Florida: Attorney Disbarred for Tax Evasion

Link for opinion: http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/decisions/2010/sc07-661.pdf


In Florida Bar v. Behm, No. SC07-661, 41 So. 3rd 136 (Fla 2010), the Florida Supreme Court disbarred an attorney from practicing law in the State of Florida due to his failure to prepare and maintain certain required trust account records and failure to file federal income tax returns and to pay federal income taxes from 1999 to 2006, despite having taxable income exceeding the threshold amount triggering the legal obligation to file.

The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the referee’s conclusions that the attorney had earned taxable income from his law practice. While the referee only asked the tribunal to sanction the attorney, the court permanently disbarred the attorney from ever again practicing law in Florida, violating Rules Regulating the Florida Bar 4-1.1 (failing to provide competent representation); 4-3.3(a)(2) (knowingly failing to disclose a material fact to a tribunal to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act by a client); 4-3.4(a) (unlawfully obstructing another party‘s access to evidence or unlawfully altering, destroying, or concealing a document or other material that is relevant to a pending or a reasonably foreseeable proceeding or counseling or assisting another person to do so); 4-3.4(h) (threatening to present disciplinary charges solely to obtain an advantage in a civil matter); 4-4.2(a) (while representing a client, communicating about the subject of the representation with a person the lawyer knows to be found guilty of professional misconduct related to trust account violations and failure to file income tax returns since the time he became a lawyer.

The attorney asserted that he is not required to pay federal income taxes because his time was his life capital and, in practicing law, he was trading his life capital for an hourly fee, both of equal value.‖ The court ruled the argument was devoid of merit and lacked any basis in established law, and the attorney did not have a good faith belief that he didn’t owe taxes. The court cited Florida. Bar v. Del Pino, 955 So. 2d 556, 560-61 (Fla. 2007), another case of attorney tax evasion, which states “No doubt there are millions of Americans who would prefer not to have to deal with filing and paying their federal income taxes each April, but have no choice under the law. As guardians of the law, lawyers have a special obligation to honor the law themselves, including the tax laws.”