three reasons first is the issue of loss that this reporter heard in finding one point four nine million in losses in this case primarily because the court relied on an intended loss theory thousand four thousand and another three hundred thousand and what the court did was and there's no dispute over the fact that in some of the earlier accounts and some of the earlier conduct that isn't isn't before the court in this appeal he did a get counsel with respect isn't the law that it's what he claimed on the form that is the measure of damages here and and oh he stamped on each of the pages that it was supposed to be an offset but nonetheless the figure that would have been offset if he'd been successful was the very figure he is now saying we should not look to the how does that help you the court is correct there are in that the guideline i believe it's two t one point one and ever materialize the the i and he intended it to he and he asked for that refund so i don't understand your argument on this and the court and i appreciate the court's question because that's where we ask the court to look at the and tell decision because i think in the intended last context there has to be some sort of follow up analysis about what he what was his purpose in making this claim and that's where i pointed to the court the stamp that was on t that was verbiage that was very obscure and contentious and he didn't really want to offset that and we disregard that why and on appeal we have to take all the facts most favorably to the government ye but i think it's probably because the district court didn't even understand that i mean isn't this coming from this paragraph the excepted for a value return for a value without dishonor language that is just incoherent if it is incoherent your armor but i thought i think the proper analysis though is there has to be and that's where we point to manage the other has there have to be findings from the district court to say well you had the heightened mens read a want to get this money specifically if the court had questions and and i think the confusion as to the fact that it's not entirely clear that he wanted this refund to be paid to him just from the state of the documents that with respect as i said it's ago that i think the case law regulations provide that the amount that he list as the claim he's making is all that you need there if you whatever however you construe the language on each separate page that would have been meaningless under any circumstances unless the amount he claimed the requisite line was going to be applied against it i don't think is a helpful argument to you may have some better arguments may i respectfully suggest that absolutely right on a move on our circuit our second argument is on the obstruction of justice and hansen and the issue there was the if the court looks at the guidelines three c one point one i believe it is the obstruction guideline lists and the commentary listen number of points where there has to be a finding when the obstruction is made reportedly to a law enforcement officer it has to be a rise to the level of synthetic an impediment to the  the investigation or the prosecution and there was never any finding that that rose to the level here in this case in fact there were no findings the right of the first or second sentencing why the enhancement was necessary in the first place the only thing the court said was i think this is a complex to talk about the letters threatening the i r s agent so why can't we assume the district court was relying on that and what insufficient about that if we do assume that that wouldn't be insufficient your honor but the thing is the core at no time  sophisticated means plus two obstruction and are there objections on those as well mr coleman and defense counsel then only you argued about the sophisticated means and so the judge why was the judge justified in assuming well you're not really challenging any further the obstruction you're just  things you put into your memo and so forth but now the judge is specifically saying ok i've read your stuff here before me now tell me what it is that you object to on these two different  adjustments and counsel on both sides only talk about the sophisticated means and so the judge only and makes finding says a sophisticated means what you he should you say he should have said well even though you haven't said one word defense counsel about the obstruction i make the following findings on obstruction why why such have to do that well your honor i feel like to the extent that the court is going  withdraw any further objections that then he would have had to make any further findings would i do agree at that point no so why wasn't this the functional equivalent of well the issue was the defense counsel argued what he felt was going to be persuasive judge that particular moment and obviously the transcript the court has the first maybe three hours of that hearing which was the codefendant who so i guess at that point defense counsel organize if you did not offer it the district court of my recollection is the same can you raise that at this point you did in your brief but you raise it at this point legal the double count the same facts but did you wave that intent before the district court was for neither and hands meant to be imposed i don't think we are given the alternative that if one were imposing the other shouldn't be imposed because of the will coming concerns i think to the extent that the obstruction of justice and hence moot would have been based on the would have been based on the particular threatening letter sent to the i r s officer then it would have been the same concern and then there's no double counting anyway right right right can i ask you a question about your last argument about the general verdict and i think that issue is on plain error and i'm just wondering whether you have an argument that the restitution amount is definitely so you can't say this is definitely playing error because the number is definitely wrong you just say we don't know we don't know that's that that's right and i've got other questions but my colleagues thank you counsel thank you we'll hear from g please the court daniels up on behalf the united states briefly as to the first issue one additional point i'd like to make is when the defendant submitted those requests for refunds he included a routing number and his own checking account for the money to come back and i r s agent testified that  in fact the i r s has mistakenly paid the same id forms before and there was a case in our sensing memo where in the from the northern district of california where a defendant actually got five million dollars from the i r s submitting the same i d form so given the language of the guidelines and the clear evidence that this was a request for a refund the district court did not err much less clearly air in applying to t one point one as to the obstruction of justice again the court was well within its discretion and imposing that enhancement it was barely addressed by the parties below but as your honor noted in the p s r there was mention of these threatening letters sent to the i r s agents and realistically the entire trial was about  obstruction from start to finish this defendant starting in two thousand and six began his first letter to the i r s agent requested her to send back a certified copy of her driver's license and then there was years of correspondence and counterfeit documents and essentially obstructive conduct throughout the district courts all of that in court and was well within its discretion in determining that that was there any evidence that any of th e submissions actually impeded the investigation or were they just disregarded this is some kind of crazy person and we'll just you know we had these kinds of letters all the time we'll just disregard i think there was in that it impeded the civil audit and this court and you have held that the actions taken to impede a civil audit can be used in the in the criminal context for obstruction of justice this was a case where the i r s first learned of this defendant's sort of trusting him after he participated in a conference in las vegas that was eventually a number of people were arrested at so at the very beginning of the investigation their intent was simply to have him turn over the books and say let's run an audit on your books and see what your taxes should have been in two thousand and one through two thousand and four so to the extent that the civil audit was simply get trying to get to the bottom of what his tax liability was yes the fact that he engaged in four or five years of really letting this obstructive correspondence and counterfeiting and threatening letters with the i r s agent certainly did impede what should have been a simple audit counsel and in light of  case there was or different counts of conviction the three under the mandatory victim restitution act and the title eighteen were all directly tied to the false claims that the defendant was convicted of i guess i'm not sure as to the general verdict on count one there was certainly evidence throughout trial about the specific amounts of money that were earned by this defendant in specific calendar years and the defendant admitted on the stand that he had not paid taxes throughout the entire time period so the record was there what i surely was looking at the general group in this case doesn't make clear which conduct caused losses and which conduct didn't cause losses and under the weak and mchenry cases that problematic  that added up to that amount is that right that's correct your honor and that was the defendant's filed sort of revised taxes in late in the investigation when they were trying to sort of come clean and so the agent used those numbers to calculate what they should have paid and all of the years they didn't pay and then they calculated the statutory interest on and then they didn't object right so i guess my understanding was you had this affidavit if they'd objected and said this isn't you need more evidence or explain this you could have presented more at that point at arthur and in fact lead there was actually quite a bit more restitution that we could have sought initially we picked six specific counts and went with those but it was never challenge in any way and i wouldn't ask for more information