Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca3-13-04475/USCOURTS-ca3-13-04475-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Thomas D. Tuka
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT 

_____________

No. 13-4475

_____________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v.

THOMAS D. TUKA,

 Appellant 

_____________

 

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Pennsylvania 

District Court No. 2-11-cr-00134-001

District Judge: The Honorable Terrence F. McVerry

 

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)

May 19, 2016

Before: SMITH, HARDIMAN, and SHWARTZ, Circuit Judges

(Filed: June 14, 2016) 

_____________________

 OPINION

_____________________ 

 

SMITH, Circuit Judge.

In this appeal, Defendant-Appellant Thomas Tuka challenges his convictions

 

 This disposition is not an opinion of the full court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does 

not constitute binding precedent.

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and subsequent sentencing for multiple counts of tax evasion, in violation of 26 

U.S.C. § 7201, and multiple counts of willful failure to file tax returns, in violation 

of 26 U.S.C. § 7203. For the reasons stated below, we will affirm.

I.

Though Tuka denies it, he is – by all accounts – a tax protestor. 

Nevertheless, he apparently was not always a tax protestor; he filed tax returns and 

paid any taxes due as required by law for at least the several years preceding the

events underlying his convictions. After Tuka became disabled and was unable to 

perform his duties as a commercial airline pilot for U.S. Airways in 1996, he began 

receiving disability benefits under the U.S. Air Pilot Disability Plan. Because U.S. 

Airways treated the disability benefits as taxable income, the plan administrator 

withheld taxes from these payments pursuant to Tuka’s then-current Form W-4. In 

1996, Tuka filed a tax return. 

Beginning in 1997, Tuka became convinced that federal taxes were 

“unconstitutional,” and instructed the plan administrator, from that point forward,

to cease withholding taxes from his disability payments. Around this time, and 

through at least 2010, Tuka also began expressing his view that taxes were 

unconstitutional to numerous individuals.

Then, in 1998, after learning of a provision in the tax code allowing 

taxpayers to file amended returns for past years, Tuka asked his tax advisor at 

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H&R Block to help him fill out amended returns for tax years 1996 and 1997. He 

did so in order to try to recover the taxes paid on his disability benefits for those 

years. After some urging by Tuka, the tax advisor agreed to prepare the amended 

returns along with a statement requesting a ruling from the Internal Revenue 

Service on whether Tuka’s disability benefits were taxable income. Shortly after

Tuka submitted these documents, the IRS sent Tuka a check for roughly $14,000 

as a partial refund of his tax liability for 1996; the IRS did not issue any refund for 

1997. 

When Tuka filed a return for tax year 1999, he omitted his disability benefits 

from his calculation of taxable income, leading the IRS to issue to Tuka a notice of 

deficiency. Tuka challenged this notice in the United States Tax Court, arguing 

that his disability benefits were tax-exempt. In a January 2003 written opinion the 

Tax Court ruled against Tuka, concluding that his disability benefits were indeed 

taxable income. This Court summarily affirmed. See Tuka v. Comm’r of Internal 

Revenue, 120 T.C. 1, aff’d 85 F. App’x 875 (3d Cir. 2003).

Beginning with tax year 2000, Tuka ceased submitting tax returns 

altogether, including for the years after he lost the above-referenced Tax Court 

case and appeal. He also left in place his instructions to the plan administrator to 

not withhold taxes from his disability benefits, and, in 2005, when a different 

company assumed responsibility for administering the plan, he sent the new 

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administrator written instructions to the same effect. At all times relevant to this 

appeal the plan administrators complied with Tuka’s instructions. 

A grand jury indicted Tuka on four counts of felony tax evasion (one for 

each tax year between 2003 and 2006) and three counts of misdemeanor willful 

failure to file a return (one for each tax year between 2006 and 2008). Following 

trial in January 2013, a jury convicted Tuka on all counts. At sentencing, the 

District Court increased Tuka’s Sentencing Guidelines range under U.S.S.G. 

§ 3C1.1 after finding that Tuka willfully attempted to obstruct justice by perjuring 

himself at trial. The court then sentenced Tuka to thirty months in prison followed 

by three years of supervised release. This timely appeal followed.1 

II.

On appeal, Tuka raises two claims for our review. First, he claims that the 

government presented insufficient evidence at trial to sustain the jury’s verdict on 

any of his tax evasion and failure-to-file charges. Second, he argues that the 

District Court erred in applying the sentencing enhancement for perjury under 

U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1. We will address each argument in turn.

A.

When reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a conviction, 

 

1 The District Court had subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3231. 

We have appellate jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3742(a).

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“[w]e review the evidence in the light most favorable to the government.” United 

States v. McKee, 506 F.3d 225, 232 (3d Cir. 2007). We will overturn a conviction 

for insufficient evidence only if no rational trier of fact could have found the 

defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt based on the evidence adduced at trial. 

Id.

In order to sustain Tuka’s convictions for tax evasion under 26 U.S.C. 

§ 7201, the government was required to prove three elements with respect to each 

of the tax years in question: “1) the existence of a tax deficiency, 2) an affirmative 

act constituting an attempt to evade or defeat payment of the tax, and 

3) willfulness.” United States v. Farnsworth, 456 F.3d 394, 401 (3d Cir. 2006)

(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Similarly, to convict Tuka for 

willful failure to file a tax return under 26 U.S.C. § 7203, the government had to 

prove, for each of the tax years in question, that: (1) Tuka was required to file a tax 

return, (2) he failed to do so, and (3) his failure was willful. McKee, 506 F.3d at 

244.

