Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

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Burnaby49
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Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by Burnaby49 »

Call me Sisyphus49, eternally condemned to keep pushing that Poriskyite boulder up the hill only to see it roll down on me yet again. I've just finished attending Keith Lawson's trial and so now it's time to focus my attention on yet another Poriskyite that I've not yet mentioned on Quatloos. This guy;

http://www.vccid.com/about-us/meet-dr-balogh/

Balogh is the fifth Poriskyite dentist I've written about. His predecessors are;

Eva Sydel
Tania Kovaluk
Leo Fung
Clark Webster

Information about them all can be found here;

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10250

On to the Crown's issues with Peter,
Count 1
Peter BALOGH, of the District of West Vancouver, Province of British Columbia, between May 8, 2006 and May 1,2007, made, or participated in, assented to or acquiesced in the making of false or deceptive statements in Peter Balogh's T1 Individual Income Tax Returns for the 2005 and 2006 taxation years, filed as required by the Income Tax Act, by understating income in the amount of $699,000 for the said taxation years, and did thereby commit an offence contrary to paragraph 239(1Xa) of the Income Tax Act.

Count 2
Peter BALOGH, of the District of West Vancouver, Province of British Columbia, between December 31,2004 and May 10, 2006, did wifully evade or attempt to evade compliance with the Income Tax Act by failing to report his taxable income in the amount of $317,000 for the 2005 taxation year, and did thereby evade the payment of taxes in the amount of $86,458, committing an offence contrary to 239(1)(d) of the said Act.

Count 3
Peter BALOGH, of the District of West Vancouver, Province of British Columbia, between December 31, 2005 and May 1, 2007, did wifully evade or attempt to evade compliance with the Income Tax Act by failing to report his taxable income in the amount of $382,000 for the 2006 taxation year, and did thereby evade the payment of taxes in the amount of $100,252, committing an offence contrary to 239(1)(d) of the said Act.

Count 4
Peter BALOGH, of the District of West Vancouver, Province of British Columbia, between December 31; 2006 and June 16, 2008, did wilfully evade or attempt to evade compliance with the lncome Tax Act by failing to report his taxable income in the amount of $560,000 for the 2007 taxation year, and did thereby evade the payment of taxes in the amount of $150,880, committing an offence contrary to 239(1)(d) of the said Act.

Count 5
Peter BALOGH, of the District of West Vancouver, Province of British Columbia, between December 31,2007 and June 16, 2009, did wilfully evade or attempt to evade compliance with the Income Tax Act by failing to report his taxable income in the amount of $528,000 for the 2008 taxation year, and did thereby evade the payment of taxes in the amount of $141,399, committing an offence contrary to 239(1)(d) of the said Act.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/10vrp ... harges.pdf

I've not yet attended any of Balogh's hearings but, now that I'm done with Lawson and Porisky that's about to change. So it's time to set him up in his own discussion. He's being tried in provincial court at the Main Street courthouse that I wrote about here;

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10477#p221828

He's retained a criminal lawyer so we might not see the antics I'm used to with Lawson and Millar. I'll let you know.
"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeI-J2PhdGs
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by Burnaby49 »

My first day in court on Balogh's problems and a long day indeed. This isn't the first day of the trial but the first day that I could attend. A trial by judge. The issue to be discussed at start, which I'd thought was the only issue, was the decision on a Vukelich hearing on a defence application. However the day held much more.

I know, you shared my thought when I heard about a Vukelich hearing. "What the hell's that?" Well this is the age of the internet and I had the answer in five minutes. This is the Vukelich case.

R. v. Vukelich, 1996 CanLII 1005
http://canlii.ca/t/1f0d7

Defense wanted to have a voir dire on something. This is a voir dire;
A Voir Dire is in-trial hearing that is considered a separate hearing from the trial itself. It is known as a "trial within a trial" and designed to determine an issue separate from the of procedure or admissibility of evidence.
A Vukelich hearing is a hearing where the Crown tries to stop a defense application for a voir dire based on a threshold established in the Vukelich case. There is no absolute right to a voir dire. An applicant must show that a voir dire is necessary and would assist the trial. So the Crown opposed the voir dire through a Vukelich. Hearing was done and the judge would give his decision this morning.

Mr. Balogh was there along with his defense lawyer (note - I originally wrote this line "The defendants were there along with their defense lawyer." My mistake. I'd confused this dentist case with another, Leo Fung, whose wife is also facing a charge). And I met an acquaintance in the courtroom. There was one hearing before ours, a very short one where defense lawyer requested, and was granted, an adjournment to a scheduled hearing. He looked familiar so I went up and asked him if he'd been the lawyer at Doerksen's trial. Not Jeremy Maddock but another lawyer who was with him. No but he remembered me. He'd been defense counsel at Cory Stanchfield's hearing where Cory pled guilty.

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10464

Anyhow. On with the show. Requested voir dire was in respect to a section 7 charter matter. This is section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms;
7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
Defense had an issue with the CRA using Mr. Balogh's filed income tax returns as part of the investigation evidence used to obtain a search warrant. Lawyer said it breached his charter rights under s. 7. I assume that Mr. Balogh had filed returns with less, probably far less, income that the CRA had found out that he'd made and this discrepancy formed part of the basis for the search warrant application. However lawyer argued that the information on the returns could not be used for investigative purposes. He had a bunch of citations including the big one, Jarvis. This is Jarvis;

R. v. Jarvis, [2002] 3 SCR 757, 2002 SCC 73
http://canlii.ca/t/50d7

Supreme Court of Canada case delineating rules regarding what audit evidence can be used by investigation based on when the CRA starts a criminal investigation. I've sat through quite a few Jarvis applications and this one took a novel approach, at least based on my experience. Generally the defendant tries to exclude evidence obtained by an auditor after he had referred the file to Investigations, Or after he knew he was going to send the file to Investigations. Or after he realized there was potential evasion. Or after he should have known there was, or might be, potential evasion. The Jarvis parameters are endless. But they all relate to an auditor obtaining information in the course of his audit. This one focused on information that Mr. Balogh had submitted to the CRA before there was any investigation or audit of his file. Lawyer said that the CRA couldn't use these returns as part of an investigation without Mr. Balogh's authorization.

The Crown argued that the submission lacked merit. The CRA was allowed to use its own records when doing an audit or investigation and also cited Jarvis to support their position.

The judge refused the voir dire. I'll try to give reasons but I probably missed most since he was reading from a prepared written decision while I tried to keep up. He said that the taxpayer cannot be said to have a right to privacy. There is nothing stopping auditors from passing their files to investigations.

