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SCARED STRAIGHT?

April 13, 2007

The annual flurry of indictments, sentencings and plea deals for tax cheats continued yesterday. A sample:

Denver Attorney Indicted on Tax Evasion Charges

Memphis Business Woman Arrested On Tax Evasion And Theft Charges

Big Dig contractor strikes deal on tax evasion charge

This one struck me as especially interesting. It involved a bunch of doctors from North Platte, Nebraska, who somehow got hooked up with Lowell Baisden, a Bakersfield, California CPA:

Several of Baisden's customers are physicians and nurse anesthetists from North Platte, Neb., many of whom have not filed past-due tax returns. According to Baisden's plan, the customers created real estate and forestry corporations, but almost all of the income reported by the corporations was derived from the customers' income from their jobs in the medical profession. Baisden reported deductions for the corporations for customers' lawn care expenses, expenses related to their personal residences, car expenses, and for one customer, the purchase cost and storage fees for an airplane.

If their lawns look like mine does, the forestry deductions might not be out of the question. Still, a U.S. District court has issued an injunction to stop Mr. Baisden from promoting this setup.

It's always surprising to me that somebody who is smart enough to make it through medical school isn't smart enough to avoid something like this. Everybody on Mr. Baisden's client list now will get to develop a close working relationship with the IRS.

Crossposted at chequer-board.net, where I'm helping to fill in while the regular blogger vacations. He obviously doesn't do tax.

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