Posted Aug 23, 2022, 5:28 am
Go Navy Tax Services seemed like a great option for sailors looking
for help during tax season. Situated just outside the gates of Naval Base San Diego,
one of the country’s biggest Navy bases, it was local, it was
convenient, it was specifically focused on helping Navy members with
their taxes—and best of all, it was free.
When sailors entered the doors of the Navy-flag adorned trailer where
Go Navy Tax Services was based, they found what they came for: free tax
preparation. But the accountants also pushed service members to open
retirement accounts. For years, Paul Flanagan and his associates at Go
Navy Tax Services convinced service members who came in for tax help to
open various savings accounts, providing them with all the necessary
forms. They just had to fill in their personal information and sign on
the dotted line.
But the nearly 5,000 applications that sailors and Marines signed
didn’t actually open retirement accounts. Instead, they bought
unnecessary life insurance policies—without the sailors’ knowledge—and
authorized withdrawals to pay for them from the sailors’ bank accounts.
In turn, Flanagan and his co-conspirators earned more than $2 million in
commissions on the “sales” over nearly a decade. The service members
who had signed the forms lost a combined $4.8 million.
“Service members have given so much to our country,” Xavier Becerra,
then the California attorney…
