United States v. Joseph B. Altruda

224 F.2d 935, 47 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 1552, 1955 U.S. App. LEXIS 5038
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedAugust 2, 1955
Docket321, Docket 23462
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 224 F.2d 935 (United States v. Joseph B. Altruda) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Joseph B. Altruda, 224 F.2d 935, 47 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 1552, 1955 U.S. App. LEXIS 5038 (2d Cir. 1955).

Opinion

RYAN, District Judge.

The defendant appeals from a judgment of conviction and sentence imposed following a jury verdict of guilty on Count 3 of a three-count' indictment, 1 filed on November 25, 1953, which count charged a wilful and knowing attempt to evade payment of income-tax due for the calendar year 1947,' in violation of Section 145(b),‘Title 26 U.S.C.

The trial judge, at the close of the presentation of the evidence dismissed Count 1, 2 charging attempted evasion for 1945 and Count 2 charging attempted evasion for 1946 on the ground that the applicable six-year statute of limitations had run. Section 3748, 26 U.S.C.

The defendant was sentenced to five months -imprisonment and fined $2,000; he was released on bail pending deter *937 mination on this appeal. Because we have concluded that the judgment of conviction must be reversed and a new trial ordered, we deem it necessary to discuss the trial record at length.

The prosecution was conducted on the net worth expenditure theory and was predicated entirely on statements, data, information and other evidence secured from “leads” voluntarily furnished by the defendant to Internal Revenue investigating and auditing agents. 3

The principal source of defendant’s income through 1948 was from the practice of his profession as a doctor; however, from 1943 on, he had additional income from the ownership and operation of three parcels of realty in New York City which he acquired in 1943, 1944 and 1945, and he had further income during the years 1943 through 1948 from the purchase, ownership and sale of stocks and bonds which he carried in accounts with two brokerage firms.

When first interviewed in June, 1947 by an examining agent in connection with an office audit of his 1945 return, the defendant stated that the cash funds he had used for the purchase of the realty and securities had come from an inheritance and from life savings accumulated over a period of twenty-three years. In July, 1947 he brought the agent a statement 4 which was intended to reveal the source and extent of these savings and the annual accretions. It covered three separate years — 1928, 1932 and 1939 — and showed average earnings, estimated cash receipts, bank deposits and living and operating expenditures and approximate savings per annum. He then also exhibited to the agent statements of his brokerage accounts and of a bank account for 1945. In 1948, upon request for additional information he submitted his current bank statements. There were later assigned to this agent the office audits of the defendant’s returns for the years 1943 through 1948. Following this, and in April, 1949, the agent requested further data; he next met with the defendant at the office of an accountant engaged by the defendant and such records as were claimed to be available were shown to him. The defendant had not kept books of account and his records of treatments of patients, he explained, either had been long since destroyed by a small fire in the basement of his home or rendered illegible by water damage resulting from a flood in. the basement. The defendant’s accountant prepared and sent to the agent by mail on July 9, 1949 a number of statements. Among these were a statement, of the defendant’s assets and liabilities, reflecting his net worth as of January 1, 1941; 5 a similar statement of net worth as of December 31, 1948; 6 a schedule of defendant’s living and office expenses for the period January 1, 1925 to January 1, 1941; 7 a like schedule for the period January 1, 1941 to December 31, 1948; 8 and an historical statement by the defendant dated May, 1949. 9 ,

To establish a prima facie case under the net worth theory the Government was required to prove the worth of the defendant on January 1, 1947. This the Supreme Court has called “an essential condition.” 10

It was the signed statement of the defendant listing his assets and liabili *938 ties as of January 1, 1941 which was used by the Government to prove an opening net worth as of that date made up of $59,875 cash on hand, $12.10 bank balance and $7,785, the surrender value of a life insurance policy, totaling in all $67,673-10. The Government, then, with data furnished by the defendant and information it had gathered sought to prove the defendant’s net worth at the year end 1941 and each year end through the indictment year — 1947—and the succeeding year — 1948. The Government sought to reconcile the closing figures of these calculations with the statement furnished by the defendant of his net worth as of December 31,1948, and this reconciliation the Government contended was corroborative of the accuracy of its computations for the years 1941 through 1948. 11

The defendant’s net worth statement as of December 31, 1948 listed cash on hand — $100; bank balance — $8.90; stocks and bonds (at cost) — $52,049.28 (the market value was given as $28,399.-88); realty (at cost) — $499,630 (although depreciation had been charged off in the amount of $37,186.69); total assets of $551,788.18 and liabilities of mortgages on realty $399,143.69 and debits on brokerage accounts of $9,081.-29; total liabilities $408,224.98, reflecting a net worth of $143,563.20. Bearing in mind that the defendant admitted a net worth of $67,672.10 as of January 1, 1941, he did not dispute that from that date to December 31, 1948 — a period of eight years — his net worth increased $75,891.10. The Government in its calculations increased the assets of the defendant by crediting him with capital improvements to his realty holdings of $561.61 in 1947 and $5,504.05 in 1948, totaling $6,065.66, thus increasing his net worth as of December 31, 1948 from $143,563.20 to $149,628.86. It was not disputed by the defendant that these capital improvements in the amount stated were made. The burden was on the Government to establish what portion of this increase in net worth accrued during the prosecution year — 1947.

The evidence, accepting the Government’s calculations, shows the defendant to have been convicted of an attempt to evade payment of income tax due for the year 1947 on income totaling $3,189.87 — ■ consisting of fraudulently unreported income from his practice of $2,063.87 and from his dividends of $1,126. At the same time the Government’s calculations show that when computed from the » standpoint of fraud, the defendant overstated his income for 1948 to the extent of $3,393.04, being an overstatement of income from his practice of $4,490.62 and an omission of income from dividends of $247.69 and from capital gains on sale of stock of $303.89.

The computations of the Government were based on acceptance of the defendant’s statement that on January 1, 1941 he did in fact possess no larger a cash fund than $59,875.

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Bluebook (online)
224 F.2d 935, 47 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 1552, 1955 U.S. App. LEXIS 5038, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-joseph-b-altruda-ca2-1955.