Legal Question in Tax Law in Iowa

Failure to file federal tax returns.

A friend of mine has not filed his taxes for 2000, 2001, and 2002. He has filled them out except for the Schedule C of his 1040 in 2002, for which he has insufficient business records to complete the Schedule. He refuses to file the currently completed 2000 and 2001 forms for unimportant reasons.

He has received a letter from the IRS saying that they have not received his 2001 tax return and he may face criminal prosecution if it is not sent in. They also included a form to mail with the tax return to explain why it was not filed on time. Which leads to my question... does he have to be entirely truthful in his excuse, or would a generalized white lie be a legal answer?


Asked on 8/04/03, 1:37 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys

Lawrence Graves Coolidge & Graves PLLC

Re: Failure to file federal tax returns.

In the face of actual correspondence from the IRS, a lawyer cannot properly advise you on a response without reviewing the specific documents. The advice that I can give unequivocally is to immediately seek help from a qualified CPA to get the returns into shape for filing, and have a tax lawyer evaluate the letter to ascertain whether there is any real likelihood of criminal investigation or proceedings.

Best wishes,

LDWG

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Answered on 8/04/03, 2:04 pm
Eitan Adasha Eitan Adasha - Law Office

Re: Failure to file federal tax returns.

We do only Israeli Law therefore we can not help you regarding the the above issue.

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Answered on 8/05/03, 1:57 am


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