Tag Archive for Tax Evasion case

Swiss Bankers Skirt Jail Time in U.S. Tax Evasion Case Thanks To ‘Cooperation Agreement’

A combined fine of $225,000 and five years of unsupervised probation without jail time was handed down to two former bankers of Credit Suisse AG. Josef Dörig and Andreas Bachmann, both Swiss nationals, received the reduced sentence due to their cooperation with U.S. authorities.

Their crime: helping U.S. citizens evade taxes. Just one year ago, Credit Suisse pleaded guilty to “knowingly and willfully” assisting numerous American clients to commit tax evasion. How? By helping its U.S. clients open accounts and then hide the income generated by those accounts from the IRS. The penalty – which is considered to be the “cornerstone” of plea agreements when a company is the defendant in a tax evasion case – did not come without a price. In order to make “peace” with the U.S. government, Read More

Written by | Posted in Tax Fraud/Evasion/Crimes

Strategic Decision-Making In Criminal Tax Cases – Part 1

TaxConnections Member and Blogger posts about criminal tax casesTO FILE OR NOT TO FILE AN AMENDED RETURN TO CORRECT AN ORIGINAL RETURN THAT HAS CRIMINAL TAX DIMENSIONS – THAT IS THE QUESTION

Your client has filed a fraudulent return underreporting his tax liability. He now has misgivings. He comes to you and expresses great concern. What should you do?

The crime of tax evasion is complete upon filing the return. There are two possible exceptions. First, if the taxpayer filed the return before the normal due date (April 15 for an individual taxpayer and March 15 for a calendar year corporation), the taxpayer can purge the fraud by filing a non-fraudulent amended return on or before the normal due date. This opportunity also applies if a superseding return purges the fraud during an applicable extension period.

More times than not, the taxpayer cannot qualify for these exceptions and the question becomes one of damage control. Is it wise to file an amended tax return – after the due date – to correct an original return that has criminal tax dimensions? There are two schools of thought. First are those practitioners that oppose filing an amended return to correct an original return that contains an understatement of tax liability. They rely on the common-sense argument that doing so will establish one of the key elements of tax evasion: tax due and owing. Thus, making such an admission does nothing more than bring the taxpayer one step closer to conviction and his attorney one step closer to an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, having assisted the government in proving its case against his client. Read More

Written by | Posted in Federal • Individual • United States