U.S. Court Shuts Down Georgia Tax Preparation Firms Allegedly Involved in Fuel Credit Tax Scam

/PRNewswire / -- A federal court in Savannah, Ga., today permanently barred Ophelia Kelley, of Vidalia, Ga., from preparing federal income tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today. According to the government complaint, Kelley operated two return preparation firms in Vidalia - Kelley Tax Service and City and Country Girl Tax Service. Kelley agreed to the civil injunction order.

The civil injunction suit alleged that Kelley and her businesses repeatedly and intentionally engaged in fraudulent conduct by claiming improper deductions and tax credits for customers. Kelley allegedly claimed bogus fuel tax credits for customers who were not entitled to the credit. The fuel credit is available only to taxpayers who operate farm equipment or off-highway business vehicles. It is not available for vehicles driven on roads or highways.

The complaint alleged that Kelley fraudulently claimed absurdly large credits for truck drivers by falsely reporting purchases of huge quantities of fuel, often more than the customer could have bought using all his annual income. Return preparer fraud and fuel credit scams are on this year's IRS list of the Dirty Dozen Tax Scams. In the past few years the Justice Department has obtained injunctions shutting down many tax preparers who claim the bogus credits on customers' returns.

According to the complaint, Kelley also fabricated false deductions for such things as medical expenses and charitable gifts. The suit also alleged that Kelley failed to sign at least 100 tax returns she prepared for customers. Paid tax preparers are required by law to sign all returns they prepare.

John DiCicco, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Tax Division, thanked Grayson Hoffman, the Justice Department trial attorney who handled the case, and Shauna Henline, a senior technical advisor with the IRS's Small Business/Self Employed Division, who conducted the investigation.

In the past decade, the Justice Department's Tax Division has obtained more than 395 injunctions against tax fraud promoters and tax return preparers. Information about these cases is available on the Justice Department's Web site.

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Vidalia Makes the Cut as Reuters Announces Top 100 Hospitals

Meadows Regional Medical Center in Vidalia is the only Georgia hospital to make the list in the small community hospital winners.


/PRNewswire/ -- The Healthcare business of Thomson Reuters today released its annual study identifying the 100 top U.S. hospitals based on their overall organizational performance.

The Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals(R): National Benchmarks study is based on the 100 Top Hospitals National Balanced Scorecard that evaluates performance in nine areas: mortality, medical complications, patient safety, average length of stay, expenses, profitability, cash-to-debt ratio, patient satisfaction, and adherence to clinical standards of care. The study has been conducted annually since 1993.

"The 100 Top Hospitals winners raised the bar again this year, delivering a higher level of reliable care and greater value for their communities and payers," said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice president for performance improvement and 100 Top Hospitals programs at Thomson Reuters.

Thomson Reuters also is launching the 100 Top Hospitals: Everest Award for National Benchmarks to recognize those hospitals among the 100 winners that delivered the greatest rate of improvement over a five-year period. This marks the first time the 100 Top Hospitals national benchmarks have been integrated with data reflecting long-term performance trends to identify the top-performing hospitals that are improving at the fastest rate. This year, there are 23 Everest award winners.

"Integration of national benchmarks for improvement and top performance is an innovation that enables Thomson Reuters to identify those hospitals with a mature culture of performance improvement," Chenoweth said. "The ability to objectively gauge where a hospital stands in its journey to excellence is a breakthrough in the measurement of leadership effectiveness, the success of organizational improvement strategies, and the impact of executive decisions."

"The boards, executives and physician leaders of the Everest award-winning hospitals developed long-term strategies and executed them with extraordinary skill and extraordinary results," she said. "The Everest award winners have reached the point at which innovation is a must to improve further."

To conduct the 100 Top Hospitals study, Thomson Reuters researchers evaluated 3,000 short-term, acute care, non-federal hospitals. They used public information -- Medicare cost reports, Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MedPAR) data, and core measures and patient satisfaction data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Compare data set.

If all Medicare inpatients received the same level of care as patients treated in the winning hospitals:

-- More than 107,500 additional patients would survive each year.
-- Nearly 132,000 patient complications would be avoided annually.
-- Expenses would decline by $5.9 billion a year.