The judge reviewed the cited jurisprudence, said that Jarvis was the most helpful case, and did an analysis of its findings (this is the part I largely skipped). He said that filing tax returns is not part of the audit process or an investigation because no auditor is involved. Returns are filed pursuant to the Income Tax Act. Jarvis makes it clear that documents filed under statutory authority can be used by audit and investigations. So no breach of charter rights and no need for a voir dire. So, with voir dire quashed, defense said something I couldn't make out and a recess called.

Then on about delay. Apparently defense wants case quashed for unreasonable delay. This is a section 11(b) charter application;
Section 11(b) provides that

11. Any person charged with an offence has the right

(b) to be tried within a reasonable time
Crown wants to include in evidence some of the communication between them and defense as part of their submission on this. I think eight letters. Defense very much against it because, he claimed, this would require him to be a witness against his own client (Will I have to take the stand?) which would force him to withdraw. A lot of back and forth between counsel about this and that on the issue. Defense claimed systemic delays. Said he'd never seen letters between counsels brought up before and inappropriate. This turned into an acrimonious discussion. Defense said that the court had no business to see letters. There was nothing in the letters that would elucidate record.

Judge said that reasons for delay were usually in the record and these letters were just discussion between parties. It is obvious that there is acrimony. Counsel should try and come up with agreed statement of facts. That avenue hasn't been exhausted yet. The delay argument doesn't need to be heard now so you (Crown) and (defense) should try and work on an agreed statement of facts.

Crown - I don't think that there will be a problem agreeing on facts.
Judge - Then why isn't it done yet?

Both sides had reasons for that involving the other side.

Then defense said he still had a search issue he was going to argue.

Crown said that "friend (that's what opposing lawyers call each other up here. Nothing friendly about the relationship in this case) and I don't agree about a section 8 Vukelich application." They were referring to section 8 of the charter;
8. Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure
Judge stepped in and said that Vukelich applications were relatively rare, why do we need a Vukelich application? Why not get into the voir dire?

This was something to do with the search of Mr. Balogh's home and office. I'll give the issue as I understand it before I go into arguments. The search was done under a warrant however defense said that section 489 (1) of the Criminal Code was applicable to some of the seized evidence.
489. (1) Every person who executes a warrant may seize, in addition to the things mentioned in the warrant, any thing that the person believes on reasonable grounds

(a) has been obtained by the commission of an offence against this or any other Act of Parliament;

(b) has been used in the commission of an offence against this or any other Act of Parliament; or

(c) will afford evidence in respect of an offence against this or any other Act of Parliament.
This section was applicable because (and the Crown admits) some evidence was seized which was not mentioned in the warrant. The key phrase is
any thing that the person believes on reasonable grounds

(b) has been used in the commission of an offence against this or any other Act of Parliament;
So in order for the evidence to be admissible it has to have been seized under "reasonable grounds" at the time of the seizure which means that the people involved in the search have to show, preferably through contemporaneous evidence, why they believed it relevant. Alternatively the individuals involved need to testify as to their intentions at the time. One big problem with that. The CRA staff member who oversaw the search and made the decision on what evidence to seize was dead. She'd died in an accident apparently shortly after the search. Defense counsel hinted darkly that because of this his client couldn't get a fair shake but he didn't take that last step of requesting that the case be dropped as a result of her death.

A lot of to and fro between parties on having a Vukelich hearing. Crown wanted it, defense wanted to go straight to a voir dire on the issue.

Crown - My friend has the list of seized documents. He's not saying all of the documents not under 489 (I think I got that sentence right but no guarantees). He claims that these documents lead to a section 8 breach. There is no reason given, no evidentiary base, that the documents not validly taken under 489.

Defense - There is no onus on defense to prove that the search was unreasonable. It is up to the Crown to show that it is reasonable. So the Crown has to justify it. The Supreme Court says that onus shifts on to Crown. I gave notice to Crown.

Crown - First I know that he is claiming a 489 breach.

Crown said it was ready to respond to defense position but judge said first a fifteen minute break.

At break the Baloghs sat opposite me in the corridor then Mrs. Balogh came over and asked me who I was and why I was copying things down. Was I with the CRA? I told her I used to be but am now retired and do this as a hobby. Told her I posted Poriskyite tax evasion cases on Quatloos and had just started one on them called Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist. She seemed bemused by why I was doing it (good point, hobby doesn't seem to cover it any more) and asked "Isn't it private?". Mr. Balogh had come over by this time and he told her no. I told her that some trials couldn't be reported while in session because of publication bans but this wasn't one of them. So, if the Baloghs are reading it here are links to the Poriskyite trials I've attended and reported;

Cory Stanchfield
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10464

Michael Millar
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10834

Keith Lawson
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=8223

Arthur Doerksen
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=11112

Russell Porisky and Elaine Gould
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10485

Leo Fung
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10477

And here is a discussion on all of the Poriskyite/Paradigm cases I've reviewed and written up.

Porisky Tax Evasion Scheme Discussion
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10250

One dismal fact for the Baloghs to consider is that all but one of the Poriskyites I've reported on were found guilty on all counts. Arthur Doerksen avoided a guilty conviction but not by a defense I'd recommend, he died during his trial.

Break over and back in court.

Crown - right now I'm endeavouring to see if there should be a Vukelich in respect to whether there should be a voir dire on the search.

Judge - The search warrant was executed. The officer seized some documents under 489(2). The defense is saying that some items seized are outside of the warrant and he wants a voir dire on it. Doesn't he have a right to a voir dire? The onus is on the Crown to show that the search is reasonable. Judge said that the defense doesn't have to provide evidence to support the voir dire application, just that they have grounds.

Crown gave judge a printout of some case and focused on page 32. Case was in respect to evidence seized under 489. Note - I wrote 289 in my notes but, checking that section out, I found;
Venereal Diseases
289 [Repealed, R.S., 1985, c. 27 (1st Supp.), s. 41]
So I obviously copied it incorrectly. Back to Crown. My friend has to show that some evidence seized was outside of 489. Defense - Money was seized, not part of 489. The Crown investigators said it was a valid 489 search two weeks after search. This was needed at the time of the search. I wasn't prepared with all of my material to argue this today. I thought we were arguing delay.

Judge summarized both side's positions then he referred to the Vukelich decision paragraph 17;
17 Generally speaking, I believe that both the reason for having, or not having, a voir dire, and the conduct of such proceedings, should, if possible, be based and determined upon the statements of counsel. This is the most expeditious way to resolve these problems: see R. v. Dietrich (1970), 1970 CanLII 377 (ON CA), 1 C.C.C. (2d) 49 at 62 (Ont. H.C.); R. v. Hamill (1984), 1984 CanLII 39 (BC CA), 14 C.C.C. (3d) 338 (B.C.C.A.); and R. v. Kutynec (1991), 70 C.C.C. (3d) 289 at 301 (Ont. C.A.). I suggest that judges must be more decisive in this connection than they have been in the past because far too much judicial time is consumed by the conduct of these kinds of enquiries.
Judge said that there have been two Vukelich applications in this case so far. We seem to spend a lot of time discussing this rather than getting along in the case. I'm of the position that the defense has a basis for a voir dire. Defense has laid out arguments that some documents seized are outside of the warrant. I agree with defense that a voir dire is reasonable in respect to the manner of search under 489.

