Rambo Judge Grants Mercy to Convicted Foreign Account Holder

In United States v. Purpura, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28748 (MD PA 2012), Judge Sylvia H. Rambo granted the convicted defendant's motion to withdraw his plea of guilty to two counts of tax perjury, Section 7206(2) related to a false answer to the Schedule B foreign account question.  The opinion is short and sensitive, so I quote virtually the whole opinion:

The petitioner is 64 years old and resides in Mechanicsburg, PA. He is a married, permanent resident legal alien who was born in Italy. In 1994, a two-count criminal Information was filed by the United States against Purpura charging him in each count with making false statements on his federal income tax returns in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7206(1). An investigation by the United States into the criminal conduct of another person led to the examination of Purpura's income tax returns. It was determined that his tax returns incorrectly certified that Purpura did not have any financial interest in bank accounts in his native country of Italy or in any foreign nation during the two years in question, 1990 and 1991.

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JAT Comments:

1. The key years are old years, long before the offshore account initiatives.  Accordingly, I do not include this case on the spreadsheet.

2. The ground for deportation was conviction of a crime of moral turpitude which is not the aggravated felony ground that the Supreme Court recently addressed in Kawashima v. Holder, ___ U.S. ___, ___ S.Ct. ___, 2012 U.S. LEXIS 1084 (2012), here.  (My blog on the Supreme Court's decision, Supreme Court Rules Tax Perjury and Aiding & Assisting Are Deportable Aggravated Felonies (2/21/12), is here.

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View Jack Townsend's opinion in its entirety on the Federal Tax Crimes blog site.

For additional insight, explore Tax Crimes, authored by Jack Townsend and available at the LexisNexis® Store.

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