Her taxes were filed, but instead of receiving the proper tax forms, she had to ask the broker for them (they are usually automatically sent in February). After a lengthy discussion as to why they had not been sent, the documents were hastily generated, but the documents seemed as if they had been created on someone’s home computer. The stockbroker has stopped answering her calls. What can we do?
Monthly I still get paper copies from my stockbrokerage house even though they are always trying to get me to go paperless. I like to keep end of the month hard copies of the financials to compare month to month. Does your friend do this? Or is she relying on her Broker to manage everything?
Is your friend using a broker who gets a percentage of the buying/selling of stock? That could be why you see thousands of dollars going to the Broker. My Dad had a Broker who would buy/sell stock for him and charge Dad a percentage. That got pretty expensive.
I have all my stock in a brokerage where I do my own buying and selling for a few dollars for each buy/sell. But then again, I was the kid in high school who had a subscription to the Wall Street Journal :P
Anyway, food for thought.
1. Who really filed her taxes, this time and in the past? Her broker? An accountant? Does she have past tax forms, AS filed? If not, she can get them from the IRS, but whoever prepared them should have given her an original to sign, and copies to keep.
2. Or are you stating that the stockbroker didn't provide the necessary data for her to file?
3. What factors led you to believe someone's home computer was used for the documents?
4. How long has she used this broker, and is he/she affiliated with a reputable company? I'm not very familiar with quals, but I think a Series 7 license is required for a stock broker. Someone else know??
5. What specifically makes you suspect scamming? Is data available for delineate the stocks, no. of shares including those that may have been sold, etc.?
To proceed with filing charges and/or recovery of funds:
6. First you need to define/identify what you think the broker has done, what should have been done, what supporting documentation exists, and how the potential scam was undertaken.
It's not unheard of for brokers to do this, but it's a serious accusation and requires sound proof before making accusations.
7. You might want to consider hiring a forensic accountant, or attorney with IRS experience, as it may be that if your friend was cheated, so was the IRS. It all depends on how the funds were misappropriated and whether or not taxes were paid on the right amounts.
8. I would also ask the police how to proceed, once you have the supporting data. I'm not sure specifically how white collar crimes are prosecuted, especially since if the IRS was defrauded as well, criminal action would probably be at the federal level. It may be that both private litigation as well as police/prosecutor involvement are appropriate.
I've only known of a few attorneys who handled white collar crimes, and there were always "Chinese walls" erected around those working on the cases. If you or your friend do need to hire counsel for civil action, I would think a white collar criminal, or tax attorney would be the most appropriate. You want someone who's up to speed on these very specific issues.
GuestShopAdmin is an accountant and can give you more insight on this. I've P'M'ed her.