The defense was not ready to start on the voir dire so the judge moved back to the issue of agreed facts. He told both sides to try to get a statement of agreed facts in respect to the delay issue and we would consider delay after lunch. It was now noon giving them two hours to see what they could come up with by time court resumed at 2:00. So time for lunch.

At this point I'll stop. I have to be up early for trial tomorrow and I still have pages of notes to work my way through. So I'll do my report on the afternoon portion of today's proceedings in a second installment. You will note that while Mr. Balogh was a Paradigm student and apparently followed Russell Porisky's theories none of that has shown up in this court hearing. His defense has been entirely conventional. However he wasn't always that way and indications of his prior positions in court came out in the afternoon session, including the seven days he spent in jail for refusing to sign a document.
"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeI-J2PhdGs
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by bmxninja357 »

Balogh is the fifth Poriskyite dentist I've written about. His predecessors are;

Eva Sydel
Tania Kovaluk
Leo Fung
Clark Webster
So what your saying is if I can find any of these guys I can get discount dental work if I pay cash?

Ninj
whoever said laughter is the best medicine never had gonorrhea....
Burnaby49
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by Burnaby49 »

bmxninja357 wrote:
Balogh is the fifth Poriskyite dentist I've written about. His predecessors are;

Eva Sydel
Tania Kovaluk
Leo Fung
Clark Webster
So what your saying is if I can find any of these guys I can get discount dental work if I pay cash?

Ninj
If you're willing to use unlicensed dentists. Sydel went off the deep end and lost her practice. I'm pretty sure Kovaluk isn't practicing any more either. She got a two and a half year jail sentence and her FaceBook page called her a "former dentist". Webster was an old guy almost retired. The back-taxes, interest, and penalties set him back so much I think he lost his house and retirement is now just a receding dream. I haven't checked but I assume that Fung and Balogh are still practicing.
"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeI-J2PhdGs
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by bmxninja357 »

I'm almost willing to go that route. It's cheaper for me by tens of thousands to fly to Mexico or Cuba to do my teeth. Canadian dental is far to expensive.

Ninj
whoever said laughter is the best medicine never had gonorrhea....
Burnaby49
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by Burnaby49 »

Time for part 2 of the May 12th hearing, the afternoon!

I made a tactical mistake at lunch. I had a beer and fries at Irish Heather.

http://www.irishheather.com/

Which left me in a semi-stupor through most of the afternoon. This afternoon was about delay. The defense was trying to get charges dismissed on the basis of unreasonable delay between laying the Information and the trial. The Information is a charging document.
If both the evidentiary and public interest tests in favour of a prosecution are met, Crown counsel will determine which offences are appropriate and prepare the necessary Information, that is the document setting out the charges, for the police officer to swear before a justice of the peace or a judge. The swearing of such an Information is called 'laying a charge'.
http://www.victimsinfo.ca/en/investigat ... utors-role

The sequence of events in respect to the trial which may have resulted in delay was what the judge had wanted from the parties in the statement of agreed facts. It was his job to weight the facts involved in the delay to see if it was excessive and, if so, who was at fault. Although nobody used the word fault. It was just matter of apportioning the delay between three parties, the defendant, the Crown, and the court. The court got two categories of delays. The most fundamental was inherent delay. This is just the delay inherent in the system itself. How long, if Crown and defense are both prompt in everything they are required to do, is the normal amount of time it takes to get the case to trial? The second court delay is what the parties called systemic delay. I think it is delay above and beyond the normal inherent in the system. However this is not a topic I'm familiar with so try this;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Askov

So the judge wanted an agreed set of facts about the events, who asked for an adjournment and why, how long did it take for the Crown to do required procedures, problems with court scheduling, everything that might have caused delay. Then each side got to argue their interpretation of the facts, blame each other for the delays, and the judge would decide on the apportionment of delay. As I understand it any delay caused by the defendant didn't count as part of the overall time for determining unreasonable. The judge actually got something claimed to be a joint agreement on facts. Crown and defense had worked on it together over lunch.

The overall time period at issue was between May 17, 2012, when the information was laid, and June 2016, when the trial was scheduled to end. A little over four years.

Defense had first crack at it. My notes probably miss some of his arguments, I had trouble hearing. First there was something about a warrant issue where defendant didn't show up. Then a court hearing on September 6, 2012 where Mr. Balogh wouldn't identify himself. His name was called but he didn't answer to Peter Balogh. So he was arrested for failure to appear even though he was in courtroom. Defense was indignant about that because he said that the Crown knew that it was his client in court but had him paged anyhow. So he was arrested even though everyone knew he'd shown up. Unfortunately there is no decision on the September 6, 2012 hearing although Crown did later read from a transcript of it which clarified things a lot. I suspect it was something similar to an event that happened at a November 10th hearing for Leo Fung which had a published judgment;

R. v. Fung, 2011 BCPC 326
http://canlii.ca/t/fpckd
[1] THE COURT: I am dealing here with an application. Notice was given to Leo Fung, who is a taxpayer according to the documents, and that is the only person whom I want to talk to.

[2] LEO FUNG (probably): But there - -

[3] THE COURT: Leo Fung - - let me finish. Leo Fung has filed an affidavit saying he will consent to the order if the investigator proves and establishes a variety of issues that are completely unrelated. The question I have to decide is, "Do I detain these materials that were seized for a further period of time?"

[4] So the affidavit of Leo Fung can go into the court file, but I rule it irrelevant to this application. At this point in time, the only material I have in front of me is the application by the Crown and the affidavit of the investigator, Ms. Tsang.

[5] No one is stepping forward as the taxpayer to deal with this application - the person who has been given notice.

[6] Accordingly, I am of the view that the materials from the Crown are in order. The affidavit establishes that a further period of detention is appropriate and necessary to continue the investigation, and I am going to grant the order sought by the Crown.

[7] I will give everyone in the courtroom the opportunity, in the form of everyone who is a party to this action, i.e. Leo Fung, the taxpayer, because that is the only person whom I am interested in, one last opportunity to make submissions on the application, but not submissions on his legal status as a person versus a taxpayer.

[8] If Leo Fung the taxpayer is in the courtroom, he can make submissions.

[9] LEO FUNG: I'm not here to repute the taxpayer's material, I'm here just to claim my status as a private person.

