ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) - The accountant for a top staffer in the first Bush White House stuck the man's estranged wife with her husband's tax liabilities while giving him the family's tax credits and deductions, the woman claims in court.
Edwina C. Rogers sued Jon Deane, CPA and his firm, Gaffey Deane Talley PPLC, "successor in part" to Murphy Deane & Co., in Federal Court.
Rogers did not sue her ex-husband, Edward Rogers Jr., who was an executive assistant to the White House chief of staff in the first Bush administration. He also was a "senior deputy to Bush-Quayle campaign manager Lee Atwater," and worked in President Reagan's Office of Political Affairs for 2 years, according to the complaint.
Rogers claims in her complaint that Deane and his accounting firm committed professional malpractice and caused her emotional injury.
Deane began working as the Rogers family's accountant in the mid 1990s, filing their tax returns under married filing jointly status. But when the marriage started going south, Rogers claims, Deane began assigning the tax liabilities from the couple's household employees to her, while directing deductions and dependent credits to him.
"When it appeared his marriage to plaintiff was over, Mr. Rogers turned against his wife, the mother of his two children," Rogers states in her complaint. "Mr. Rogers received willing assistance from defendant Jon Deane, the accountant for both him and plaintiff for ten years. In flagrant violation of the Internal Revenue Service ... and American Institute of Certified Public Accountant ... regulations respecting conflict of interest, Mr. Deane continued representing both parties, diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars in credits and tax deductions into Mr. Rogers' tax returns, and diverted the tax liabilities, including penalties and interest, into plaintiff's tax returns, all while plaintiff was relying on Mr. Deane's professional relationship with her to protect her from such consequence."
Rogers claims that Deane and her ex-husband perpetrated the scheme by not paying the required taxes for their household employees for two years, after giving her Social Security number and tax information to their payroll company. Meanwhile, Deane began filing the couple's tax returns as married filing separately, so he could steer deductions and credits to him, she claims.
"Plaintiff was assessed a tax lien with penalties and interest by the IRS, and had her wages garnished, all as a consequence of Mr. Rogers' and Mr. Deane's conspiratorial conduct and plan," she says.
She claims she had to hire her own accountants and lawyers to avoid forced tax collection.
Ms. Demands $15 million in compensatory damages for professional malpractice, breach of contract and infliction of emotional distress, and $350,000 in punitive damages.
She is represented by Robert Johnson II, of Washington, D.C.
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