Taxable Talk

Last year I wrote about Lawrence Semenza. Mr. Semenza with the US Attorney for Nevada back in the 1970s. He was the youngest US Attorney at that time and has had a long and successful career since as a defense attorney. Unfortunately, he forgot about the law requiring a tax return to be filed; he didn’t file his corporate or individual returns from 2006 to 2010. He pleaded guilty last year, and was sentenced this week to 18 months at ClubFed. He has already made restitution.

Back in the 1970s, Lawrence Semenza was the US Attorney for Nevada. In a 2007 article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Mr. Semenza commented about how different the job was back then. After Jimmy Carter was elected President, Mr. Semenza was allowed to stay on the job until brothel owner Joe Conforte was sentenced for failure to pay payroll taxes–a case prosecuted directly by Mr. Semenza.

“It was a different era,” Semenza recalled. “U.S. attorneys, even assistant U.S. attorneys, knew they were never going to be there forever.”

One thing, though, hasn’t changed: Failing to file tax returns remains a crime. Mr. Semenza pleaded guilty last week to failing to file his corporate and personal tax returns from 2006 through 2010. He has already agreed to make restitution of $290,000 to the IRS. He’ll be sentenced in December.