[10] THE COURT: I am not here - - I am not here, again - -

[11] LEO FUNG: So that the private property - -

[12] THE COURT: Again, I am not here to deal with that issue. I am only here to deal with the taxpayer and his relationship with - -


Then a fragmented story (fragmented because of my notes, not defense analysis) about Balogh arguing on his own behalf through most of 2013 then getting a lawyer just to have the lawyer quit before the scheduled trial in early 2014. A search for and finally finding new counsel. Then when lawyer (current defense) up to speed things "started going sideways" in 2015. Something about judges unavailable in 2015 and another trial.

Institutional resources are an issue for defense. Timely prosecution. Reasons for delay critical. Accused's silence does not constitute waiver (of delay). The longer the delay the more likely the inference of prejudice. I think defense lawyer said that 17.5 months waived by defense leaving most of rest systemic. I lost track of days and months defense was relating. One problem that I had was that he rarely mentioned the year so I lost track of what year was under review. Not a problem for judge or Crown because they had a copy of the agreed facts in front of them. Defense said it was 28 months between some date (I think original scheduled trial date) and this trial and defense waived seventeen of them but unfair to attribute other eleven months to defense. It was not defense's fault but systemic. There was some delay of 31.5 months for which he claimed defense was not responsible.

He said it was an abuse of process for Mr. Balogh to have been arrested for failure to appear when he was actually in court.

Crown's turn. I'm afraid that I will be longer than my friend because there is a story to be told. The information was laid May 17, 2012. The controversy started June 28, 2012 in the first court date. We have a transcript of this in tab B. Line 4 shows that when Dr. Balogh was paged a person identifying himself as Kevin G. Washington stood forward and claimed to be a "verified witness by Her Majesty's notary" (I think that was his claimed title) acting for Balogh. Dr. Balogh paged with no result so crown asked for warrant to be issued. Apparently it wasn't issued. Crown said that prior to the hearing it received an affidavit from Peter Andrew of the family Balogh. He claimed that he was not bound by the laws of Canada and that a summons to court was an invitation. He would conditionally accept the summons if the Crown did certain things. These included writing summons in blue ink and providing the oaths of office of a laundry list of individuals I didn't get. Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia and Governor General of Canada were amongst them. He wanted a certified copy of the Income Tax Act along with the return of everything seized in the search of his home and office before he would come to court. Crown also mentioned that Craig Sturrock was involved for a while.

This showed he was trying to get some serious big-gun legal representation. I used to know Sturrock fairly well when I was a CRA auditor. A senior partner in Thorsteinnsons, Canada's largest tax law firm.

http://www.thor.ca/lawyers/
Craig Sturrock, Q.C. attended the University of British Columbia, obtaining his LL.B. degree in 1967.

In 1968 he received his LL.M. degree from the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He was admitted to the British Columbia Bar in 1969.

Craig is an author and speaker for the Canadian and British Columbia Bar Associations, the Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia and the Canadian Tax Foundation. He was also a former member of the Board of Governors of the Canadian Tax Foundation.

Craig’s practice focuses primarily on civil and criminal tax litigation. He has appeared as counsel in both trial and appellate proceedings in the federal and provincial superior courts and before the Supreme Court of Canada. His litigation experience includes both federal and provincial taxation statutes, with particular reference to criminal litigation and the Charter of Rights.
He's getting on. You'll note that he's heading towards fifty years as a practicing lawyer in Vancouver. The Sturrock comment seemed out of place in the sequence but that could be my notes. Thorsteinssons certainly represented Mr. Balogh for a while.

Balogh did not show up in court until August 23, 2012. So Crown wanted those fifty-six days between hearings weighed to the accused. He made his presence known at that hearing by identifying himself as Peter Andrew of the family Balogh suis juris. Court agreed he was there. Then I have something about a September 6, 2012 hearing. Crown at the time (not same as present) asked that Balogh be paged even though he thought he was in the courtroom. Judge asked Balogh "Are you Mr. Balogh?" and got this somewhat evasive response "In the name of Jesus Christ I call for a common law jurisdiction." Since Peter Balogh did not identify himself as present the court issue an arrest warrant for him and Peter Andrew of the family Balogh suis juris was arrested for failure to appear and transported in custody to 312 Main Street (Vancouver police headquarters at that time) to be fingerprinted. Mr. Balogh was told he would be released if he signed a peace bond. This is just an order from the court that required him to keep the peace and be on good behavior. Balogh refused because he said that the Crown had not fulfilled its contract (I assume the terms he'd demanded in his affidavit) and he ended up spending a week in jail. He only signed when the judge told him that if he didn't sign he'd stay in custody until his trial started.

As I noted elsewhere Michael Millar also made a fuss in court by demanding a common law court and also ended up handcuffed and in custody.

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10834#p227241

Crown said that it was only at this point that proceedings could get underway. I have something about Crown saying there were 238 days of delay until his first scheduled trial date of which Crown wanted 161 days attributed to inherent delay and 63 days to accused. Everything stopped when Mr. Balogh's lawyer withdrew before trial. What lawyer? While it isn't clear from my notes or what I heard in court it seems that sometime after the arrest debacle Mr. Balogh retained Thorsteinssons as counsel. His lawyer was Greg DelBigio;
Greg has advised and acted on behalf of individual taxpayers, corporations and tax advisors during audits, criminal investigations and after criminal charges have been approved. He has extensive trial and appellate experience and has appeared before all levels of court including before the Supreme Court of Canada.

Greg’s practice focuses upon litigation with an emphasis upon defending individuals and corporations charged with criminal tax evasion. Greg is also available to advise clients upon strategies and remedies available against other investigation and enforcement measures such as audit powers, the execution of search warrants and the inspection and seizure of records.
I don't know him but he seems eminently qualified. It's only speculation on my part but I'm guessing that DelBigio withdrew because Mr. Balogh wanted him to present a defense that he didn't agree with.

At this point judge called the afternoon break.

After break we started again as of September 2013. The current judge came on to the case at that time. Balogh had made an application for charges to be dismissed for abuse of process. He wanted disclosure about Project Fable so the hearing was adjourned. We discussed Operation Fable here;

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=9390

viewtopic.php?f=52&t=10795&p=209482#p209482

I don't know if it actually existed or was just a Poriskyite myth. If it existed it seems to have been nothing more than a program to coordinate all of the information gathered on Russell Porisky's Paradigm students. Porisky was the subject of a CRA seizure and the Agency gathered masses of information from his computer. It apparently covered all of his customers. So the CRA checked into all of them and probably set up Fable, whatever it was, to do this. If my guess is correct then the CRA wasn't targeting them or trying to find them, it already had the information about them. It was just a bureaucratic process to handle the files. You can read about Porisky here;

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10485

Balogh had also requested an adjournment to find counsel. Not granted. However between October 2013 and the beginning of Balogh's first scheduled trial in February 2014 Balogh retained his present counsel. Counsel couldn't make the set trial date so another adjournment which was ascribed to the defense. Apparently nothing much happened in 2014 while counsel got up to speed.

