- 12 - Petitioners attempt to shift the responsibility for the understatements of their tax liabilities to Greenfield and claim that Greenfield should have conducted his own investigation into the accuracy of the information that petitioners provided to him in the course of his preparation of their returns. However, in the course of his preparation of petitioners’ tax returns, Greenfield was not provided with documentation to support petitioners’ calculations of the figures given to him other than some contracts for the purchase of equipment. Petitioners’ reliance on Greenfield to discover the errors in the reported figures is no defense to fraud because they failed to provide Greenfield with complete and accurate information regarding their income and expenses. See Korecky v. Commissioner, 781 F.2d 1566, 1569 (11th Cir. 1986), affg. per curiam T.C. Memo. 1985-63; Merritt v. Commissioner, 301 F.2d 484, 487 (5th Cir. 1962), affg. T.C. Memo. 1959-172. Although Greenfield testified that “it was obvious that the [1998] tax return wasn’t correct”, he was able to reach this conclusion only after petitioners provided him with their books and records after the returns had been filed. The responsibility of filing accurate returns remains principally with the taxpayers, especially where the taxpayers have taken an active and controlling role in the process of preparing the tax returns and the information used for their preparation. See Medlin v.Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011