Tax Notes Quotes STEVEN TOSCHER: False Invoices Could Force Hard Choices
Posted by Hochman Salkin Toscher Perez P.C. 
Posted on Tuesday, July 23, 2019
An attorney has many duties, including a duty of candor as well as a duty to maintain a client’s confidences, when representing a client before the IRS.
On July 19th, speakers and audience members attending the University of San Diego School of Law and RJS Law Tax Controversy Institute in San Diego raised many points of view regarding the potential conflicts that can arise within those duties when a tax practitioner later discovers that documents the client has provided to him or her for submission to the IRS were actually false. While noting an attorney’s obligation to withdraw from the engagement is generally the only option, a more difficult question was posed regarding what to tell, or not tell, the IRS about the production of false documents.
Steven Toscher of Hochman Salkin Toscher Perez P.C. noted that “The biggest danger . . . is if the prosecutors or the IRS criminal investigators think you, as the professional, were involved,” he said. “They really don’t know. It’s going to depend on your reputation, who you are, because unfortunately there are professionals who would be complicit in that.”