Defense had brought up an extended delay which he claimed was either inherent or systemic (I missed it in my notes) because of some issue with the Supreme Court of British Columbia. Something about a murder trial being changed to manslaughter. I didn't catch enough to make a reliable report on the issue. It turned out that this matter related to another of defense counsel's clients and he asked for an adjournment of Mr. Balogh's trial in order to handle the Supreme Court trial and the adjournment was granted. Crown said that this was counsel's choice but it was also Balogh's choice because he would have had to agreed with the adjournment. Otherwise he could have retained alternate counsel. So the long delay, I think thirteen months, resulting from this was not institutional but should be ascribed to Balogh.

So Crown gave a breakdown of their proposed allocation of delay. I didn't get the actual numbers but, not surprisingly, a very large portion attributed to defense.

There was a brief defense response. My client was the recipient of some very bad advice but he believed that advice because he though it reasonable and he trusted them. It made sense from his point of view and wasn't an attempt at delay. Defense did not mention Russell Porisky or Paradigm.

Then on to the delay because of counsel's scheduling conflict. He criticized Crown's argument that Balogh could have changed counsel. An argument how a lawyer and client had a special relationship of trust and how it was not like changing grocers. So to say that the counsel he trusted, and built a special relationship, could just be changed, I can't accept that. Counsel couldn't make it because of an issue with another client and it was the CRA's decision to allow case to be put on hold. I didn't make out if he wanted to ascribe this delay to crown or to court. Certainly not to his client. Then some comments about how the delay at the beginning because of Balogh refusing to identify himself shouldn't be ascribed to his client because Balogh was doing what he thought was a legitimate defense. After that judge said that a decision was not necessary now. Crown asked what was next. A voir dire on evidence seizure tomorrow.
"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeI-J2PhdGs
Burnaby49
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by Burnaby49 »

I'm doing one posting to cover a couple of trial days that I've just gotten around to writing up. This will bring me up to date.

Friday May 13, 2016

Today's hearing was a voir dire on the search of Mr. Balogh's house. Specifically which documents seized, if any, were not legitimately seized under the warrant.

This is the issue. The search was conducted under a warrant and the warrant was valid. Defense isn't arguing that point. The warrant named specific documents it covered but, as in all searches, there was always the possibility that documents which were not listed in the warrant might be found that were relevant to the prosecution. This situation is covered by section 489 of the Criminal Code which says, amongst other things;
489 (1) Every person who executes a warrant may seize, in addition to the things mentioned in the warrant, any thing that the person believes on reasonable grounds

(a) has been obtained by the commission of an offence against this or any other Act of Parliament;
(b) has been used in the commission of an offence against this or any other Act of Parliament; or
(c) will afford evidence in respect of an offence against this or any other Act of Parliament.
This allows the seizing of documents not specifically listed in the warrant if the seizing officer "believes on reasonable ground" that these are valid items to be seized under the ambit of the intent of the warrant. The "reasonable grounds" is a subjective test and there are two relevant points;

1 - The decision on what the reasonable grounds are must be made at the time or reasonably shortly thereafter. The searchers can't scoop everything in the house and sort it out later justifying what they decide to keep on a reasonable grounds basis.

2 - The onus is on the Crown to prove the searcher had reasonable grounds.

The defense spent the day, and probably all of the next day in court (I didn't attend the Monday, May 16th hearing) trying to prove to the court that the searchers did not have reasonable grounds to seize specific records not listed on the warrant, Mr. Balogh's bank records, I believe both personal and business. No need to point out that bank records seem obvious when doing a search. The CRA thought so since they were specifically listed on the search warrant for Mr. Balogh's office but they were not listed on the warrant for his house where they ended up being found.

Normally the parties would try to ascertain the reason for seizing the documents under review by asking the officer who seized them why they were taken. Unfortunately Amy Wong, the office who seized the bank records, died in an accident shortly after the search. So, in her place, various CRA officers who were at the search were examined and cross-examined.

The day started with Crown counsel stating that she wanted the identity of the specific documents that defense was trying to get excluded under 489. She asked if it was just the documents that Amy Wong had seized from the house. Judge stood down while the parties discussed the issue.

After recess Crown said that "in respect of seizures by Amy Wong" the terms of the voir dire order were now extended to potentially all of the documents in the residence since defense has mentioned documents seized by five other officers. The scope of the voir dire would be of assistance.

Defense said sorry if I mislead. The only thing changed is the scope. Amy Wong seized the bulk of the documents causing problems. I propose that we start with the witnesses that we have, this is the last voir dire.

Judge - My ruling was not limited, in my mind, to the documents seized by Amy Wong. It is limited just to the 489 argument.

Defense said that "My friend is trying to back me into a corner". Judge asked defense to identify which of the potential witnesses he wanted to testify. Not sure, still discussing. The Crown had listed the potential witnesses by name with eleven people. Four are available right now. Judge asked defense if he could identify specific documents that he wanted excluded. Yes but it will take time. Judge said that he didn't want dead court time so we had first CRA witness.

The Crown had wanted the searcher's notes made at the time of the seizure entered into evidence. The judge ruled that the witnesses had to testify on their memory of events but could use their notes when necessary to refresh their memories but, apart from Amy Wong's notes, could not be entered in evidence.

The first CRA witness was the individual in charge of the search of Mr. Balogh's home. He was questioned on direct by the Crown. He was asked about the events of May 24, 2011, two days before the search. He had written noted on the seizure at the time and shortly after and he had the notes in front of him. Defense asked that he close his notes. So he put them aside and when he needed them he ask the judge for permission to review them. Didn't need them as much as you'd expect given that the search took place five years ago.

There were ten people on the search team, he named them and their functions in the search. I recognized one of them. He went through the procedure for conducting the search. He'd arranged beforehand to be met near residence by police officer. So he went up to the door and knocked but a worker in the yard said nobody home. He walked around the house and found the kitchen door unlocked, went in, found a kettle boiling on the stove and turned it off. They didn't seize every document at the scene. If a searcher was uncertain if a document fit within the warrant it was brought to him to decide. Amy Wong found bank documents, I didn't hear, or it wasn't said if these were personal, business, or both. These were not listed on the home search warrant but were on the office search warrant. No cash was seized, just documents.

There was a search coordinator in the office handling the multiple searches. He phoned Mr. Balogh and informed him of the searches. In House? Yes, How? Open door, turned kettle off. He came home later in the morning, at 10:40. Crown - what interaction did you have with him? I gave him a copy of the warrant and showed my ID. Balogh asked that the police officer be dismissed. No. He asked for ID from all search members. He was given a count of the cash seized and he signed off on it. Mrs. Balogh arrived home at 11:50. She was upset and asked searchers to leave. She videoed the search team. She started taking documents out of the boxes and was stopped but she was allowed to photograph documents taken, one envelope at a time. They were finished by 12:10.

