Opinion ID: 545475
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The W-4s

Text: 38 A W-4, as with a 1040, is signed under the penalties of perjury. It states: Under the penalties of perjury, I certify that I am entitled to the number of withholding allowances claimed on this certificate, or if claiming exemption from withholding, that I am entitled to claim the exempt status. The purpose of the form is stated on it: 39 Purpose.--The law requires that you complete Form W-4 so that your employer can withhold Federal income tax from your pay. Your Form W-4 remains in effect until you change it or, if you entered EXEMPT on line 6b above, until February 15 of next year. By correctly completing this form, you can fit the amount of tax withheld from the wages to your tax liability. 40 Courts have uniformly held that the filing of false W-4s constitutes evidence of a willful attempt to evade taxes in violation of 26 U.S.C. Sec. 7201. 41 In United States v. Connor, 898 F.2d 942 (3d Cir.1990), the court held that defendant's purposeful failure to file an accurate W-4 form could be viewed by the jury as an affirmative willful act to support the violation of 26 U.S.C. Sec. 7201 comparable to the affirmative acts of evasion outlined in Spies v. United States, 317 U.S. at 499, 63 S.Ct. at 368. Id. at 945. 42 We confronted a somewhat similar issue in United States v. Johnson, 893 F.2d 451 (1st Cir.1990). In Johnson, the question was whether 43 evidence that Johnson submitted a W-4 form in 1987 claiming more allowances than he was entitled to and did not file an income tax return for 1987, was relevant to show Johnson's willfulness and absence of mistake in filing the Schedule C forms containing false information during the years 1982-86 [the years charged in indictment]. Id. at 453. We held: 44 It could seem obvious from Johnson's filing of blatantly false W-4 exemption claims in 1987, and his failure to file any tax return at all for that year, that he had a willful intent to avoid paying taxes then. The jury could reasonably infer from this that the improper filings in the years immediately previous were likewise infected by a tax evasion purpose. 45 Id. A fortiori, the filing of false W-4s and returns giving none of the required information for the years charged in the indictment would be even stronger evidence of willfulness. 2 46 In United States v. Felak, 831 F.2d 794, 798 (8th Cir.1987), the court held that claiming exemptions that were not justified was evidence from which tax evasion under Sec. 7201 could be found. 47 Relying on Spies v. United States, 317 U.S. at 497, 63 S.Ct. at 367, the Seventh Circuit had no difficulty finding that filing a false and fraudulent tax withholding certificate, although a misdemeanor offense, constitutes valid and sufficient evidence of willful commission. United States v. Copeland, 786 F.2d 768, 770 (7th Cir.1985). 48 Although these courts have not specified whether the particular tax offense as to which the false W-4s constitute evidence is evasion of assessment or evasion of payment, and indeed have not even mentioned this distinction, we conclude that false W-4s may be used as evidence of either evasion of assessment of tax or evasion of payment of tax or both.