Bitch Better Have My Refund Pt1
Choosing A Tax Guy is Hard 😮💨
Ok so the message didn’t start with “Bitch Better Have My Refund” but when this Netizen reached out, the vibe was felt.
The message described a confusing experience with a Tax Preparation Business in Los Angeles, CA. This business allegedly (accused but not proven or convicted) redirected funds meant for their accounts to his. In one case the accusations describes a $1300 check being used to pay $1000 fees and turning into a $50 check. I know when they described it to me the math didn’t make sense in my opinion, but I have a duty to be fair; the business dealings of clients and tax preparers is not something that I have inside evidence of, so I can’t say any of that is true about Taxbox Refund LLC and Chukwuka E Nwokobia. Here is what we did find:
Are Those Followers or Bots?
Social media managers talk about accounts with fake followers all the time. Here is what an audience analysis of the Taxbox Refund IG showed us:
At the time of this check the Calendly in the above Instagram’s link is down:
Here is the tool that I used, again the objective is to be fair: https://www.modash.io/fake-follower-check?influencer=taxboxrefund
If you have a user account for the above tool you get an interesting view of the Taxbox Refund audience:
I wonder what business strategy recommends having 80% of your marketing target another country while you do taxes for US citizens in LA? I’d post the results of the ceocasanova page, but I hate repetition. Here is a glimpse of that page though:
A snapshot of a smaller possibly unmanaged IG page captures the heart of the issue here:
Here is a Black man seemingly looking to help his people; so why does this user take their time to comment “Thieves” on every post?
Yelp has a total of 127 reviews warning against doing business with Taxbox Refund. (Yelp Reviews for Taxbox Refund) Many of the complaints seem to match the pattern of the original complaint we received.
For all the supposed smoke and mirrors his businesses filings with the California Secretary of State are in good standing:
This seems like a good time to point out the social responsibility of a business to provide ethical services (Business’s Social Responsibility). With that said if a business was not licensed when they did your filing in California would that be ethical?
With that in mind lets checkout the Taxbox Refund Website:
To their credit Taxbox Refund LLC is a BBB Accredited business… the catch is they don’t have a rating due to “unresolved complaints”
The BBB does have two complaints (2022) posted publicly, although it lists 3 on the website and the Netizen’s complaint to me being associated with 2024. https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/los-angeles/profile/tax-return-preparation/taxbox-refund-llc-1216-1288198/complaints
Yelp by far had the most public complaints with 35 1 star ratings on the business’ page.
The requirements to prepare taxes in California is to register with the CTEC (California Tax Education Council) or be a Enrolled Agent (EA), Certified Public Accountant, Attorney, Bank. If you aren’t a EA, CPA, Lawyer, or Bank than the CTEC will require you to do a 60 hour training, purchase a bond, and get a background check. *Requirements*
I checked the IRS and no records of our friend as an EA, CPA, etc and he doesn’t claim to be. That means he should be registered with the CTEC. The CTEC has a website to verify the status of your tax preparer. A search for Chukwuka Nwokobia shows this:
Here is that state website if you’d like to check for yourself.
Here is an story and ad from the ceocasanova IG page from June 21, 2024:
Also if you caught a glimpse of the car and got envious of the vehicle in the video, the Maserati Ghibli let me offer you some information about the vehicle. These cars age like milk and you can find a used one for the same price as a Nissan Versa. So assuming that the car is used it’s possible to make someone think that you are living a luxury lifestyle on a CNA budget (shout out to all the CNAs).
Would you trust them with your taxes?
In future articles we will discuss how not to get caught up with questionable tax situations. For now- IF YOU BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE BEEN A VICTIM OF TAX FRAUD CLICK HERE TO REPORT TO THE IRS.
IF YOU ARE IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA AND WISH TO REPORT TO THE STATE, CLICK HERE.
My Opinion:
Empowerment of people is not only the provision of resources; it must be accompanied by holding its leaders to a standard. We can tend to forget that even in a capitalist society everything is designed to serve the people. Businesses exist for the improvement of people’s lives. We should hold our business owners to a standard of fairness especially when they deal with under served communities. This isn’t one black man tearing down another. This is an opportunity to shine a light on a desired standard for our communities.
*As of June 23, 2024 Chukwuka Nwokobia has reached out to us. We will be Producing a part two to this article after reviewing and continuing our investigation.