United States v. Noveck

Background

A man named Noveck was charged in federal court with two counts of lying under oath on tax returns under the federal perjury law. He successfully beat the first count on a statute-of-limitations defense. He pleaded guilty to the second count, was fined $2,000 and jailed for four months, and then moved to have the conviction vacated after other courts questioned whether a later tax law had made the perjury law inapplicable to tax returns.

Reasoning

The Court considered whether a provision in the Revenue Act that punishes attempts to "defeat or evade" taxes replaces the older perjury law for false sworn tax returns. The Justices said there was no clear congressional repeal and the two crimes are legally different. Perjury is complete when someone lies under oath, even if the false statement is never used; tax-evading "attempts" can occur without taking a sworn oath or without verification. Because each offense requires an element the other does not, Congress could make both separately punishable, and did not implicitly erase the perjury statute.

Real world impact

The ruling means prosecutors may still bring perjury charges when someone knowingly swears to a false tax return, even if the Revenue Act also criminalizes tax evasion. That preserves the harsher felony penalties for false sworn statements and leaves both the perjury and the tax-evading misdemeanor provisions available for enforcement. The decision follows earlier federal appeals court rulings and immediately reverses the lower court action in this particular case.