-- The average patient stay would decrease by nearly half a day.

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Justice Department Asks Court to Close Georgia Tax Preparation Firms Allegedly Involved in Fuel Credit Tax Scam

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The United States has asked a federal court in Savannah, Ga., to permanently bar Ophelia Kelley of Vidalia, Ga., from preparing federal income tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today. According to the government complaint, Kelley operates two return preparation firms in Vidalia -- Kelley Tax Service, and City and Country Girl Tax Service.

The civil injunction suit alleges that Kelley, through her businesses, has repeatedly and intentionally engaged in fraudulent conduct by claiming improper deductions and tax credits for customers. According to the complaint, Kelley allegedly claims bogus fuel tax credits for customers who are not entitled to the credit. The fuel credit is available only to taxpayers who operate farm equipment or off-highway business vehicles. It is not available for trucks driven on highways.

The complaint further alleges that Kelley fraudulently claims the credit for truck drivers, claiming absurdly large credits by falsely reporting purchases of huge quantities of fuel where, in most cases, the cost of the fuel purportedly purchased was greater than the customer's annual income. Fuel credit scams were on last year's IRS list of the Dirty Dozen Tax Scams. In the past few years the Justice Department has obtained injunctions shutting down many tax preparers who claim the phony credits on customers' returns.

According to the complaint Kelley also fabricates false deductions for such things as medical expenses and charitable gifts. The complaint also says that Kelley failed to sign at least 100 tax returns she prepared for customers. Paid tax preparers are required by law to sign all returns they prepare.

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Winter Weather OK with Georgia Peaches, Onions

Georgia Vidalia onions and peaches need wintry temperatures to produce their best in spring and summer. So far, conditions have been excellent, say University of Georgia experts.

“Right now, the Vidalia onion crop is progressing very nicely. We expect acreage to be pretty stable,” said Reid Torrance, the UGA Cooperative Extension coordinator in Tattnall County, where 60 percent of the crop is grown.

Approximately 80 percent of the expected 12,000 acres has been planted. Recent rain has made planting more difficult. “We are having to hop around to find fields dry enough for planting,” he said.

He expects farmers to grow 600 acres of organic Vidalia onions, a 50 percent increase over last year.

“Onions are very tolerant to cold when they are young,” Torrance said. “But, we don’t want a real cold winter. Temperatures in the low teens and single digits bring a risk of cold injury. By the same token, a warm fall and early winter can cause onions to grow too much too soon.”

Several winters in the 1980s wiped out the crop. But more cold-tolerant varieties now help prevent that, he said. The last devastating freeze happened in 1996. Improved varieties and management has helped farmers control diseases in recent years, too.

Onion farmers seed planting beds in September and transplant the young plants from the beds to fields in November and December. They harvest onions in April and May. To be an official Vidalia onion, the onion must grow in one of only 20 counties in southeast Georgia designated by the Vidalia Onion Act of 1986.

While onions use the cool winter months to mature underground, Georgia peach trees need chill hours, or hours below 45 degrees Fahrenheit, to stay dormant. This helps them bloom properly in the spring and produce fruit in the summer.

“Depending on the variety, Georgia peaches like to get between 400 and 1,100 chill hours between October and Feb. 15,” said Frank Funderburk, UGA Extension coordinator in Peach County.

Georgia has 12,000 to 14,000 acres of peaches scattered throughout the state. But most grow in central Georgia. As of Dec. 8, Peach County had received 375 chill hours. “We are ahead of the last three years. We are looking good,” he said.

In recent years it hasn’t been a lack of chill hours, but rather a late freeze that hurt the crop. Freezes in 2007 and 2008 cut the crop by half, he said.

“We can make a crop with low chill hours, but we won’t make a crop if temperatures drop too low after buds start to develop,” Funderburk said.

A freeze in 1996 destroyed the entire crop.

“We are hoping for a better year in 2009. By mid-January we will have a good idea of where we are,” he said.

By April Sorrow
University of Georgia

April Sorrow is a news editor with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

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