Opinion ID: 545475
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Fifth Amendment Returns

Text: 49 The filing of fifth amendment returns, or to be accurate no information returns, cuts across the grain of the entire purpose and philosophy of our tax system, which depends in large part upon information furnished by the putative taxpayer. See Spies v. United States, 317 U.S. at 495, 63 S.Ct. at 366. In United States v. DeClue, 899 F.2d 1465, 1471 (6th Cir.1990), part of the evidence leading to defendant's conviction for tax evasion was filing a return which contained no financial information and on which there was typed object: self-incrimination. The statement by the court in United States v. Afflerbach, 547 F.2d 522, 524 (10th Cir.1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1098, 97 S.Ct. 1118, 51 L.Ed.2d 546 (1977), covers the situation before us. 50 There was evidence introduced that the defendant knew he had taxable income during the year in question, and that he intentionally filed a purported return which did not contain enough information upon which a tax could be computed. The proof showed an intentional act to evade the law, and the affirmative act of filing the type of return he did. 51 We recognize that neither DeClue nor Afflerbach specified whether the type of tax offense being upheld was one of evasion of assessment or evasion of payment. Rather, they describe the offense generically as one of tax evasion. As with the false W-4s, however, we conclude that the fifth amendment returns constitute probative evidence of evasion of assessment of tax.