In their motion, the defendants (principally Hamdan) argued (high
level summary) that: (i) Hamdan overpaid
his personal income taxes in an amount exceeding the alleged employment and income
taxes charged in the indictment which should have been offset against those
taxes and that the alleged overpayment negated willfulness; (ii) Hamdan’s
right to a credit for the alleged overpayment of tax should estop the
Government from charging because the offset mechanism somehow assures taxpayers
that overpayments of one tax liability will exonerate taxpayers from criminal liability
related to other internal revenue tax; and (iii) that the Government has been
unjustly enriched by the alleged overpayments.
The Court did not accept any of those claims, finding that
the Superseding Indictment properly alleged the offenses charged. The Court did not accept Hamdan’s key factual
claim that he had overpaid his income taxes or that, even if he had, he had
properly claimed the refund so that the refund would be available to offset. Right now, I don’t see an easy path to
providing a meaningful analysis of the Court’s rejection of the defendants’ diversions (creative and unusual as they were). I just commend the opinion to readers who
might find some such interesting.
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