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Boyle Strikes Again: Incarcerated Individual Subject to Delinquency Penalties Even Though Attorney Embezzled Funds and Failed To File His Tax Returns

Posted on July 15, 2021

We have often discussed the reach of the 1985 Supreme Court case United States v. Boyle. Section 6651(a)(1) and (2) impose delinquency penalties for failing to file a tax return or pay a tax unless the taxpayer can establish that the failure was due to reasonable cause and not willful neglect.  Boyle essentially stands for the position that taxpayers have a nondelegable duty to be aware of tax deadlines. An agent’s incompetence or willful misconduct will not excuse the taxpayer from delinquency penalties.

Lindsay v US is the latest case to apply the principle.

Lindsay was incarcerated and executed a POA to Bertelson, an attorney, to manage his affairs, including filing his tax returns.  The attorney assured Lindsay he was doing so for the years 2012-15; instead he failed to file the returns and for good measure embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars. The actions resulted in Lindsay receiving $705,414.61 in actual damages and $1 million in punitive damages.

Lindsay eventually filed his tax returns and paid over $425,000 in delinquency penalties. He filed a claim for refund; IRS rejected and he filed a suit in district court. The district court, contrary to the magistrate’s recommendation, granted the government’s motion to dismiss, citing Boyle as precluding a claim for relief. Following a timely appeal, the Fifth Circuit affirmed. In so doing it applied Boyle to Lindsay’s somewhat sympathetic circumstances:

Lindsay claims that he exercised ordinary business care and diligence by giving Bertelson his power of attorney and by directing Bertelson to file his income tax returns and to pay his taxes. Lindsay routinely asked Bertelson whether he was handling Lindsay’s tax obligations, and Bertelson said that he was. In Lindsay’s view, he has a reasonable cause for late filings and delayed payments because he used ordinary business care and prudence but was nevertheless unable to file his returns and pay his income taxes due to circumstances beyond his control, i.e., Bertelson’s malfeasance.

Lindsay’s position was rejected in Boyle. Boyle established that taxpayers have a non-delegable duty to promptly file and pay their taxes. 469 U.S. at 249–50. Unlike cases where taxpayers seek and detrimentally rely on tax advice from experts, “one does not have to be a tax expert to know that tax returns have fixed filing dates and that taxes must be paid when they are due.” Id. at 251. Lindsay’s argument fails.

The opinion disposed of a couple of other of Lindsay’s arguments. He also raised the IRS’s own definition of unavoidable absence as excusing delinquency. Citing George v Comm’r, a 2019 TC Memo opinion that collects cases on the point, the Fifth Circuit panel emphasized that the mere fact of incarceration itself does not mean there was reasonable cause to miss deadlines.

Lindsay’s final argument was that  Boyle does not control in cases where a taxpayer is not “physically and mentally capable of knowing, remembering, and complying with a filing deadline.” The opinion stated that even if Boyle created an incapability exception he could have done more, “much like he conducted business and employed a CPA while incarcerated.”

Conclusion

Lindsay, like many other taxpayers, is out of luck when it comes to trying to recover delinquency penalties that can be directly linked to an agent’s misconduct or incompetence. He did have some recourse, however, as he was awarded significant compensatory and punitive damages from his embezzling attorney.

 

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