Discussion: Immunized Witness Says She Had Concerns About Manafort Biz Loan

Why she was immunized: otherwise she would have taken the 5th since this is clearly self-incrimination for a tax preparer.

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…she had concerns about representations made to her about details filed on a tax return for Paul Manfort’s business.

Now, just imagine the concerns we have about the representations made to all of us about the details filed on tax returns for Donald Trump’s business.

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Well the question on that is how would she have taken action? Would she have been correct in performing her own inquiry? Would she have enough to send to say the feds and report a crime. What were her liabilities in that situation. I am sort of trying to imagine the head space at the time.

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This is why they pay tax preparers the big bucks (not). Their signature is at the bottom of the return. They can claim they were furnished false information, but that defense only goes so far.

And on the other hand, if you basically do an audit on every client before you prepare the return, you’re not going to have a job for long.

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And yet she filed them anyhow. Why not walk away: “I am sorry, I can’t file these as it currently stands.”

Not to get all moralistic - but this is how fraud becomes more widespread.

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The step before reporting (which I agree would be tough) would be to walk away from the gig - take no $ and state that she can’t be complicit for filing something that she thinks might be fraudulent.

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IANAL, but I am under the impression that it’s not a crime until the return is filed. So maybe you could call the IRS enforcement people and say “My client wants to to file a return that classifies something as a loan that I think is really income” and get a response, but it would also likely be a job-ending move. (And once your client was alerted, they could either (pretend to) repay the loan or else produce paperwork showing it had only recently been forgiven and file an amended return.)

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Only little people pay taxes…

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Well!
Come next April all my tenants’ rents will be loans from tenants greatly reducing my tax exposure. Why didn’t I think of this earlier? Is it too late to refile past tax returns?!?!

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I have a problem with the way Paul Manafort smiles. I know from watching the wapo documentory that Manafort advised Viktor Yanukovych to ditch the mobbed-up black shirts and smile more, since he was apparently from a region of Ukraine that never smiled, but Manafort’s smirk-smile says I’m So Guilty That I’m Sweating Even Though You’re Not Supposed To Let People See You Do That. It’s redolent visually of bad body odor and worse after-shave. I’d rather see his jaw muscles working, lips pressed together in a Let’s Get This Over With I Can Take It grimace of determination and defiance. Trump cannot pardon such a smile-smirker. He’s focused on appearances, and this one says loser.

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You have to wonder how common this is…the wealthy get all kinds of loopholes, and hire lawyers and accountants to use them, and discover more. How much of that work is like this, where the cheating line is crossed in an effort to save even more money? And how do we get people to quit being greedy fucks and consider paying their taxes a patriotic duty?

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Evolution? I mean that’s the same kind of question as: how do we get people to stop starting wars? How do we get people to love their neighbors?

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Shouldn’t anyone dealing with Manafort be properly immunized?

Talk about a health hazard.

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One wonders how much of this sleaze goes on normally in Corporate America, since the accountants seem to be mostly OK with it.

Or, perhaps, there’s really nothing to wonder about.

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Uhm…this is really a bit late in the accounting process to say that income was actually a loan and it’s definitely not the sort of thing you should discuss with more than two people in the room. He should have known his tax bill would be too high and made adjustments before they sent his numbers to the tax people, so they wouldn’t have known to ask questions.

A rich guy like Manafort should have accountants who know better than this. This isn’t a clever tax scheme. It’s the sort of bozo move you do when you can’t afford a good tax lawyer. There are clever ways to hide income, but pretending income is a loan isn’t one of them. If it’s uncovered, it’s obvious fraud and you’ll eventually have to claim the income anyway or keep loan balances forever.

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This is also why bringing your accountant and tax preparer in on your fraud is a bad idea. They may go along with it even though they know it’s illegal, but they’ll always flip on you if you get caught, because you’ve made them criminally liable.

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Actually, their signature isn’t at the bottom, and they have no legal liability for an incorrectly filed out return.

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Thanks goodness it looks like they have the witnesses and documents to back up the charges.

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She obviously understood–or the prosecutors assumed she’d get wise to–her own legal liability in the matter. And her granted use immunity hasn’t eliminated that liability. It just means this testimony can’t be used against her.

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