I read in today's newpaper that a man plead guilty to filing false tax returns to avoid paying $40,000 in taxes. How common are such prosecutions? What sort of penalty would be involved? No, I haven't done anything wrong (I certainly wouldn't have posted here if I had!); the paper doesn't say, and I am just curious.
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As worded, neither IRS nor Dept of Justice disposes of matters like that. Horrid tax policy.
It's possible a plea deal did not contain a restitution agreement, such as where the defendant had no more money left (e.g., paid out to attorneys), but IRS will still set up the tax and penalties and attempt to collect. So, maybe it's what the defendant erroneously thought the deal was, and told media.
Fred F.
News of this kind of thing is very common this time of year. The IRS wants to scare everyone into paying their taxes. Stu
Check out the following pages of IRS.GOV, you might get a feel for what is being pursued.
supposedly they are common enough that the irs runs stories like that around this time of year most every year to encourage voluntary compliance with tax laws he wasn't avoiding tax (legal), he was evading tax (illegal) seems imprisonment might be one of the "penalties" involved for the criminal tax evasion
1800 actual, annual pros cases means they considered, to at least some degree, tens of thousands. Serious "errors" not referred for prosecution are subject to civil penalties ranging from 20% to 75%. That has excellent enforcement effect too. Presuming staffing were not much an issue, especially Dept. of Justice, excessive prosecutions would be counter-productive. They don't want t/p's feeling they need a criminal defense attorney to discuss a common audit matter, though it may involve high $$ and/or degree of negligence. IRS calls it "balanced enforcement." Fred F.
proving fraud means proving intent, which is hard to do
how many of the 1800 didn't go to prison, did it say?
The key issue regarding the citations on the web site:
These were cases investigated, with sufficient evidence that either conviction occurred, or plea agreement was reached. As you can imagine, some cases referred for investigation do not reach this stage. The details are not made public, but thee might be a STAT in the SOI on investigations initiated.
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