United States v. Thomas Tuka , 652 F. App'x 99 ( 2016 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
_____________
No. 13-4475
_____________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v.
THOMAS D. TUKA,
Appellant
_____________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Pennsylvania
District Court No. 2-11-cr-00134-001
District Judge: The Honorable Terrence F. McVerry
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
May 19, 2016
Before: SMITH, HARDIMAN, and SHWARTZ, Circuit Judges
(Filed: June 14, 2016)
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OPINION
_____________________
SMITH, Circuit Judge.
In this appeal, Defendant-Appellant Thomas Tuka challenges his convictions

This disposition is not an opinion of the full court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does
not constitute binding precedent.
and subsequent sentencing for multiple counts of tax evasion, in violation of 26
U.S.C. § 7201, and multiple counts of willful failure to file tax returns, in violation
of 26 U.S.C. § 7203. For the reasons stated below, we will affirm.
I.
Though Tuka denies it, he is – by all accounts – a tax protestor.
Nevertheless, he apparently was not always a tax protestor; he filed tax returns and
paid any taxes due as required by law for at least the several years preceding the
events underlying his convictions. After Tuka became disabled and was unable to
perform his duties as a commercial airline pilot for U.S. Airways in 1996, he began
receiving disability benefits under the U.S. Air Pilot Disability Plan. Because U.S.
Airways treated the disability benefits as taxable income, the plan administrator
withheld taxes from these payments pursuant to Tuka’s then-current Form W-4. In
1996, Tuka filed a tax return.
Beginning in 1997, Tuka became convinced that federal taxes were
“unconstitutional,” and instructed the plan administrator, from that point forward,
to cease withholding taxes from his disability payments. Around this time, and
through at least 2010, Tuka also began expressing his view that taxes were
unconstitutional to numerous individuals.
Then, in 1998, after learning of a provision in the tax code allowing
taxpayers to file amended returns for past years, Tuka asked his tax advisor at
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H&R Block to help him fill out amended returns for tax years 1996 and 1997. He
did so in order to try to recover the taxes paid on his disability benefits for those
years. After some urging by Tuka, the tax advisor agreed to prepare the amended
returns along with a statement requesting a ruling from the Internal Revenue
Service on whether Tuka’s disability benefits were taxable income. Shortly after
Tuka submitted these documents, the IRS sent Tuka a check for roughly $14,000
as a partial refund of his tax liability for 1996; the IRS did not issue any refund for
1997.
When Tuka filed a return for tax year 1999, he omitted his disability benefits
from his calculation of taxable income, leading the IRS to issue to Tuka a notice of
deficiency. Tuka challenged this notice in the United States Tax Court, arguing
that his disability benefits were tax-exempt. In a January 2003 written opinion the
Tax Court ruled against Tuka, concluding that his disability benefits were indeed
taxable income. This Court summarily affirmed. See Tuka v. Comm’r of Internal
Revenue, 120 T.C. 1, aff’d 85 F. App’x 875 (3d Cir. 2003).
Beginning with tax year 2000, Tuka ceased submitting tax returns
altogether, including for the years after he lost the above-referenced Tax Court
case and appeal. He also left in place his instructions to the plan administrator to
not withhold taxes from his disability benefits, and, in 2005, when a different
company assumed responsibility for administering the plan, he sent the new
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administrator written instructions to the same effect. At all times relevant to this
appeal the plan administrators complied with Tuka’s instructions.
A grand jury indicted Tuka on four counts of felony tax evasion (one for
each tax year between 2003 and 2006) and three counts of misdemeanor willful
failure to file a return (one for each tax year between 2006 and 2008). Following
trial in January 2013, a jury convicted Tuka on all counts. At sentencing, the
District Court increased Tuka’s Sentencing Guidelines range under U.S.S.G.
§ 3C1.1 after finding that Tuka willfully attempted to obstruct justice by perjuring
himself at trial. The court then sentenced Tuka to thirty months in prison followed
by three years of supervised release. This timely appeal followed.1
II.
On appeal, Tuka raises two claims for our review. First, he claims that the
government presented insufficient evidence at trial to sustain the jury’s verdict on
any of his tax evasion and failure-to-file charges. Second, he argues that the
District Court erred in applying the sentencing enhancement for perjury under
U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1. We will address each argument in turn.
A.
When reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a conviction,
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The District Court had subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3231.
We have appellate jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C.
§ 3742(a).
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“[w]e review the evidence in the light most favorable to the government.” United
States v. McKee, 506 F.3d 225, 232 (3d Cir. 2007). We will overturn a conviction
for insufficient evidence only if no rational trier of fact could have found the
defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt based on the evidence adduced at trial.
Id.
In order to sustain Tuka’s convictions for tax evasion under 26 U.S.C.
§ 7201, the government was required to prove three elements with respect to each
of the tax years in question: “1) the existence of a tax deficiency, 2) an affirmative
act constituting an attempt to evade or defeat payment of the tax, and
3) willfulness.” United States v. Farnsworth, 456 F.3d 394, 401 (3d Cir. 2006)
(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Similarly, to convict Tuka for
willful failure to file a tax return under 26 U.S.C. § 7203, the government had to
prove, for each of the tax years in question, that: (1) Tuka was required to file a tax
return, (2) he failed to do so, and (3) his failure was willful. McKee, 506 F.3d at
244.