Morning break then a few more Crown questions. He'd observed Amy Wong seizing the bank documents. She'd found them in a four drawer filing cabinet in what he called a "pantry" but sounded like a small shed outside the house. Since the documents were not listed in the search warrant the Crown asked under what authority they were seized. He said section 489 of the Criminal Code. He said that cheques and bank statements were evidence of evasion even if not in the warrant.

Time for cross-examination. What documents have you reviewed in anticipation of giving evidence? My notes, Amy Wong's notes, some other notes. Defense brought up a briefing memo. Did you review all six pages of the memo? Did you remember events independent of these document? I remember some of it.

Was Mrs. Balogh upset when she came home? Yes. Were the searchers going through the house? Strangers? She had no advance notice? Correct. Was she upset consistent with strangers being in the house? Yes. Was she going through the documents because she was concerned? I don't know what she was thinking. Was she upset the whole time? She calmed down. I apologized for the intrusion. I understand that when you asked Balogh's for walk-through (a check of the place after search over) Mr. Balogh wanted to but Mrs. Balogh did not. I don't remember but there was no walk-through.

Were you the supervisor of the search. Yes. If higher-up asked questions you would explain? Yes. Did you direct the search staff? Yes. Can you say that Amy Wong attended the pre-search meeting? Do you remember? Yes. Then on to the warrants. Were warrant's issued for the accountant's office and the dental practice? Yes. So you looked for the business records at the accountant's office? No. Business records are not usually kept in an accountant's office. You knew when you searched the house that it did not include business records in the warrant? Yes. While you were there (at house) you were contacted by the search coordinator asking if you'd found the business records? Yes. Did you tell the searchers to look for the business records? No. But you told them to let you know if you found them? Yes. Did you tell them to look for documents? Don't think so. Did you talk to Amy Wong about 489? We probably had that discussion. But you don't remember? No.

Witness said that it was unusual to find business records outside the main residence and unlocked. Did she (Amy Wong) take you to the documents? I believe so. Did you see the documents in the cabinet? Yes. How many documents? The filing cabinet was full. Do you remember the dates? No. I assume the date range on the warrant. (note, this question refers to the dates on the documents because the warrant only authorized the seizure of documents within the date-range of a specified number of fiscal years). Have you seen the inventory of your search? Yes, that came to me. Did you review them. I don't know, me or (another employee). Why? To see if it matched up to the search warrant. If not? They would be listed on things to be returned. How soon was this done after the search? It depends on volume and the availability of staff. Up to six months? No. We have a maximum of three months to decide on documents and things we've seized. Within three months? Yes. At this point lunch break.

This time I didn't make the same boozy mistake as yesterday. I had an iconic Vancouver lunch, corned beef hash and coffee at the Ovaltine Cafe, just down the block from the courthouse. The Ovaltine is virtually unchanged, inside and out, since its opening in 1942 and is a Vancouver landmark. One of the very few classic 1930's and WWII greasy spoons left in Vancouver.


Image


Image
It still has its original neon sign from 1942.


Image
I always sit at the counter just behind where the new owners are standing


Back at 2:00. You would agree with me that if business records found they would have to be within the time of the warrant? Yes. You stated that Amy Wong would have reviewed office search warrant because she was a possible searcher? Yes. I saw her signature on the acknowledgement sheet for the search warrant for the business. Amy Wong brought the cash to your attention, why was it seized? It was not seized. Then why was it brought to you? For our own protection. We count cash, record it, and return it.

I think defense was trying to show that Amy was seizing whatever she found without reviewing whether or not it fit in the warrant or if it was relevant to the search. Cash would have been a great example for this assumption had it been seized because it is totally irrelevant as evidence to a charge of tax evasion. I'm guessing that defense thought that since the cash was recorded on the inventory sheet it had actually been seized and taken back to the office. At least that was my impression listening to the questioning.

Then the witness was quizzed on documents regarding the Canadian Rights Association. What does it represent? I have no idea.

Burnaby49 has no idea either since those words bring up no Google hits. While I recorded that defense said the words "Canadian Rights Association" I'm guessing that I got that wrong and he said "Free Canadian Education Association". That one I know. It was the name that Keith Lawson gave to his business as a Paradigm instructor teaching students how to evade income tax. Keith was recently convicted of tax evasion and counselling tax evasion. Well to be entirely accurate, counselling fraud. This was Keith Lawson's counselling charge;
Count 1 - Keith David Lawson, at or near the City of Burnaby in the Province of British Columbia and elsewhere, between April 15, 2002 and August 26, 2010, did counsel various persons to commit the indictable offence of fraud in excess of five thousand dollars, contrary to section 380 of the Criminal Code and did thereby commit an offence contrary to section 464(a) of the Criminal Code.
I attended Keith's file and wrote it up here;

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=8223

The next question moved on to electronic storage. If a searcher came across an unmarked USB stick they would have to stick it in a computer to see what was on it? Yes. Is it unusual to take computer storage back to the office and view it there? Not common. Better practice to view on site? Yes. Then questions about a computer which was not seized. What did you take from it? Some files. How much? Don't recall. Was there a discussion what to take from the computer? Yes. Then back to the warrant and how it allowed data to be seized.

Then a list of documents that Amy Wong had seized under the authority of 489. Defense confirmed that CRA provided boxes to haul it all away. Defense asked a question about what might have been on Amy Wong's mind. Objection. Witness was sent out. Crown said that defense was asking the witness to do the court's job of determining Amy Wong's intent. Defense said that the list described what Amy Wong had seized but not the actual document. Judge - What are you trying to get from the witness? His understanding of what these documents are to him.

Back to questioning. You knew that the bank reconciliation was not in the warrant for the residence? Yes. Is it true that Amy Wong seized these documents. I believe so. This page (of seized documents list) is all company documents, is that correct? Not all. The first page? Yes. Second page? There is a letter from Porisky and associates. You can't tell why that was seized? Correct. But you can confirm from this that it was seized under 489? Yes.

Note - For any of you not familiar with Russell Porisky he thought up the Paradigm tax evasion system. He didn't call it that but it has been deemed so by numerous court decisions. Porisky, and my report on his own tax evasion trial, can be found here;

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10485

More questions about the inventory of things seized by Amy Wong. Something about documents from 2004. Isn't that outside of the warrant? I'd have to check the warrant. The document was for the fiscal year August 2004 to August 2005. So this is valid under 489? Yes.

