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Day 7: January 23: “Dear Mr. Kahn…”
By JJ MacNab | January 24, 2008
The prosecution continued questioning Special Agent Lalli for half of the day and the poor Jury was subjected to IRS form letters, Powers of Attorney forms, billing statements showing Snipes paying Kahn for his services, and hundreds of pages of incomprehensible tax protester forms and documents.
One interesting document showed 232 Kahn clients trying to obtain full refunds from prior tax years. Snipes was one of these clients. The total for the requested returns was $11,000,000 and Snipes’ $7,000,000 was included in this amount. Based on these figures, Snipes was making more than 400 times what the average Kahn client earned. Of these 232 refund attempts, only a dozen or so were temporarily successful. While it wasn’t discussed in the trial, you can bet the IRS went after all of those erroneous refund checks.
And finally, the testimony got a little livelier. In 1997, after attending a Kahn seminar, Rosile wrote a letter to Kahn that read as follows (excerpts only):
Dear Mr. Kahn,
I have been trying to reach you or your office by phone and fax since April 20th. I have a potential problem with the IRS that I would like you to handle / represent me.
My being an accountant does not reflect some love of the IRS or the federal bureaucracy. I can assure you, I hate the IRS.
After hearing your remarks, I may never file another tax return.
Rosile later opened an account with Kahn’s office and signed an agreement to work together. In the agreement, for every refund a client received, the client would pay 20% of the refund to Kahn who would split the moneys 50/50 with Rosile. In other words, had Snipes $11,000,000 in combined refund requests been successful, Rosile and Kahn would each have walked away with $1,100,000. Rosile would also be paid $100 per day plus $50 per return he prepared.
On cross examination, the defense attorney tried to assert several times that the IRS was irresponsible for not continuing to take civil steps to collect the back taxes while the criminal investigation was going on, but Special Agent Lalli explained that civil collection efforts are frozen once criminal efforts begin.
Government witness: William Kerr is a recently retired 39 year veteran with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The court accepted him as an expert witness and he made it clear that the Bills of Exchange created by Kahn and used by Snipes were worthless fictitious instruments. There is no secret account that tax protesters in the know can use to pay off their obligations.
Government witness: Special Agent Gary Graf has been a criminal investigator for the IRS for 21 years. He received a package from Snipes in 2003 that contained a multi-page letter stating that Graf had no authority to investigate him, citing out of context regulations.
Snipes wrote:
“In reference to your alleged criminal investigation of me, I must inform you that I have been engaged in a study of your authority to enforce Chapter 75 of the Internal Revenue Code in reference to the federal income tax.”
Snipes attached a summary of his “study”, all 228 pages of it, and requested an immediate response to his questions posed in that document. Shortly after, Snipes sent Graf a follow-up letter, again asserting that Graf has no investigative authority and including a CD for the Special Agent’s review.
“Since it appears that you are either unwilling or unable to answer the questions I posed to you in my November 3, 2003 letter, I have concluded that perhaps I need to provide more information to you and that is the purpose of this letter.”
Government witness: Tanya Burgess is a Supervisory Special Agent for the IRS and has been employed there for 25 years. She testified that she had received the same package from a different taxpayer in an unrelated tax protester case. The only thing that differed in the multi-page letter and 228 page “research report” was the name of agent and the name of the tax protester. Despite Snipes’ assertion, he authored neither the letter nor the “study.”
Government witness: Michael Anderson is a computer specialist for the IRS criminal investigation division. He discussed how he imaged the Kahn hard drives during the raid and some of the items he found on the computers. His testimony will continue tomorrow.
Interesting bits:
- A juror apparently brought in meatballs to share with her fellows jurors. Meatballs, yum!
- On June 1, 2000, Snipes was informed by the IRS in writing that his position was frivolous.
Topics: Kahn, Rosile, Snipes, Tax Deniers, Willfulness | 6 Comments »
6 Responses to “Day 7: January 23: “Dear Mr. Kahn…””
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January 24th, 2008 at 1:37 am
Snipes lost his Windermere mansion, the 9711 Deacon Court property mentioned in this case, to foreclosure in 2003/2004.
He appealed and lost.
I remember seeing his Fifth District Court of Appeals (Florida state appeals court) case in the Southern Reporter where it appeared that Snipes used tax protestor anti-bank delusions about vapor money such that he did not have to pay his mortgage.
So Snipes apparently went TP cuckoo across the board.
Tiger Woods was his next door neighbor.
January 24th, 2008 at 3:10 am
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January 24th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Meatballs? Sounds kind of heavy. After being subjected to all those “IRS form letters, Powers of Attorney forms, billing statements showing Snipes paying Kahn for his services, and hundreds of pages of incomprehensible tax protester forms and documents” I can’t imagine how they stayed awake.
Maybe next time someone will bring in some Jolt.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Thank you, Mr. Kerr!
January 25th, 2008 at 2:29 am
Maybe Snipes could have asked Tiger Woods who his Tax Attorney was, while they out there chipping putts together on the Isleworth golf course across the street from their neighboring mansions.
Snipes might have saved himself all of this trouble.
January 25th, 2008 at 3:45 am
@Lucile:
The problem is that when you’ve been contaminated by the Kool-Aid Snipes has been drinking you lose entirely the ability to reason.