US Law Archives - Page 40 of 71

Tax Problems of the Stars

Fox News: “the IRS has filed more than $6.3 million in liens against [Nicolas]Cage for back taxes owed from 2002, 2004, and 2007. . . . But the ‘National Treasure’ star isn’t the first celebrity to owe big money to Uncle Sam. A few have even spent time behind bars for failing to pay taxes. Hopefully, Nic will avoid that fate and start building up his nest egg with the earnings from the four films he’ll be starring in next year. In the meantime, maybe he can get a few tips from these celebrity tax evaders.”

Pilots Who Forgot to Land No Longer Allowed to Fly

Lowering the Bar: “The Northwest Airlines pilots who failed to respond to air-traffic controllers for 90 minutes, missed their destination by 120 miles, and claimed they had ‘lost track of time’ while using their laptops, have been stripped of their licenses by the FAA.”

F-4 Phantom II For five years in the USAF I flew the multi-million dollar supersonic (mach 2+) F-4 Phantom fighter-bomber. Twice I picked up a brand new Phantom from the McDonald Douglas factory in St. Louis, Missouri, and flew across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean then north over Turkey to deliver the airplanes to the Shah of Iran’s air force in Tehran, Iran. For three years I was an instructor who taught USAF and German students to fly the Phantom at George AFB, California.

I flew the Phantom over the U.S., Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, North Vietnam, Spain, Turkey, Germany and Iran. Based on my experience and knowledge of piloting airplanes, I believe that there is no possible explanation that would justify what the pilots did. The pilots messed up big time and deserve to be punished.

See “Another Life: Flying the F-4 Phantom in the United States Air Force” for more about my days of providing asset protection for the United States.

DOJ Sues to Prevent $562 Million in Bogus Tax Refunds

The Department of Justice issued a press release today, October 28, 2009, about $3.3 trillion in fraudulent refunds. In Washington they used to say a billion here and a billion there, pretty soon you are talking about a lot of money. Now it’s a trillion here and a trillion there. You have to admire the audacity of the schemers.

The United States this week has filed civil injunction lawsuits across the country against seven individuals, the Justice Department announced today. The federal suits – filed in Los Angeles; Panama City, Fla.; Salt Lake City; Nashville, Tenn.; and Pocatello, Idaho – allege that the defendants promote a tax fraud scheme designed to siphon hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S. Treasury through fraudulent tax refund claims.

Papers filed in the cases say the defendants prepared tax returns requesting a total of $562.4 million in bogus refunds. One defendant – Dick Jenkins, of Heber City, Utah – allegedly holds himself out as a CPA and requested a $210 million fraudulent refund for one customer. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) catches the vast majority of the bogus tax returns and blocks the claimed refunds.

Under the tax fraud scheme, known as the “redemption” or “OID redemption” scheme, participants file a series of false IRS forms, including tax returns, amended returns, and Forms 1099 (including Form 1099-OID) or Forms W-2, to request fraudulent tax refunds based on phony claims of large income tax withholding. According to papers filed in these cases and earlier cases against other alleged scheme promoters, redemption scheme promoters are tax defiers who falsely tell customers that the federal government maintains “secret” accounts of money for its citizens. Promoters claim to be able to help customers access the secret funds by filing the false IRS forms.

Altogether, according to the IRS, redemption scheme participants (including customers of the defendants in the seven lawsuits filed this week) have requested a total of $3.3 trillion in fraudulent refunds.

Food Police Go After Oysters

The Times-Picayune: “the FDA announced new rules this month that will require any oyster served from April through October to undergo a sterilization process before it can be sold in restaurants or on the market. The rule will essentially eliminate raw oysters — at least as Louisianans know them — from restaurant menus for seven months of the year. Even oysters that will eventually be cooked during those months would have to go through the same cleansing process before being added to any dish, a move some say would undermine the culinary integrity of some of New Orleans’ most famous delicacies.”

“It’s not only going to include raw oysters. You can’t fry oysters for a po-boy, you can’t put oysters in a gumbo and you can’t charbroil oysters unless they’re post-harvest processed,” said Tommy Cvitanovich, owner of Drago’s restaurant, a mainstay for oysters in the metro area. ‘That’s ludicrous.’”

PepsiCo Seeks to Set Aside $1.2 Billion Default Judgment

Law.com: “What’s the cost of not showing up to court? For PepsiCo Inc., it’s a $1.26 billion default judgment. A Wisconsin state court socked the company with the monster award in a case alleging that PepsiCo stole the idea to bottle and sell purified water from two Wisconsin men. Now the company is scrambling to salvage the situation. The damages award was handed down on Sept. 30. PepsiCo filed motions to vacate the order and dismiss the claims on Oct. 13, saying it wasn’t even aware of the lawsuit until Oct. 6.”

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