Businessman gets 10 years in tax fraud
By Ken Kobayashi
Advertiser Courts Writer
A 63-year-old man who once operated one of the state's largest tax-preparer services was sentenced yesterday to a maximum 10-year prison term and ordered to pay a $60,000 fine in a tax fraud case.
Richard J. Basuel was found guilty by a Circuit Court jury earlier this year for attempting to evade taxes, helping file false tax returns and first-degree theft, but he remained defiant yesterday and said he was ordering Circuit Judge Michael Wilson to dismiss the case.
"I do not accept the jail sentence, nor do I accept any monetary fine," Basuel told the judge before sentencing.
Wilson rejected a request by Basuel's lawyer Reginald Minn for probation and imposed the prison term, telling Basuel he had chosen to "challenge our system of taxation" in violation of the law even after he was placed on probation for a similar tax fraud case.
Wilson ordered Basuel to start serving his state prison term immediately.
Basuel was found guilty in February of helping five taxpayers file fraudulent returns, but Deputy Attorney General Larry Goya told Wilson that a review of returns of about 200 of Basuel's clients showed that those taxpayers had to repay more than $1 million to the state.
Minn said only a small percentage of Basuel's clients filed improper returns. He said his client is no longer working and has lost his family, with his wife seeking a divorce.
Minn asked that Basuel be given another chance.
Basuel was fined $15,000 in 2000 for failing to file general excise tax returns for RB Tax Service, one of the state's largest tax-preparation companies.
In 2001, he was fined $30,000, sentenced to six months in jail and placed on five years probation for preparing false state income tax returns that claimed Hawai'i is not part of the United States, Goya said.
Yesterday's sentence was for preparing state tax returns for clients in 2000 and 2001 who claimed they were not U. S. citizens, Goya said.
Basuel also faces a pending federal case.
Reach Ken Kobayashi at 525-8030 or at kkobayashi@honoluluadvertiser.com.
