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Tax Law & Practice Section MCLE Program Webinar September 30

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Tax Law & Practice Section MCLE Program Webinar September 30 Tax Law & Practice Section MCLE Program Webinar September 30, 2020 11:45 AM – Noon Welcome/Introductions Kimberly Nagle, Section Chair Noon – 1:00 PM Program How to Protect Yourself from Potential Client-Caused Federal Criminal/Civil Penalties Howard L. Stone, Esq. Stone McGuire & Siegel, P.C. Speakers’ Bio are attached Failure to protect yourself against various client frauds makes yourself personally susceptible to substantial financial and criminal liability. Learning how to proactively protect yourself, your reputation, and your finances from false allegations and client fraud is key. Link to Evaluation The evaluation must be completed in order to receive CLE credit. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TaxLaw093020 Next Meeting: TBD COVID Relief Fund The DCBA and the DuPage Bar Foundation have established an assistance fund for lawyers facing personal hardship due to the downturn in work caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Please help us promote the availability of this fund, and, if you are in need, please submit a confidential application at www.dcba.org/reliefapply. Donations to the fund are also welcome at www.dcba.org/reliefdonate.” Earn CLE Online! DCBA OnDemand CLE is Now Powered by IICLE The Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education (IICLE®)and the DuPage County Bar Association (DCBA) are excited to offer a new IICLE®Share collaboration to provide DCBA members a high quality and reliable online learning experience. Members can find the link to The Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education (IICLE) on the DCBA website under “Legal Community” → OnDemand CLE → Online CLE Catalog. You must be logged into your DCBA Membership Profile in order to view courses for free or at a reduced price View & Print CLE Certificates through the DCBA Website: Manage Profile -> Professional Development (under content & features) and choose the icon to the left of each meeting to print your certificate directly or choose to have them emailed to you to save to your computer (you MUST be logged in to view this feature) The DCBA Law Practice Management and Technology Section invites you to subscribe to The Friday Files which you can find in the handouts for today’s program. This newsletter consists of links to articles, blog posts, podcasts and technology reviews that will help you improve the management of your law practice. Join the Law Practice Section on your DCBA member profile so you don’t miss this valuable benefit. You can find a catalog of all issues of The Friday Files at www.dcba.org/thefridayfiles. Speaker’ Bio Howard Stone is an accomplished litigator and investigative lawyer with extensive experience in white-collar criminal defense and health care and health care administrative law. A former IRS agent and former Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois, he is experienced in both civil and white collar criminal defense. He started and caused the indictment and conviction of eleven Illinois State Legislators for bribery in a case involving concrete ready-mix truck weight legislation. In private practice for over 40 years, Howard has focused on defending health care providers in investigations by United States Department of Justice and the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General (OIG). He has protected owners and corporate officers from civil and criminal actions by implementing Owner/Officer Protection Programs and Compliance Programs. Howard successfully represented the concrete industry to prevent implementation of a national pavement design standard that skewed road building contracts to the asphalt/oil industry. Had the standard been adopted, it would have shortened the life of roads endangering and inconveniencing drivers while raising repair and replacement costs for taxpayers. He also successfully represented companies owned by a Southeast Asian foreign ally under criminal investigation by the United States Department of Justice for price manipulation of an oil commodity. Howard has also worked tirelessly on behalf of older Americans, joining with Dr. Morton Creditor to establish a geriatric research program at the University of Illinois and served as President of the Fund for Gerontology Research at the University. He also is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Illinois. 