(Forbes) If you're wondering why the Internal Revenue Service has finally announced plans to regulate tax preparers, one reason can be found sitting in the federal prison in Beaver, W. Va.

That's where Marcel J. Toto-Ngosso is serving a nearly six-year sentence after a jury quickly convicted him last year on numerous counts relating to his efforts to generate fraudulent refunds for his clients. These included use of fake deductions,dependents who didn't exist, fabricated business expenses and pumped-up charitable gifts. Two associates pleading guilty testified against Toto-Ngosso, who for a decade ran a tax preparation business out of his Silver Springs, Md., home. Convicted after a four-day trial, Toto-Ngosso has appealed both his conviction and long sentence.

The IRS has long had problems with the competence and honesty of some of the estimated 1 million persons who charge to prepare tax returns for others. In recent years, about 100 tax preparers a year have been sent off to prison. In San Diego, Fe S. Garrett is to be sentenced next month after being convicted for filing false tax returns In addition, the IRS and Department of Justice have won hundreds of civil court orders permanently barring specific individuals from preparing taxes for others. The lawsuits leading to these orders generally allege systematic misdeeds, including omission of income and inflation or outright fabrication of deductions. Some tax preparers falsely claim to hold college degrees or be ex-IRS employees.

Typically, each preparer targeted has done hundreds if not thousands of returns. In just one day last month, the government filed for civil injunctions against preparers in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Rhode Island who had collectively prepared more than 50,000 returns.