Sunday, June 06, 1999
IRS: Late tax forms don't count
Bankruptcy court refuses to discharge man's back taxes
BY BEN KAUFMAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Failing to file federal tax returns can create costly complications in a bankruptcy.
William C. Hindenlang asked the Bankruptcy Court in Cincinnati to discharge his debt to the Internal Revenue Service.
That's allowed, except when returns are not filed.
Mr. Hindenlang didn't file 1040 forms for 1985-87, and the IRS sent him a bill. In 1993, he sent in what he said were returns but did not pay what he owed.
The Bankruptcy Court and U.S. District Judge Sandra S. Beckwith sided with Mr. Hindenlang: The tardy forms complied with the law and taxes did not have to be paid.
The IRS appealed and won.
Appellate Judges Martha Craig Daughtrey, Karen Nelson Moore and Avern Cohn said IRS forms do not qualify as “returns” after a taxpayer is billed.
At that point, the 6th Circuit said, the documents serve “no purpose at all under the Internal Revenue Code” and “cannot, as a matter of law, qualify as an honest and reasonable attempt to satisfy the requirements of the tax law.”
Violation by definition
Lisa Rettelle will escape a mandatory five-year minimum sentence because the judge stretched the definition of “a violation” too far.
She admitted growing 93 marijuana plants in 1993, but U.S. District Judge Robert H. Cleland in Bay City, Mich., hammered her with the mandatory sentence for 100 or more plants. He included 12 plants she admitted growing in 1992.
The indictment included all of the marijuana plants Ms. Rettelle grew “from a time unknown to the grand jury to on or about May 11, 1993.”
Appellate Judges Alice M. Batchelder, Karen Nelson Moore and Solomon Oliver Jr. said two crops in different years could not be considered one violation.
Further, the indictment and guilty plea referred only to plants seized in 1993.
She is to be resentenced under guidelines for fewer than 100 plants.
Wasted, wasted time
The Justice Department wasted so much time that it violated Brian Brown's 6th Amendment right to a speedy trial on conspiracy and drug charges.
That was the trial judge's conclusion, affirmed by appellate Judges Richard Suhrheinrich, Eric L. Clay and James G. Carr. They said the government was “to blame for the delay.”
Mr. Brown was arrested and freed on bond June 9, 1992, but no formal complaint was filed until Oct. 15.
The Dec. 1, 1992, indictment in Detroit was unsealed on Feb. 18, 1993, and a warrant was issued, but prosecutors did not contact Mr. Brown's attorney, who had promised to bring in his client if asked.
FBI agents never called Mr. Brown's telephone number, although it was provided by his grandmother.
Mr. Brown was arrested by state police on an unrelated charge on Oct. 5, 1996, and identified as the federal fugitive. State authorities held him at the request of federal authorities.
FBI agents tried unsuccessfully to nudge the U.S. attorney into action; a third prosecutor was assigned to the case in May 1997 but waited two months to meet agents.
Mr. Brown was arraigned in mid-July 1997 and detained without bond.
Finally, on Oct. 27, 1997, U.S. District Judge Horace W. Gilmore dismissed the charges and said they could not be refiled. He found no proof Mr. Brown or his lawyer knew about the charges or the FBI had sought Mr. Brown diligently.
Voting for two
Assisting blind Michigan voters does not violate the state constitution's guarantee of “secrecy of the ballot,” the 6th Circuit said.
Similarly, assistance does not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or Rehabilitation Act (RA), Judges Robert B. Krupansky, David A. Nelson and Alice M. Batchelder said.
The case began when blind Michiganders asked the state to provide a method that would allow them to vote without another person's assistance.
Michigan officials refused. They said the present system, in which a person chosen by the blind voter marks the ballot, met state and federal requirements.
U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell in Lansing dismissed the suit and the 6th Circuit agreed, saying blind voters “can state no facts tending to establish that they are being denied any right in violation of the ADA and the RA.”
Further, no Michigan court has said state voting procedures violated the state constitution, and that was good enough for the 6th Circuit.
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