A federal court in Honolulu has permanently barred four Hawai'i residents from promoting an alleged tax-fraud scheme, justice Department officials announced yesterday.

The civil injunction issued by Senior Judge Samuel P. King orders Morgan Liddell, Cherie Bright, Loren Trenholm and Edward Coda as well as two companies — Bright Enterprises and Hawaii Financial Specialists — from participating in the alleged tax fraud, according to a Justice Department news release.

The four individuals and two companies consented to the injunction orders, according to the news release.

The Justice Department complaint filed in the case in August alleged that the defendants promoted a scheme that created false tax deductions for customers through a series of sham transactions involving purported business insurance and retirement accounts,

The suit alleged that customers using the scheme transferred money offshore as either purported tax deductible insurance premiums or IRA investments, then got the funds back through transactions designed to conceal that the customers were merely recovering their own money.