Tuka concedes the first element as to each of his tax evasion convictions
(i.e., that he owed taxes for each of the years in question), as well as the first two
elements of his failure-to-file convictions (i.e., that he was required, and that he
failed, to file a tax return), but claims that the government presented insufficient
evidence that he willfully took affirmative steps to evade payment, and that his
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failure to submit returns was willful. Tuka is wrong on all accounts.
“The definition of willfulness is the same under both felony (§ 7201) and
misdemeanor (§ 7203) tax charges. . . . In both cases, willfulness may be inferred
from a pattern of conduct, the likely effect of which would be to mislead or to
conceal.” United States v. McGill, 964 F.2d 222, 237 (3d Cir. 1992) (internal
quotation marks and citations omitted). Furthermore, because “[e]vidence of
affirmative acts may be used to show willfulness, and the defendant must commit
the affirmative acts willfully to be convicted of tax evasion,” we have noted that
the willfulness and affirmative-act elements of tax evasion are “closely connected.”
Id. at 237-38 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
The government at trial presented more than enough evidence by which a
rational trier of fact could have concluded that, for each of the years in question,
Tuka willfully engaged in at least one overt act in an attempt to evade payment of
taxes and that he willfully failed to file tax returns. We agree with the government
that by affirmatively instructing the plan administrators to not withhold any taxes
from his disability benefits and failing to rescind these instructions for each of the
years in question, Tuka committed an overt act intended to evade the payment of
taxes. Cf. United States v. Connor, 898 F.2d 942, 945 (3d Cir. 1990). Coupled
with Tuka’s knowledge of this Court’s decision in 2003 affirming the Tax Court’s
determination that his disability benefits received in 1999 were taxable, a rational
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juror could certainly conclude that Tuka knew he had a legal duty to file a return
and to pay taxes for each of the years in question.
To counter the government’s evidence, Tuka relies heavily on the fact that
the IRS issued him a refund of his 1996 taxes after he filed an amended return
along with a request for a ruling on the taxability of his disability benefits. Tuka
argues now (as he did before the jury) that the refund constituted a ruling in his
favor, and therefore that he had a good-faith belief that he was not required to pay
taxes on his disability benefits. Obviously, the jury did not believe him, nor was it
required to. After this Court in 2003 affirmed the Tax Court’s decision that Tuka’s
disability benefits were taxable, any subjective belief that Tuka’s disability benefits
were not taxable became objectively unreasonable. And while an honestly held
belief, regardless of its reasonableness, will still negate the element of willfulness
in a tax prosecution such as this, the jury was free to infer from this
unreasonableness that Tuka did not actually hold such a belief. Cheek v. United
States, 498 U.S. 192, 203-04 (1991) (“[T]he more unreasonable the asserted beliefs
or misunderstandings are, the more likely the jury will consider them to be nothing
more than simple disagreement with known legal duties imposed by the tax laws
and will find that the Government has carried its burden of proving knowledge.”).
Thus, we will uphold Tuka’s convictions under 26 U.S.C. §§ 7201 and 7203.
B.
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Tuka next contends that the District Court erred by increasing his offense
level under the Guidelines by two levels for obstruction of justice under U.S.S.G.
§ 3C1.1. We review for clear error the District Court’s factual finding of willful
obstruction of justice. United States v. Powell, 113 F.3d 464, 467 (3d Cir. 1997).
Perjury is one form of obstruction of justice. See U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 cmt.
n.4(B). A defendant qualifies for the perjury enhancement by giving “false
testimony concerning a material matter with the willful intent to provide false
testimony . . . .” United States v. Dunnigan, 507 U.S. 87, 94 (1993). In assessing
whether Tuka’s testimony at trial satisfied the elements of perjury, the District
Court was required “to accept the facts necessarily implicit in the verdict.” United
States v. Boggi, 74 F.3d 470, 478-79 (3d Cir. 1996) (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted). And while “it is preferable for a district court to address each
element of the alleged perjury in a separate and clear finding, express separate
findings are not required.” Id. at 479 (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted).
One fact “necessarily implicit” in the jury’s verdict is that Tuka did not have
a good-faith belief that his disability benefits were not taxable, for if he did have
such a belief, the jury would not have convicted him. Thus, his testimony asserting
such a good-faith belief must have been false and material. Cf. id. (concluding that
the defendant’s testimony at trial “was necessarily material” because the jury
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would not have convicted him if it had believed the testimony). In explaining why
it was applying the enhancement, the District Court stated, “I’m disappointed in
you, Mr. Tuka, to have testified in the fashion that you did . . . . I agree[ ] with
th[e] finding [that you were not truthful].” App. 597. Though the court could have
more clearly enunciated its findings as to each individual element, these statements
sufficiently indicated that it thought Tuka’s testimony satisfied these elements.
Thus, the court did not commit error, clear or otherwise, in applying the
enhancement under § 3C1.1.
III.
For the reasons stated above, we will affirm the judgment of the District
Court.
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