Florida Tax Preparer Loses Appeal From Tax-Related Convictions

A Florida tax preparer who was sentenced to 21 months in prison on three counts of willfully failing to pay his taxes lost his Eleventh Circuit appeal on Tuesday.

Duronel Loute argued, among other things, that the district court shouldn’t have admitted a 2016 mortgage loan application and home sale contract into evidence.

But the loan application and contract were admissible “because they were reasonably necessary to complete the story of Loute’s failure-to-pay-tax crimes,” the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit said in the per curiam decision.

The documents and related testimony showed that Loute filed the tax ...