Oregon Tax Evader, Activist Sentenced To 3 Years In Federal Prison

Robert Andrew Lund failed to file personal income tax returns, engaged in a multi-year letter writing campaign threatening IRS employees, and filed two bogus personal bankruptcy cases to curb IRS collection efforts said an Assistant U.S. Attorney.

According to court documents, in the mid 1980s, after working for several years as a computer engineer and programmer for the Hewlett Packard company, Lund moved to Oregon and started a private computer consulting company called Lund Performance Solutions (LPS). In 1993, Lund paid $30,000 to an offshore trust promoter to establish layers of trusts to hide his LPS profits from the IRS. From 1994 to 1996, despite LPS being highly profitable, Lund reported almost no income on his personal income tax returns. Soon after, the IRS audited Lund and determined he owed more than $2.7 million in taxes plus penalties.

Lund challenged his tax assessments in U.S. Tax Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Both affirmed he owed the IRS unpaid taxes. In response, Lund stopped filing tax returns altogether and began creating many limited liability companies (LLC) and trusts to conceal his income and assets. Over the next decade, the IRS sent Lund dozens of letters, bills, and summonses for financial records. Lund replied with his own letters claiming he was not a U.S. citizen and therefore not subject to taxation or the IRS’s authority.