John Anthony Castro

John Anthony Castro (born October 4, 1983) is an American tax return preparer and perennial candidate who has unsuccessfully run for political office as both a Republican and a Democrat.

Castro is known for his involvement in Dixon v Commissioner and its related cases, an extensive series of court rulings that — in finding that Castro's clients improperly filed their tax returns — ruled that certain authentication requirements are not subject to waiver.

Castro is a self-described attorney, though has never been licensed to practice law.

According to the New York Times, he has been involved in a "dizzying array of legal disputes", and has sued or been sued by clients, competitors, government agencies, and others.

In 2024 he was indicted on 33 felony charges of tax fraud, though denies all wrongdoing.

According to Knewz, John Anthony Castro was born in Landstuhl, Germany, on October 4, 1983.

His father, John Manuel Castro, was a member of the U.S. military stationed there at the time.

Castro moved to Killeen, Texas, in 1987 and Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1991, before his father retired from the military and his family settled in Laredo, Texas in 1994.

Castro earned a bachelor's degree from Texas A&M International University in Laredo, Texas in 2008, before receiving a J.D. from the University of New Mexico and LLM from Georgetown University.

He was banned from participating in Georgetown University Law Center's job fair as a student and then later on as an employer over what the university claimed were "deliberate misrepresentations on his resume"; the university had considered expelling him over the matter but ultimately decided against it.

These alleged misrepresentations included serving as a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point when he had spent one year at the United States Military Academy Preparatory School, a military-style prep school for students not yet academically qualified to attend West Point, and then dropped out.

Castro claimed there was no misrepresentation, as he claimed he had been conditionally accepted to West Point with the first year at the prep school, but withdrew after the first year.

Castro claims he is an attorney.

According to a 2023 article by the Philadelphia Inquirer, he is not licensed to practice law; the New Hampshire Union Leader, in 2023, reported that he was at the time "not licensed to practice law in any state"; and the New York Times, Deseret News and Norman Transcript noted in separate stories that Castro once acknowledged that he has never been licensed to practice law.

According to the New York Times, Castro has been involved in "a dizzying array of legal disputes".

In 2013, shortly after completing his LLM, Castro was hired by Gudorf Law Group of Dayton, Ohio, though worked there only briefly.

In about 2016, after leaving Gudorf Law Group, Castro established his tax preparation service, Castro & Co. A virtual business based first in Orlando and then in North Texas, at Castro & Co. Castro did contingency fee refund work, a practice in which a tax preparer retains, as payment, a portion of the tax refund he is able to secure on behalf of a client.

At Castro & Co., Castro issued "legal opinions" to United States expatriates living in Australia — some of whom were employees of investment firm Dixon Advisory — on ways they could exclude certain earnings from being reported on their U.S. tax returns.

The company's CEO Alan C. Dixon, an Australian citizen who had taken up residence in the United States to invest in the New Jersey real estate market, replaced his own tax accountancy, PwC, with John Anthony Castro.

Castro amended the tax returns PwC filed for Dixon to claim foreign tax credit on Dixon's franking credits, allowing Dixon to transform his tax liability into a $3,268,930 refund due to him from the U.S. Government.

Upon receiving the revised returns Castro prepared, the IRS initiated an audit of Dixon, assessed penalties against him, and seized his refund.

Dixon's lawsuit against the U.S. Government to recover his refund was the subject of the United States Tax Court case Alan Dixon v Commissioner of Internal Revenue, described by Tax Notes Federal as "a cautionary tale of cross-border tax compliance complexities" and by The Contemporary Tax Journal as an "interesting case for taxpayers and tax professionals ... [that] covers situations that deal with how important it is to comply with the regulations and follow the filing instructions."

According to Justia's summary of the case:

"During the litigation, it became clear that Dixon had not personally signed his name on the 2017 amended returns—the tax preparer [Castro] had signed Dixon’s name—and no authorizing power-of-attorney documentation accompanied the amended returns."

Because federal law prevents a taxpayer from suing for a refund without having previously submitted a “duly filed” claim to the IRS, and the 2017 amended returns were not “duly filed” due to the lack of a proper signature, Dixon's case against the U.S. Government was dismissed leaving him, according to the Australian Financial Review, with "nought, aside from penalties and legal fees."

The Dixon case was one of a number of cases in which Castro signed his name in place or on behalf of his Australia-resident clients.

By 2021, according to Tax Notes Federal, there had been "a long line of [court] cases caused by ... John Anthony Castro" that resulted in "a whole group of taxpayers ... keeping lawyers interested in procedural issues occupied."

In another case, according to Carlton Smith writing in Tax Notes Federal, Castro signed a client's returns since it was a "burden to send refund claims to his overseas clients to have the clients sign and return the claims" and, because "Castro’s signature is messy ... it was not until the suits had commenced that the DOJ discovered that the purported taxpayer signatures on the Forms 1040X were those of Mr. Castro and not the taxpayers."

In yet another case, according to Joshua Rosenberg of Law360, the clients "failed to sign their amended returns directly and didn't tender power of attorney to a legal representative" resulting in the denial of refund claims by the IRS, a decision subsequently upheld by a federal court.

Smith noted that "in all Castro cases" courts held that "the signature requirement mandating that the taxpayer sign is statutory and not subject to waiver" resulting in dismissals of the lawsuits Castro's clients had brought against the government seeking to reclaim their forfeited refunds.

In 2019, Castro's Enrolled Agent (EA) status was suspended by the Internal Revenue Service.

When Castro filed a Freedom of Information Act request for internal IRS records regarding his suspension, nine pages of the responsive files were redacted, leading to Castro suing the IRS so he could see the withheld files.

According to The FOIA Project, federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled against Castro, finding that the IRS "provided sufficient detail to demonstrate that Plaintiff [Castro] is under investigation by the IRS, and that disclosure of the redacted portions of these 9 pages of records would impair its investigation."

The occurrence of an investigation into Castro was subsequently confirmed to him by a client and a former employee who were each contacted by federal agents requesting information about Castro.

During the course of the agents' interrogations of the potential witnesses, they informed them that Castro was the target of their inquiry.

Castro responded to this information by filing a second lawsuit against the IRS charging the agency with violating his privacy rights by disclosing to third parties that he was the target of a criminal investigation.

His claims were rejected both by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas and, in December 2023, the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, who each found the contacts amounted to permitted investigatory disclosures.

In the early 2020s, 20 U.S. taxpayers followed Castro's advice to renege on the closing agreements they'd signed with the IRS.

All 20 taxpayers were subsequently brought before the U.S. Tax Court to face additional fees and penalties.

According to the New Hampshire Union Leader, Castro was named the recipient of Bryan Camp's farcical "Norm Peterson Award" over the matter, given to someone who takes a position in a tax case "so crazy it could only have come from Norm."