Jaffers & Associates Jaffers and Associates Shawn Jaffers Forcing me to Pay taxes on their Income Dallas Texas

 Step 1 the State Bar of Texas has affirmed my Grievance in its entirety. Jaffers &Associates have 30 days to respond to the Texas State Bar and to me. Once the State Bar receives the response, they will affirm the grievance and it will move to the next step or they will deny and dismiss the complaint. Once I receive something else, I’ll once again provide an update. I have attached the letter from The State Bar. Additionally, Jaffers & Associates did not respond to the BBB in regards to my complaint. The complaint will remain open for the years and be available to view. Please do not hire Attorney without making sure: 1) they are NOT going to take 90% of your settlement; 2) Any monetary settlement is sent directly to you from the Defending party, making sure not to sign any documents that gives consent for the Attorney to be paid directly by the other party. This will leave you in control of how your money is dispersed and give you a leg to stand on in order to negotiate their fees. 3) clarify how they account for and charge for their time, whether it’s billed by actual time spent or if their time is rounded up, example a 7 minutes action is rounded up and billed for 15 minutes 4) Make sure you’re 100% Involved in everything! 5) you are receiving a daily accounting of every action taken, along with proof of the action. If you’re told they had a 15 minute phone call, they should be able to provide you with a copy of the recorded conversation, if they tell you it took them 45 minutes to type up paperwork, have them prove it to you by completing the same documents again in your presence. 6) Each day, you need to discuss exactly what is happening on your case, being informed of the actions being taken and be in receipt of copies of everything included in your file including any notes, correspondence, Court Documents, receipts for any money the Attorney says he fronted (paid out) on your behalf. You need to have an up-to-date exact duplicate file in your possession that matches everything through the current day. Once your case is finished, you should not need anything from your Attorney. Regardless, I would still request in writing for the Attorney to send you an exact duplicates of everything contained in your case file. 7) verify who is paying their fees/costs, how they will get paid, whether or not the Settlement Sum will contain the fees/cost due to the Attorney, whether or not the defendant is responsible for the fees or if you are. In my case, the Retainer agreement is written very confusing since in one place it states, "Subject to our review and acceptance of your matter, the Law Firm agrees to represent you in reliance of the fee-shifting provisions of the statutes identified above. In other words, we will not charge you for our time and instead will bill the Defendant(s) for our fee, expenses and costs.” However, contradictory statements follow, " You authorize Attorney to negotiate their Attorney’s fees with Defendants in any settlement or You authorize Attorney to recover their Attorney’s fees through the Court in any judgement or award. Subject to applicable law, if the Attorney advances any costs necessary to prosecute the case such as court filing fees, service of process fees, mediation fees, court reporter fees, deposition costs, then the Attorney shall be repaid out of any settlement, judgment, or award after attorney’s fees have been deducted. You understand that this fee is not set by law and is negotiable between Attorney and You. You agree not to waive in whole or in part the right to recover attorneys’ fees and/or costs as a condition of settlement.” Bear in mind, I was NEVER included or anything, nor did this Attorney reach out to me at any time and discuss the plan of action. I was NOT provided copies of any Court Documents and to date, I have received NOTHING from my case file despite numerous requests. To date, I do not know if this case had a court hearing, settlement was agreed upon without court or what transpired. Based on the conversations I’ve had with Jaffers & Associates, I believe my case was handled outside of court and the parties simply came to an agreement. In which case, the Settlement would not contain any money due the Attorneys. nor would the Settlement be subject to any Attorney fees/costs. Also, it does not state my Judgment would contain the funds due the Attorney. It also doesn’t specify is the Attorney is to receive a Settlement of their own. This is a question I have yet to get a response to. I have no way of knowing what all was filed in my case. For all I know, Jaffers & Associates could have billed the Defendant directly as it states in the Retainer. There could actually be a second award in favor of the Attorney for the fees/costs incurred or fronted.

 Who the check is made payable to makes zero difference whatsoever. The money is a settlement that belongs to you, it was sent to the lawyers on your behalf. Therefore you are the correct recipient of the 1099. The lawyers get their own 1099 that indicates the payment was made to them on your behalf. Believe it or not, you have to pay income tax even on money you give to lawyers. Straight from the IRS instructions for form 1099-MISC: "These rules apply whether or not: The legal services are provided to the payer; The attorney is the exclusive payee (for example, the attorney's and claimant's names are on one check); or Other information returns are required for some or all of a payment under another section of the Code, such as section 6041. For example, a person who, in the course of a trade or business, pays $600 of taxable damages to a claimant by paying that amount to a claimant's attorney is required to: Furnish Form 1099-MISC to the claimant, reporting damages pursuant to section 6041, generally in box 3; and Furnish Form 1099-MISC to the claimant’s attorney, reporting gross proceeds paid pursuant to section 6045(f) in box 10."

 So where is my case file that I have requested? Everything inclusive including copies of the check Jaffers received? Where is the Accounting of the time spent on my case with dates, times, exactly what was done, how long it took, with the proof attached? Since I contacted you and stated I had been harassed for 3 years and emotionally I was worn out, why wasn’t this filed as a Personal Injury Suit? Why was I not contacted and given the opportunity to go over any filings you intended to make on my behalf? Why wasn’t it filed as a suit for punitive damages? Please never hire Jaffers & Associates, Attorney to represent you - they will take 90% of "your settlement” you have zero choice whether to pay that or not - it’s deducted from the money sent to them! Money you never ever see! 90%! You receive 10% but have to pay the IRS 20-25%! You owe more than double what you received! There is Zero benefit to you to have them represent you! The representation only benefits them. This situation isn’t over! I will continue to provide updates as this progresses! Read, Read, Read ALL NEGATIVE REVIEWS BEFORE YOU DO BUSINESS WITH ANYONE esp these guys!!! Look at Complaints filed through BBB and other appropriate sources! Read reviews here, Google, Yelp and other places!

There was never ever a $9,000 check written to me! The check was written to Jaffers & Associates. Jaffers sent me a check for $1,000. The State Bar of Texas can handle this one as well as the IRS. I’ve already spoken to the IRS and they confirmed I am correct! Jaffers is committing Tax Evasion and not reporting their $8,000 income! Their response proves my point!

 The settlement was paid to you. You also owed the lawyers for their services, so they took their fees out of the payment to you. If someone paid you $9000 and you paid the lawyers $8000, that would be an income of $9000 to you. This doesn't change just because the lawyers handled the payment. If the IRS agrees you can deduct their fees from your settlement, you can do that on your tax return. So then you would have income of $9000 and a deduction of $8000, thus an income of $1000. But there needs to be some basis for claiming the deduction.