9/24/2020 Howard L. Stone, CPA, CFE, JD Stone, McGuire & Siegel, P.C. © Copyright by Stone, McGuire & Siegel, P.C. September 2020 Nothing herein can be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of Stone, McGuire & Siegel, P.C. 1 1 Purpose of This Session This session will help describe and teach the Federal criminal laws, especially those specific to tax, for the purposes of preventing and detecting criminal, civil, and administrative violations by clients, which could lead to false allegations from clients against tax practitioners. You will learn how to avoid violating Federal criminal laws, specifically those relating to tax. I will include education on other Federal criminal laws as well. You will also be exposed to recent tax prosecutions against individuals, and we will discuss a few federal law enforcement techniques used to enforce federal criminal law, with a focus on tax fraud. © Copyright by Stone, McGuire & Siegel, P.C. September 2020. Nothing herein can be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of Stone, McGuire & Siegel, P.C. 2 2 1 9/24/2020 Brief Biography – Howard Stone President and Managing Partner ‐ Stone, McGuire & Siegel, P.C. United States Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Illinois Assistant U.S. Attorney Chief Financial Crimes Auditor and Investigator United States Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Service Revenue Agent Regional Director of the IRS Organized Crime Strike Force for Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin Chief Revenue Agent in the Audit of a New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Corporation Licensed Attorney (Illinois Courts, U.S. Tax Court, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, U.S. Supreme Court) Certified Public Accountant (CPA) Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) © Copyright by Stone, McGuire & Siegel, P.C. September 2020. Nothing herein can be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of Stone, McGuire & Siegel, P.C. 3 3 Selected Obligations Under Treasury Circular No. 230 Due Diligence. You must exercise due diligence in preparing and filing tax returns and other documents/submissions, and in determining the correctness of representations made by you to your client or to the IRS. You can rely on the work product of another person if you use reasonable care in engaging, supervising, training, and evaluating that person, taking into account the nature of the relationship between you and that person. You generally may rely in good faith and without verification on information furnished by your client, but you cannot ignore other information that has been furnished to you or which is actually known by you. You must make reasonable inquiries if any information furnished to you appears to be incorrect, incomplete or inconsistent with other facts or assumptions. [Source: Treasury Circular No. 230 §10.22, §10.34(d); IRS Guidance to Practitioners Regarding Professional Obligations Under Treasury Circular No. 230.] © Copyright by Stone, McGuire & Siegel, P.C. September 2020. Nothing herein can be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of Stone, McGuire & Siegel, P.C. 4 4 2 9/24/2020 Selected Obligations Under Treasury Circular No. 230 Supervisory Responsibilities. If you have or share principal authority and responsibility for overseeing your firm’s tax practice, you must take reasonable steps to ensure that your firm has adequate procedures in place to raise awareness and to promote compliance with Circular 230 by your firm’s members, associates, and employees and that all such employees are complying with the regulations governing practice before the IRS. Treasury Circular No. 230 §10.36. [Source: Treasury Circular No. 230 §10.36; IRS Guidance to Practitioners Regarding Professional Obligations Under Treasury Circular No. 230.] © Copyright by Stone, McGuire & Siegel, P.C. September 2020. Nothing herein can be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of Stone, McGuire & Siegel, P.C. 5 5 Definition of Knowingly and Willfulness Knowingly: A person acts knowingly if he realizes what he is doing and is aware of the nature of his conduct, and does not act through ignorance, mistake, or accident. A juror may find that a defendant acted knowingly if he/she finds beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant believed it was highly probable that [state fact as to which knowledge is in question, [e.g.,“the financial statement was false,”] and that he took deliberate action to avoid learning that fact. A juror may not find that the defendant acted knowingly if he was merely mistaken or careless in not discovering the truth, or if he failed to make an effort to discover the truth. [AKA Ostrich Instruction] [Source: 7th Circuit Criminal Jury Instructions] Willfulness: Willfulness has been defined by the courts as a voluntary, intentional violation of a known legal duty. The taxpayer must be shown to have been aware of his or her obligations under the tax laws. [Source: Cheek v. United States, 498 U.S. 192 (1991).] © Copyright by Stone, McGuire & Siegel, P.C. September 2020. Nothing herein can be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of Stone, McGuire & Siegel, P.C. 6 6 3 9/24/2020 Tax Fraud ‐ 26 USC § 7206(1) ‐ FRAUD AND FALSE STATEMENTS Jury Instructions for 26 U.S.C. § 7206(1) The government must prove each of the 5 following elements beyond a reasonable doubt: 1. The defendant prepared or cause someone to prepare an income tax return; and 2. The income tax return was false or incomplete as to a material matter; and 3.
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