Court Opinion

ID: 9461500
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:16:04.633456+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:05.754946
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
Reconsideration of the issue of wilfulness in light of the petition for rehearing, oral argument, a re-examination of the record, and Judge Castle’s persuasive opinion has led me to the conclusion that my original view, expressed in the prior opinion in this case, which I authored, was in error. I am willing to agree that the scienter requirement of the statute does not encompass specific intent to defraud the Government, although I do maintain that a purposeful, voluntary failure to file a return does in a conceptual sense contain the latent intent to defraud the Government by not reporting income on which a tax may be assessed. A review of the instructions to the jury in this case now convinces me that the element of wilfulness was properly covered by the district judge and that the conviction in this case must therefore be affirmed.