Court Opinion

ID: 9464836
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:44:23.851131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:50.815461
License: Public Domain

LARSON, Senior District Judge,
concurring.
I concur.
I do not believe that the instruction “every person is presumed to know the law” can be reconciled with the Supreme Court’s discussion of “willfully” in United States v. Bishop, 412 U.S. 346, 360-61, 93 S.Ct. 2008, 2017, 36 L.Ed.2d 941 (1973):
In our complex tax system, uncertainty often arises even among taxpayers who earnestly wish to follow the law. .
“It is not the purpose of the law to penalize frank difference of opinion or innocent errors made despite the exercise of reasonable care.” . . . The requirement of an offense committed “willfully” is not met, therefore, if a taxpayer has relied in good faith on a prior decision of the Court. . . . The Court’s consistent interpretation of the word “willfully” to require an element of mens rea implements the pervasive intent of Congress to construct penalties that separate the purposeful tax violator from the well-meaning, but easily confused, mass of taxpayers.
I am also constrained to disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the instructions on the question whether Olson knew his certifications to be false or fraudulent at the time he made them were entirely correct. The instruction on presumed knowledge of the law tends to infect the other instructions relating to knowledge.1
Nevertheless, I agree that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. When read in their totality, the instructions conveyed a clear picture of the nature of the alleged offense and its essential elements. Moreover, the evidence of Olson’s guilt is overwhelming.

. The instruction on willfulness found in United States v. Hinderman, 528 F.2d 100, 101 (8th Cir. 1976), is immune from the criticisms leveled here and is to be recommended in tax fraud cases such as this.