SOUTH FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Citizens showed up at Hapeville's City Council meeting Wednesday night to express their concern and call for the resignation of councilwoman Ruth Barr.
For several weeks, Barr and her tax preparation business have been the subject of a Channel 2 Action News – Atlanta-Journal Constitution investigation.
Nearly 8,000 of her clients are now having their past three years of tax returns scrutinized by investigators from Georgia's Department of Revenue.
"People are asking, 'Why is she still on the council? Why was she elected?' Those questions kept coming up," said Hapeville resident Mickie Williams, who also serves as president of the Hapeville Community Coalition.
Barr's business, known for years as B&B Accounting and Tax Service, changed names in January and is now called Accounting and Tax Services of Hapeville.
State investigators are reviewing more than 11,000 tax returns filed on behalf of her clients in tax years 2013, 2014 and 2015. They estimate as much as $6 million in refunds may have been based on fraudulent deductions, designed to inflate the refunds for her customers.
Barr at first told Channel 2 Action News she had no comment on the ongoing investigation, however she later said, "I've been in business 50-something years. I'm not in business that long by lying. I've kicked clients out because they've wanted to lie on their tax return. I don't do it."
In November, just a day after Hapeville voters elected her, a Gwinnett County grand jury indicted Barr for taking $109,000 from her brother-in-law for a real estate investment. Bank records show she instead spent the money.
In early May, Channel 2 revealed Barr also had a civil fraud judgment against her for soliciting a $180,000 loan from a client who had just lost her ex-husband. Despite a signed promissory note promising repayment with interest, and a court judgment in the woman's favor, Barr has refused to repay the loan.
Many of Barr's tax clients began contacting Channel 2 to complain about IRS audits, mistakes in their returns, and allegations that she stole client's tax refunds.
About a third of her clients who have contacted Channel 2, work as firefighters, paramedics or police, or have relatives in a public safety profession.
"She has been a predator and to me that's the worst kind of person to prey on those people who are so vulnerable," Williams said.
After Channel 2 inquired about the complaints against Barr, state investigators began looking closely at her returns and executed a search warrant, hauling away a truck full of evidence. They're now calling the criminal investigation one of their largest relating to tax preparer fraud.
Many of Barr's clients are now worried they will have to pay back thousands of dollars in refunds they weren't really owed.
"I don't know how she gets away with it, how she lives with herself," retired firefighter Jason Montgomery said.
Cox Media Group