This seemed to be another line of attack on Amy Wong's seizure of documents. Even if a document not named in the warrant could be seized under 489 it still had to have been produced within the time period authorized under the warrant. 2004 was not in the warrant but this document was ok because it also included part of 2005 which was in the warrant. Then on to a 2003 document. This was seized? Yes. Was it outside of the warrant? Yes. So wrongfully seized? Yes, that's why it was returned. Then they went through 2002 and 2003 documents seized. You had no authority to seize these. Is that correct? Correct. When was the decision made that they should not have been seized. I don't know. Witness said that he knew the process the searchers went through. You may seize a folder apparently covered by the warrant but then looking later mat see that they don't fit in the warrant so they are returned. Defense returned to a question asking the witness to speculate what Amy Wong may have thought when she seized them. Witness said that he couldn't answer what she saw or thought. The judge cut in and told defense this was not helpful. Crown also objected saying it was beyond the witness's personal knowledge.

Is this your only search with Amy Wong. No, one other, I wasn't in charge of that one. Then something about a document relating to P.A.B. Holdings Inc. Defense noted a number of documents and asked why they were seized. Don't know. And cross was over.

Two questions on redirect. The inventory of things returned, who decided? The person who seized them or the team leader. For what reasons? Not covered by the warrant or irrelevant. That was it for witness number one and time for afternoon break.

Next witness was a member of the search team. She went through the protocol for seizing evidence. Crown - Walk us through executing the search warrants. Can I use my notes? Were they made at the time of the search? Yes. Were they added to? No. Judge - Just use them to refresh your memory. (same as the first witness. He had notes but he could only use them intermittently by asking judge under the same phrase "refresh your memory"). We started the search in the kitchen where we entered downstairs. Found nothing to seize there or in the dining room. Then to the office where I found most of my documents. I became a custodian at 10:40 when I was given a box. The searchers would give me envelopes. What did you seize? Notices of assessment, banking documents, GST documents, Porisky and Associates correspondence.

She explained about the envelopes. All seized documents were put in envelopes and each envelope was marked for identity by the searcher. She listed the number of envelopes that each searcher gave her. Box three was all Amy Wong documents. Did she hand them to you personally? Yes. Did you mark her envelopes? No. I've left a fair amount out of this witness's testimony because it was just procedural, identifying the steps from finding a document to it's placement in secure CRA storage. I believe that the first witness had said that once the documents were in the office they were placed in a high security storage area.

Her direct examination was quite short and then the judge said to defense "I presume that you won't be finished your cross examination in twelve minutes. No your honour. Then I'll adjourn until Monday 10:30.


Thursday May 19, 2016

I didn't make the Monday, May 16th hearing, it conflicted with another court hearing I wanted to attend. Mr. Balogh did not have a hearing on the 17th or 18th so my next attendance was Thursday the 19th. I'd hoped to find the voir dire over because it had only been scheduled for two days but Crown counsel came to court with boxes of documents so I was at a loss to figure out what was going on. The voir dire was supposedly still being heard but as soon as the hearing started defense got up and said that he couldn't win the voir dire and so he was dropping it. This was the last pre-trial issue so we could now get going on the trial itself. Or not. Crown said that they only had one witness but he wasn't available and he may not be available tomorrow. Maybe Tuesday (Monday is a statutory holiday in Canada). Judge asked if the voir dire evidence was to be admitted at trial. No. The bank records would be admitted as regular evidence. They agreed to meet tomorrow morning to discuss when they can get down to the trial. Not worth my taking the trouble to come downtown so I won't attend. Wednesday the 25th is the next court date and the actual start of the trial.
"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeI-J2PhdGs
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by grixit »

Do they serve Ovaltine at the Ovaltine?
Three cheers for the Lesser Evil!

10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
. . . . . . Dr Pepper
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . 4
Burnaby49
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by Burnaby49 »

The trial is over and I attended almost all of it. Not difficult since it totaled about two days once the pre-trial skirmishing was done. So I have it all in my notebook to be written up but it will have to wait. I'm off to Britain in a few days and I don't have the time for extensive postings before I go. My free time is curently being spent attending Michael Millar's trial. Balogh ended at noon last Monday and after I'd sat through that and had lunch I watched the afternoon portion of the first day of Millar's trial.

Balogh's decision has been reserved. It will probably be released some time in August so I should have time to write it up before we find out what the court thinks of it all. The judge said he'd give decisions on both the issue of undue delay and, if that didn't derail things, the evasion charges. There were some highlights. Driven from the courtroom by the terrifying invasion of the teensy-weensy spiders! Burnaby49 questioned yet again by a judge! An actual lawyer doing a cross-examination! But the part I enjoyed most, that I truly appreciated, was the brevity of it all.
"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeI-J2PhdGs
Burnaby49
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by Burnaby49 »

Time to get Balogh's tax evasion trial reported. I attended the trial but just didn't get time to write it up until I got back from my British Boozing trip and then got caught up in other things. My last posting was the May 19th voir dire hearing regarding evidence so I'll start here with May 25th, the first day of the actual trial.

First a technical problem with Quatloos that I ran into for the first time while trying to post this report as I'd originally written it. I was kicked out with this message;

Your message contains 67044 characters.
The maximum number of allowed characters is 60000.


Fortunately I've learned through unhappy experiences not to trust the underlying software at all so I backup everything I post before I hit the Submit button. Since Quatloos doesn't like my posting as presented I've broken it down into two part to meet the entirely arbitrary character limitation.

Given the time gap since I started this discussion a bit of basic background. Dr. Balogh was a dentist who fell for Russell Porisky's Paradigm tax evasion scheme (although it was never described that way, it was described as knowing your human rights however the only human right that Porisky seems to have explored and promoted through Paradigm was the right to evade taxes). Porisky's explanation of why you didn't have to pay tax was so convoluted that nobody ever really understood it, I certainly didn't. But it came down to saying that you were a natural person. Since in Porisky's dream world natural persons (a term not defined in the Income Tax act) didn't have to pay tax all that you had to do to stop paying taxes was declare yourself to be a natural person. So Dr. Balogh did.

