United States v. Thomas Tuka

652 F. App'x 99
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedJune 14, 2016
Docket13-4475
StatusUnpublished

This text of 652 F. App'x 99 (United States v. Thomas Tuka) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third 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. Thomas Tuka, 652 F. App'x 99 (3d Cir. 2016).

Opinion

*100 OPINION *

SMITH, Circuit Judge.

In this appeal, Defendant-Appellant Thomas Tuka challenges his convictions and subsequent sentencing for multiple counts of tax evasion, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7201, and multiple counts of willful failure to file tax returns, in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7203. For the reasons stated below, we will affirm.

I.

Though Tuka denies it, he is — by all accounts — a tax protestor. Nevertheless, he apparently was not always a tax protestor; he filed tax returns and paid any taxes due as required by law for at least the several years preceding the events underlying his convictions. After Tuka became disabled and was unable to perform his duties as a commercial airline pilot for U.S. Airways in 1996, he began receiving disability benefits under the U.S. Air Pilot Disability Plan. Because U.S. Airways treated the disability benefits as taxable income, the plan administrator withheld taxes from these payments pursuant to Tuka’s then-current Form W-4. In 1996, Tuka filed a tax return.

Beginning in 1997, Tuka became con-, vinced that federal taxes were “unconstitutional,” and instructed the plan administrator, from that point forward, to cease withholding taxes from his disability payments. Around this time, and through at least 2010, Tuka also began expressing his view that taxes were unconstitutional to numerous individuals.

Then, in 1998, after learning of a provision in the tax code allowing taxpayers to file amended returns for past years, Tuka asked his tax advisor at H&R Block to help him fill out amended returns for tax years 1996 and 1997. He did so in order to try to recover the taxes paid on his disability benefits for those years. After some urging by Tuka, the tax advisor agreed to prepare the amended returns along with a statement requesting a ruling from the Internal Revenue Service on whether Tuka’s disability benefits were taxable income. Shortly after Tuka submitted these documents, the IRS sent Tuka a check for roughly $14,000 as a partial refund of his tax liability for 1996; the IRS did not issue any refund for 1997.

When Tuka filed a return for tax year 1999, he omitted his disability benefits from his calculation of taxable income, leading the IRS to issue to Tuka a notice of deficiency. Tuka challenged this,notice in the United States Tax Court, arguing that his disability benefits were tax-exempt. In a January 2003 written opinion the Tax Court ruled against Tuka, concluding that his disability benefits were indeed taxable income. This Court summarily affirmed. See Tuka v. Comm’r of Internal Revenue, 120 T.C. 1, aff'd 85 Fed.Appx. 875 (3d Cir.2003).

Beginning with tax year 2000, Tuka ceased submitting tax returns altogether, including for the years after he lost the above-referenced Tax Court case and appeal. He also left in place his instructions to the plan administrator to not withhold taxes from his disability benefits, and, in 2005, when a different company assumed responsibility for administering the plan, he sent the new administrator written instructions to the same effect. At all times relevant to this appeal the plan administrators complied with Tuka’s instructions.

*101 A grand jury indicted Tuka on four counts of felony tax evasion (one for each tax year between 2003 and 2006) and three counts of misdemeanor willful failure to file a return (one for each tax year between 2006 and 2008). Following trial in January 2013, a jury convicted Tuka on all counts. At sentencing, the District Court increased Tuka’s Sentencing Guidelines range under U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 after finding that Tuka willfully attempted to obstruct justice by perjuring himself at trial. The court then sentenced Tuka to thirty months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. This timely appeal followed. 1

II.

On appeal, Tuka raises two claims for our review. First, he claims that the government presented insufficient evidence at trial to sustain the jury’s verdict on any of his tax evasion and failure-to-file charges. Second, he argues that the District Court erred in applying the sentencing enhancement for perjury under U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1. We will address each argument in turn.

A.

When reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a conviction, “[w]e review the evidence in the light most favorable to the government.” United States v. McKee, 506 F.3d 225, 232 (3d Cir.2007). We will overturn a conviction for insufficient evidence only if no rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt based on the evidence adduced at trial. Id.

In order to sustain Tuka’s convictions for tax evasion under 26 U.S.C. § 7201, the government was required to prove three elements with respect to each of the tax years in question: “1) the existence of a tax deficiency, 2) an affirmative act constituting an attempt to evade or defeat payment of the tax, and 3) willfulness.” United States v. Farnsworth, 456 F.3d 394, 401 (3d Cir.2006) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Similarly, to convict Tuka for willful failure to file a tax return under 26 U.S.C. § 7203, the government had to prove, for each of the tax years in question, that: (1) Tuka was required to file a tax return, (2) he failed to do so, and (3) his failure was willful. McKee, 506 F.3d at 244.

Tuka concedes the first element as to each of his tax evasion convictions (i.e., that he owed taxes for each of the years in question), as well as the first two elements of his failure-to-file convictions (i.e., that he was required, and that he failed, to file a tax return), but claims that the government presented insufficient evidence that he willfully took affirmative steps to evade payment, and that his failure to submit returns was willful. Tuka is wrong on all accounts.

“The definition of willfulness is the same under both felony (§ 7201) and' misdemeanor (§ 7203) tax charges.... In both cases, willfulness may be inferred from a pattern of conduct, the likely effect of which would be to mislead or to conceal.” United States v. McGill, 964 F.2d 222, 237 (3d Cir.1992) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Furthermore, because “[ejvidence of affirmative acts may be used to show willfulness, and the defendant must commit the affirmative acts willfully to be convicted of tax evasion,” we have noted that the willfulness and affirmative-act elements of tax evasion are “closely connected.” Id.

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Related

Cheek v. United States
498 U.S. 192 (Supreme Court, 1991)
United States v. Dunnigan
507 U.S. 87 (Supreme Court, 1993)
United States v. Walter A. Connor, Jr.
898 F.2d 942 (Third Circuit, 1990)
United States v. Arthur L. Farnsworth
456 F.3d 394 (Third Circuit, 2006)
United States v. McKee
506 F.3d 225 (Third Circuit, 2007)
Tuka v. Comm'r
120 T.C. No. 1 (U.S. Tax Court, 2003)

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652 F. App'x 99, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-thomas-tuka-ca3-2016.