On a rainy night here in Irvine (but a happy night for Chicago Bears fans) I’m quite tranquil. However, somehow I missed a news story last week which is anything but tranquil.
John Gauruder of Trementon, Utah was a chiropractor. Indeed, he was a very successful chiropractor. Somehow, though, he failed to pay a penny in tax from 1995 to 2001. The trouble was he should have paid over $200,000 in tax for those years. What did Mr. Gauruder do?
Well, he transferred assets to The Order of Tranquility. That’s described as, “purportedly a religious organization operated by Rulon DeYoung.” Well, Mr. DeYoung is enjoying 36 months at ClubFed for, as the Department of Justice notes, “four counts of tax evasion and one count of corrupt interference with the due administration of the internal revenue laws.” But I digress….
Among the assets that Mr. Gauruder had transferred was his home…but he continued to live in it. He transferred funds into a bank account for The Order of Tranquility. The IRS showed a total tax loss of over $1.2 million, and that buys a lot of tranquility.
Mr. Gauruder had earlier been convicted of one count of tax evasion. He was sentenced last week to 42 months at ClubFed and must also make restitution of $408,685. Our usual line about tax evasion applies here: It’s a whole lot easier to just pay your tax in the first place…but if everyone did that I wouldn’t get to write these stories.