Forbes, Federal Judges Go Easy On Tax Cheats, Pornographers And Prostitutes, by Janet Novack:

The latest numbers from the U.S. Sentencing Commission provide new evidence that at least some Federal  judges don’t like handing out stiff jail sentences to tax cheats. Since the Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. Booker in 2005 that the Commission’s tough-on-white-collar-crimes sentencing guidelines weren’t binding, the Commission has tracked the frequency with which judges hand out lighter penalties than the guidelines call for.

In the first nine months of fiscal 2010, federal judges cited Booker to sentence 13.4% of all federal convicts  to below guideline terms. Tax cheats? Thanks to Booker, they  got below guideline sentences 29% of the time. One of the few things that seemed to offend the jurists more than putting tax cheats away: the very, very long guideline sentences for pornography and prostitution. There, judges used Booker to sentence below range 34% of the time.

But there’s a big difference. In the tax cases where they used Booker to go low,  judges handed out a median sentence of just five months—a year less than minimum. That amount of time can be served in home confinement. By contrast, the judges who sentenced below the minimum in  pornography and prostitution cases still meted out a median prison term of five years– 37 months below the guideline minimum.

Before you decide to cheat on your taxes, however, be forewarned:  Two Midwestern tax lawyers told me Wednesday that they haven’t seen such leniency in their cases and believe sentencing varies greatly by region.

Forbes, Judge Cuts UBS Tax Cheat A Break, by Janet Novack:

As I noted here last week, federal judges have a tendency to go easy on tax cheats, granting  them below guideline sentences far more often than most other categories of offenders. That post was based on new statistics from the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

So here’s a real life example:  Southern District of New York Judge Denny Chin today sentenced Federico Hernandez to 12 months in jail for hiding $8.8 million from the IRS in secret accounts at UBS AG, even though the sentencing guidelines–and the government–called for 18 to 24 months.