If you or someone you know in Nebraska has been charged with a federal crime involving allegations of tax evasion, it will be important for you to learn about the elements of these offenses and the potential defense options. As explained by the Internal Revenue Service, one such charge may be what is called evasion of assessment.
This charge refers to an offense in which a person is accused of knowingly attempting to avoid being assessed income tax on specific income. The alleged attempted avoidance must be proven to have been by active measures, not simply by the passive lack of filing a return. An example of an active measure would be the filing of a return that contains information known to be inaccurate. In addition, the taxpayer must have some outstanding tax debt that can be identified by the IRS. This debt might be linked to income from gambling or other alleged illegal activities like embezzlement.
As with any other criminal charge, the threshold for finding a person guilty is proving that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Charges may be initiated within six years of either the date that a tax return should have been filed or the date of the last alleged active attempt at avoiding tax assessment. The latter of these two dates is used to begin the six-year statute of limitations.
If you would like to learn more about the elements involved in different criminal tax offenses, please feel free to visit the evasion of assessment and evasion of payment page of our Nebraska tax crime defense website.