Tuka concedes the first element as to each of his tax evasion convictions 

(i.e., that he owed taxes for each of the years in question), as well as the first two 

elements of his failure-to-file convictions (i.e., that he was required, and that he 

failed, to file a tax return), but claims that the government presented insufficient 

evidence that he willfully took affirmative steps to evade payment, and that his 

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failure to submit returns was willful. Tuka is wrong on all accounts. 

“The definition of willfulness is the same under both felony (§ 7201) and 

misdemeanor (§ 7203) tax charges. . . . In both cases, willfulness may be inferred 

from a pattern of conduct, the likely effect of which would be to mislead or to 

conceal.” United States v. McGill, 964 F.2d 222, 237 (3d Cir. 1992) (internal 

quotation marks and citations omitted). Furthermore, because “[e]vidence of 

affirmative acts may be used to show willfulness, and the defendant must commit 

the affirmative acts willfully to be convicted of tax evasion,” we have noted that 

the willfulness and affirmative-act elements of tax evasion are “closely connected.” 

Id. at 237-38 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

The government at trial presented more than enough evidence by which a 

rational trier of fact could have concluded that, for each of the years in question,

Tuka willfully engaged in at least one overt act in an attempt to evade payment of 

taxes and that he willfully failed to file tax returns. We agree with the government 

that by affirmatively instructing the plan administrators to not withhold any taxes 

from his disability benefits and failing to rescind these instructions for each of the 

years in question, Tuka committed an overt act intended to evade the payment of 

taxes. Cf. United States v. Connor, 898 F.2d 942, 945 (3d Cir. 1990). Coupled 

with Tuka’s knowledge of this Court’s decision in 2003 affirming the Tax Court’s 

determination that his disability benefits received in 1999 were taxable, a rational 

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juror could certainly conclude that Tuka knew he had a legal duty to file a return 

and to pay taxes for each of the years in question.

To counter the government’s evidence, Tuka relies heavily on the fact that 

the IRS issued him a refund of his 1996 taxes after he filed an amended return 

along with a request for a ruling on the taxability of his disability benefits. Tuka 

argues now (as he did before the jury) that the refund constituted a ruling in his 

favor, and therefore that he had a good-faith belief that he was not required to pay 

taxes on his disability benefits. Obviously, the jury did not believe him, nor was it 

required to. After this Court in 2003 affirmed the Tax Court’s decision that Tuka’s 

disability benefits were taxable, any subjective belief that Tuka’s disability benefits 

were not taxable became objectively unreasonable. And while an honestly held 

belief, regardless of its reasonableness, will still negate the element of willfulness 

in a tax prosecution such as this, the jury was free to infer from this 

unreasonableness that Tuka did not actually hold such a belief. Cheek v. United 

States, 498 U.S. 192, 203-04 (1991) (“[T]he more unreasonable the asserted beliefs 

or misunderstandings are, the more likely the jury will consider them to be nothing 

more than simple disagreement with known legal duties imposed by the tax laws 

and will find that the Government has carried its burden of proving knowledge.”).

Thus, we will uphold Tuka’s convictions under 26 U.S.C. §§ 7201 and 7203.

B.

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Tuka next contends that the District Court erred by increasing his offense 

level under the Guidelines by two levels for obstruction of justice under U.S.S.G. 

§ 3C1.1. We review for clear error the District Court’s factual finding of willful 

obstruction of justice. United States v. Powell, 113 F.3d 464, 467 (3d Cir. 1997). 

Perjury is one form of obstruction of justice. See U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 cmt. 

n.4(B). A defendant qualifies for the perjury enhancement by giving “false 

testimony concerning a material matter with the willful intent to provide false 

testimony . . . .” United States v. Dunnigan, 507 U.S. 87, 94 (1993). In assessing 

whether Tuka’s testimony at trial satisfied the elements of perjury, the District 

Court was required “to accept the facts necessarily implicit in the verdict.” United 

States v. Boggi, 74 F.3d 470, 478-79 (3d Cir. 1996) (internal quotation marks and 

citation omitted). And while “it is preferable for a district court to address each 

element of the alleged perjury in a separate and clear finding, express separate 

findings are not required.” Id. at 479 (internal quotation marks and citation 

omitted).

One fact “necessarily implicit” in the jury’s verdict is that Tuka did not have 

a good-faith belief that his disability benefits were not taxable, for if he did have 

such a belief, the jury would not have convicted him. Thus, his testimony asserting 

such a good-faith belief must have been false and material. Cf. id. (concluding that 

the defendant’s testimony at trial “was necessarily material” because the jury 

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would not have convicted him if it had believed the testimony). In explaining why 

it was applying the enhancement, the District Court stated, “I’m disappointed in 

you, Mr. Tuka, to have testified in the fashion that you did . . . . I agree[ ] with 

th[e] finding [that you were not truthful].” App. 597. Though the court could have 

more clearly enunciated its findings as to each individual element, these statements 

sufficiently indicated that it thought Tuka’s testimony satisfied these elements. 

Thus, the court did not commit error, clear or otherwise, in applying the 

enhancement under § 3C1.1.

III.

For the reasons stated above, we will affirm the judgment of the District 

Court.

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