Clifford E. Lazzaro has successfully represented individuals or businesses charged with multiple Federal and State Criminal Tax Violations. The IRS has established a special unit dedicated to investigating criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code and related financial crimes including money laundering, wire fraud, currency crimes, antitrust violations and Bank Secrecy Act violations. The Criminal Investigation Division (CI) of the IRS have trained forensic financial agents who aggressively conduct investigations into individuals and businesses to uncover tax and financial crimes including Tax Evasion, Return Preparer Fraud (CPA or Tax Preparer), General Tax Fraud (Filing of a Fraudulent Tax Return or Unfiled Tax Returns or Questionable Refunds , Employer Tax Fraud and Undisclosed Offshore Bank Accounts. The firm also handles Parallel Proceedings where an individual or business is being simultaneously investigated both civilly and criminally by the IRS and the Justice Department and where the results of a civil audit conducted by IRS are used in the ongoing criminal investigation against the taxpayer.
If you are a company which causes taxpayers to claim improper deductions on a large scale and causing the IRS to lose millions in taxes owed, you can be individually (officers of the corporation, etc.) charged with conspiracy to defraud the IRS and helping people prepare false tax returns and be subject to a significant period of incarceration in a federal prison. Additionally, the taxpayers making the improper deductions will be audited by the IRS and will be required to pay taxes owed with interest and penalties. Those same taxpayers will likely be called by the Government to testify at trial. If you are being investigated by the IRS and the Justice Department for engaging in a scheme as described above, contact an experienced criminal defense tax attorney like Clifford. E. Lazzaro, P.C. immediately.
When it comes to money laundering and other financial white collar crimes, you need a top-notch criminal defense tax attorney on your side like Clifford E. Lazzaro, who has defended many federal criminal tax prosecution cases involving the criminal division of the United States Attorney's Office and the IRS, which has a special unit dedicated to investigating all criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code.
This special unit also handles all related financial crimes, such as wire fraud, Bank Secrecy Act violations, antitrust violations and money laundering. The Criminal Investigation Division has trained forensic financial agents to conduct thorough investigations of individuals and businesses to detect any illegal behavior.
Due to these intensive investigations, you need a confident and very experienced criminal tax attorney on your side like Clifford E. Lazzaro. If you are facing any criminal tax violation charges, we have the experience to successfully represent you on both federal and state levels.
We have the experience to successfully defend our clients in complicated criminal tax cases, even if your complicated tax case requires us to employ forensic accountants or other experts. We are also skilled negotiators that can settle complicated criminal tax cases. We can also help with parallel proceedings, which occur when an individual or business is being investigated both civilly and criminally by the IRS and the Justice Department.
The IRS has detailed records of your finances due to the information contained in your tax returns. If your tax return (1040, etc.) contains materially false information in an attempt to launder the proceeds of illegal activity or substantially under-report income, this can subject you to serious criminal consequences. If you are accused of attempting to launder the proceeds of crime through a business and are engaged in the falsification of your business and personal tax returns related to same, seek help by calling an experienced criminal tax attorney like Clifford E. Lazzaro.
Money Laundering encompasses any financial transaction which generates an asset or a value as the result of an illegal act, which may involve actions such as tax evasion or false accounting. The illegal activity of money laundering is practiced by individuals, small and large businesses, corrupt officials, members of organized crime, through complex networks of shell companies based in offshore tax havens or through the creation of businesses operated to launder the proceeds of crime. The New Jersey legislature has passed a series of anti-money laundering provisions that provide law enforcement with powerful tools designed to take the profit out of crime and bring money launderers to justice. The proceeds of crime are subject to forfeiture. We can help and successfully represent you in forfeiture proceedings. Sometimes property seized very aggressively by the Government or State has no connection with illegal activity and we can help you recover that property and preserve your assets!
Another offense associated with criminal tax violations is tax evasion, a criminal offense under federal and state statutes. A person who is convicted is subject to a prison sentence, a fine, or both. The failure to file a federal tax return is a misdemeanor, but a consistent pattern of failure to file for several years will constitute evidence that these failures were part of a scheme to avoid the payment of taxes. If this pattern is established, the violator may be charged with a felony under section 7201 of the Internal Revenue Code.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in Spies v. United States, 317 U.S. 492, 63 S. Ct. 364, 87 L. Ed. 418 (1943), ruled that an Overt Act is necessary to give rise to the crime of Income Tax evasion. Therefore, the government must show that the taxpayer attempted to evade the tax rather than passively neglected to file a return, which could be prosecuted under section 7203 as a misdemeanor. A person who has evaded taxes over the course of several years may be charged with multiple counts for each year taxes were allegedly evaded.
According to the Supreme Court in Sansone v. United States, 380 U.S. 343, 85 S. Ct. 1004, 13 L. Ed. 2d 882 (1965), a conviction under section 7201 requires proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt as to each of three elements: the existence of a tax deficiency, willfulness in an attempted evasion of tax, and an affirmative act constituting an evasion or attempted evasion of the tax.
An affirmative act is anything done to mislead the government or conceal funds to avoid payment of an admitted and accurate deficiency. Affirmative behavior can take two forms: the evasion of assessment and the evasion of payment. Affirmative acts of evasion include evading taxes by placing assets in another's name, dealing in cash, and having receipts or debts paid through and in the name of another person. Merely failing to pay assessed tax, without more, does not constitute tax evasion.
The keeping of a double set of books or the making of false invoices or documents can be proof of tax evasion. In some cases the mailing of a false return may constitute the overt act required under section 7201.
If you are accused of tax evasion or other criminal tax violations, seek help by calling an experienced tax crime criminal defense attorney like Clifford E. Lazzaro, P.C.