Olender

Appellant stands convicted on all counts of a four-count indictment charging him with wilfully attempting to defeat and evade federal income taxes by filing false and fraudulent income tax returns on behalf of himself and his wife for the taxable years 1945 and 1946 in violation of 26 U.S.C.A. § 145 (b). Appellant was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of $10,-000 on each of the counts 1, 2 and 3, the sentences to run concurrently, and to pay an additional fine of $10,000 on count 4.

During the taxable years involved appellant was the sole owner and operator of the “Army and Navy Store” in Oakland, California, which sold service men’s uniforms and other merchandise at retail. Appellant' employed a part-time bookkeeper but supervised the maintenance of the books himself. The books were admittedly incomplete, and the government therefore relied upon-, the familiar net worth-expenditures method to prove that appellant and his wife received taxable income in 1945 and 1946 which they failed to report. This method of proof requires the government to show the net worth of the taxpayer as of the beginning and the end of the taxable year and the nondeductible expenditures…