Florida Couple Fails To Check References Or Keep Receipts – Does Not End Well In Tax Court
A Florida couple got a painful tax lesson following an even more painful lesson in how not to be a landlord. The sad story is in Tax Court Summary Opinion 2017-79. ...
Manafort And Gates – That’s How They Got Al Capone
As it works out, in the 12 count indictment seven of the counts are for failure to file FBAR. For Manafort it was 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. For Gates it was 2011, 2012 and 2013. You may read in some stories, like this one in the Washington Post, that Manafort and Gates are facing a combined potential of 150 years in prison. If that were true the FBARs would account for 70 of those years. That is not, however, how sentencing actually works. The United States Sentencing Commission has a manual on how to compute guideline sentences. It is a fairly complicated process involving the determination of an “offense level” that is then cross-referenced with a criminal history. There is a chapter on how multiple counts enter into determining the offence level. That is also complicated, but, bottom line, it is not additive. Of course, Manafort is nearly seventy years old, so even a much more modest guideline sentence might intimidate him.
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Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.