so much money back, don’t accept paying higher fees because you are opening doors for greediness and also doing harm to people who will get less and pay more. Please help your families too and be sure they don’t get cheated.. The easiest and fastest way to get your money is direct deposit to your bank account, but they will tell you that your refund will go to our account and then we will give you a check that you can cash later, after we take off our fees. The IRS can also send you a check directly to your home address. Most importantly, you can file your tax yourself without the help of anybody. Just follow the few instructions on the website and you are done. If you are a victim of a tax fraud or if you ever see someone in this business who is taking advantage of poor people, please don’t hesitate to report to the office of Small Business Administration (SBA); it is the federal government agency which is responsible for shutting down corrupt businesses and prosecuting the owners of such businesses. Their website is www.SBA.gov. By the way, most of the people in this business don’t even have a license or proper documentation for their business; so it is not even recognized by the government and they could easily get away with your money. From what I understand, last year, at least three men who had offices in the Somali mall escaped to Canada with all the money that belonged to others.  Their businesses were never registered with the state. So, in this case, nobody can help you because you are talking about an unknown person. The loss is yours. Think twice.   

Forgive me if my message is not making a sense to you, but I couldn’t ignore talking about what is happening in our community and how some corrupt people degrade our reputation as Somali immigrants. If you go back to your records from last few years, I can almost guarantee you that you will find errors. Therefore, isn’t it right to stop such people before it is too late? I didn’t mean to create a problem here, but if you are faithful, honest and decent human being, you will succeed in every business Insha’Allah and Allah will increase it for you. And customers will trust you and come back to you year after year.  But if you are the opposite of that, then sooner or later someone will figure it out and you will be stopped, humiliated, and brought to justice.

Allah knows best.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me. Thanks

Ali Bulhan