Opinion ID: 78300
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Tax Loss Amount

Text: Clarke argues that the court should have calculated the tax loss based not upon his tax liability under the original return, which he filed as married, filing separately, but upon what his tax liability would have been had he amended his return to reflect a filing status of married, filing jointly. He asserts that if he had filed as the latter, the loss would have been reduced from $35,811 to $28,186, resulting in a base offense level of 12 rather than 14. See U.S.S.G. § 2T4.1. The government responds that the tax loss was correctly based on the original returns because the tax loss is the loss the defendant intends when he files the fraudulent return. Because this claim involves an interpretation of the sentencing guidelines, our review is de novo. United States v. Hunerlach, 197 F.3d 1059, 1069 (11th Cir.1999) (reviewing de novo district court's inclusion of interest and penalties in tax loss calculation under U.S.S.G. § 2T1.1). The guidelines provide that where, as here, the offense involved the filing of a fraudulent or false tax return, the tax loss is the total amount of loss that was the object of the offense ( i.e., the loss that would have resulted had the offense been successfully completed). U.S.S.G. § 2T1.1(c)(1). Although we have not decided the issue of whether a defendant's unclaimed deductions or losses may be taken into account in determining tax loss for purposes of § 2T1.1(c)(1), several other circuits have taken the government's position and have held that the tax loss is the amount of loss the defendant intends to bring about, not the amount of loss to the government that actually results, and therefore, unclaimed deductions or other reductions in tax liability that are unrelated to the offense of conviction may not be used to offset the tax loss amount. See United States v. Blevins, 542 F.3d 1200, 1203 (8th Cir.2008), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 1024, ___ L.Ed.2d ___ (2009); accord United States v. Delfino, 510 F.3d 468, 472-73 (4th Cir.2007), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 41, 172 L.Ed.2d 20 (2008); United States v. Phelps, 478 F.3d 680, 682 (5th Cir.) (per curiam), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 436, 169 L.Ed.2d 305 (2007); United States v. Chavin, 316 F.3d 666, 677 (7th Cir.2002); United States v. Spencer, 178 F.3d 1365, 1368 (10th Cir.1999); United States v. Tandon, 111 F.3d 482, 490 (6th Cir.1997); United States v. Valentino, 19 F.3d 463, 465 (9th Cir.1994). But see United States v. Gordon, 291 F.3d 181, 188 (2d Cir.2002) (holding that district court erred in refusing to consider potential unclaimed deductions in sentencing analysis). We join the majority of the circuits that have addressed this issue and hold that tax loss under U.S.S.G. § 2T1.1(c)(1) is the amount of loss the defendant intends to create when he falsifies his tax return and must therefore be calculated based upon the fraudulent return. In this case, the object of Clarke's offense was the amount by which he under-reported and fraudulently misstated his taxable income on his 2000, 2001, and 2002 returns. That his tax liability may have been lower had he filed as married, filing jointly rather than married, filing separately is thus irrelevant to the determination of the amount of loss to the government that he intended when he under-reported his income. See Chavin, 316 F.3d at 677 ([R]eference to other unrelated mistakes on the return such as unclaimed deductions tells us nothing about the amount of loss to the government that [defendant's] scheme intended to create.). Accordingly, the district court did not err in computing the tax loss based on the fraudulent return Clarke actually filed, and not on the tax return Clarke could have filed but did not.