Calderon

This is an appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court imposing fines and probation upon appellant upon conviction on four counts of income tax evasion.

The question here is whether admissions of Calderon were properly received in evidence absent any independent evidence of the crime of tax evasion.

Calderon operates a legitimate coin-machine business in Douglas, Arizona. He is charged with having failed to report all of the income from this business for the years 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949. The Government established the alleged excess income for these years by the “net worth” method, measuring the increase of net worth for each year. The items which went into a net worth statement prepared by the Government were stipulated to be correct with the exceptions of “Cash on Hand” and “Cash in the Bank.”

The burden of proof is on the prosecution as to each pertinent starting item of the net worth statements to a reasonable certainty. Absent such a starting item as, say, cash on hand the remainder of the statement proves nothing. Here there is no question as to the items “cash in bank” as to each of the four years. As to “cash on hand,” that, at the start of the accounting…