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submission to the IRS with ACT's Form 1120 tax return. Briggs
testified:
Q Did Mr. Turner tell you or give the impression
that he needed those documents [the minutes] in order
to file the return?
A Yes. They should have been filled out. He
said they needed to be filled out, and he gave us a
copy of them--really a format. * * *
Turner subsequently gave Briggs a sample set of minutes to
be used for a corporate liquidation. Briggs and Morris created
the false minutes for an October 24, 1988, 1:00 p.m. meeting
sometime between December 26, 1989, and January 16, 1990, with
their recently acquired information that the plan had to be
adopted on or before the sale date of its assets to JSL.
Petitioner contends that the inaccuracies in the minutes are
"very technical". The inaccuracies were not technical and
consisted of a false date and time for a meeting that never
occurred. A mistaken date or time on a document does not alone
amount to fraud. We recognize that, although creating documents
after an event may be reprehensible, "manufacturing" documents is
not tantamount to fraud unless there is a showing that the
information in the documents is essentially false. See Sinko v.
Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1967-45. However, submitting false
documents to the IRS is an indication of fraud. See Stephenson
v. Commissioner, 79 T.C. 995, 1007 (1982), affd. 748 F.2d 331
(6th Cir. 1984). Where, as here, a taxpayer has knowledge that
documents are false and submits income tax returns to the IRS
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