He operated Balogh Inc. his dental practice. It was very successful. Before his conversion to Porisky's nonsense he'd employed an accounting firm to prepare the practice's financial statements, income tax return, and his family's income tax returns. After his conversion he continued to have the accountants prepare the corporate information as before but he stopped them from doing his personal income tax returns. Prior to this he'd been an employee of the company (I believe he was sole shareholder, his wife might have has some shareholding) and he took money out as wages. His scheme to stop paying income taxes wouldn't work if he remained an employee because companies are required by law to file annual T4 slips for each of their employees. This is a very detailed information slip with all of the employee's wage information for the year. You can see a copy here;

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pbg/tf/t4/t4flat-14b.pdf

Two copies of this are made. One goes to the employee, the other to the Canada Revenue Agency. At the end of the year the CRA runs a computerized matching program to match up the T4 slips sent by the employers to those filed by the employees in their income tax returns. If there isn't a match for an employer submitted slip the CRA investigates to find out why. This makes it virtually impossible to evade paying tax if you are an employee of a company that meets its legal obligations to file T4 slips. Since Balogh Inc.'s books and records were prepared by an accounting firm there was no way around preparing the T4 slips. Porisky covered that little problem by telling his followers to change from being employees into independent contractors. Contractors don't get T4 slips, they just get whatever contracting fees they receive and they are expected to declare this. The payor only records the expense in the company financial statements but sends no specific information to the CRA. So all of the Poriskyites, including Balogh, declare themselves to be contractors and then didn't report the income they received. Not a particularly sophisticated scheme.

Since Balogh didn't want to pay any tax at all, at either the corporate or personal level, he instructed his accountants to pay him all of the company revenues in excess of expenses as contracting fees so that his very successful dental practice just broke even every year. It worked for a while until he was checked out by the CRA and he was charged with income tax evasion. The Crown had an extremely easy job determining exactly how much in contracting fees Balogh had not reported because the firm kept impeccable records and all the CRA had to do was use these as the evidence of Balogh's unreported income. So, to enter these into evidence, the Crown had a member of the accounting firm as its only witness.

Balogh initially represented himself using Poriskyite defenses but when this clearly became a disastrous course he retained legal counsel who apparently insisted that his defense be run along entirely conventional lines with none of Porisky's bullshit being used as part of his arguments in court.


May 25, 2016

Trial to be held in room 526, a new courtroom to me. It actually has real natural light coming through a room-length skylight and a second one over the judge. It was a sunny day so the courtroom was pleasantly bright. The court started without the defendant or his lawyer in attendance. Judge said that we'd stand down and wait for the defense lawyer. Judge said that he had to come from Abbotsford (a town about 43 miles up the Fraser Valley) so being late was understandable. This is the main road into Vancouver and is generally very clogged in the mornings. Lawyer showed up 20 minutes late. Accident on the freeway.

Crown said that it was ready with its opening statement. It would be quite brief. Sound was very poor so I probably missed significant bits. Peter Balogh has been charged with three counts of evasion and one count of false statements. The case for the Crown is mainly documents to prove actus rea. The testimony and documents will give mens rea. Crown spoke very quickly and I could barely follow, never mind write up.

A witness will take the court through the documents. These include Mr. Balogh's participation in a group called Paradigm. There is one other witness who should only take half a day. I think she said that the other witness was Balogh's accountant. We'll find out.

Something to do with admissions, jurisdiction and continuity. Continuity can be a big issue. This is proving that the documents taken during a search are the same document to be submitted as evidence. It often requires the long dreary process of having everybody in the document chain testify. The searcher tells where he found the documents and how he catalogued and transported them to a secure lockup. Then the actual physical transportation of the documents the courtroom is proven through witnesses. If continuity is broken defense can contest the evidence. Happily Balogh's lawyer admitted continuity and avoided al the tedium and court time. Crown had wheeled in three boxes of documents which turned out to be the document from the search of Balogh's house and business premises.

Crown said "I'd said earlier about Mr. Balogh's argument that his tax returns were private and cannot be used against him". Crown cited some statute that said specifically that filed tax returns could be admitted in court in an action against the individual who filed them. Then a list of affidavits from numerous CRA employees along with copies of bank statements. Then, at 10:30, the Crown's witness. Distinguished white haired older guy. Turned out to be Balogh's accountant.

What did you do for him? We prepared the financial statements for Balogh Inc., the dental practice and filed tax returns along with those pf Peter Balogh and his family.

How long did you do his personal tax returns? 2001 to 2004. for the corporation 2001 to 2010.

Describe the normal way you prepared the T1 (personal income tax return). It flowed from the corporate records. How much salary and dividends he got. We would do projections.

Did you do this in 2001-2004? Yes. What was Mr. Balogh's main source of income? Two types, salary and dividends. Did you file the returns? Yes. Did you do his 2005? No.

Why not? In September 2005 Dr. Balogh advised me that he would no longer file personal tax returns. We did it for the family, his wife and two children.

Were the T2 corporate returns still part of your business? Yes. How did you do it? We prepared the financial statements then used this to prepare the T2. Where did you get the information? From Dr. Balogh or his bookkeeper. Was this normal? Yes. Did you review the T2 with the client? No. What did you review? The financial statements and the personal tax returns. We reviewed the income statements and their personal tax return implications.

Regarding 2001 to 2010, did you file the corporate tax returns? Yes. The basis of the T2 is the corporate financial statements. All automatic and computerized.

Crown gave witness a two binder affidavit. Do you recognize this? Yes. It is an affidavit I made on January 17, 2014. Take us through the documents in volume 1. What is document tab 347? Part of our tax planning. A director's resolution by Balogh Inc. to pay bonuses to Mr. and Mrs. Balogh. The bonus is considered salary and is employment income on Dr. Balogh's personal return in 2005 or 2006.

Another document. Do you recognize this? Yes. It is a note of a meeting to discuss changing his (Balogh's) status from an employee to a contractor. He said that he was a natural person which would make him tax exempt. Did he tell you this? Yes. Next doc. Who is Tina? A chartered accountant who worked for me at that time. It was an email to the bank. Next document at tab 351. Do you recognize? Yes, this document is file queries we had after posting information. We would contact Mr. Balogh or the bookkeeper. Did a staff person do this? Yes. There was a revenue increase of $300,000, did it make sense? Dr. Balogh told us the reason for increase.

Next tab 352. What is this? A document prepared by (member of his staff) to reconcile $70,000 and $12,000 bonus to be treated as contract payment in the financial statements. Why were they treated as contract labour? "Paid to Dr. Balogh as a natural person" is noted on the bottom because Dr. Balogh said that any further payments were to him as a natural person.

On to some other documents showing payments recorded to a natural person. Also an internal control document prepared in response to a manager of the accounting firm calculating Peter Balogh's tax liability on the funds he received from the practice.

Then on to the November 22, 2005 engagement letter which set out the terms of the accounting firms engagement. At the end of the completion of the financial statements and corporate income tax return the company had $278,045 in taxable income. When we meet the client at the end of the year we prepared personal tax projections for the 2005 year. Was Balogh's income, including contract payments in it? Only one item, a taxable benefit of $4,700, a shareholder's benefit from a tax-free loan (note - I may have copied that incorrectly and it was an interest-free loan).

Next document discussed was a reconciliation of accounting income top actual cash income. Non-cash items like depreciation are added back. On that basis company made $477,000 in 2005. Balogh started buzzing with his lawyer over this.

Then a document prepared by the witness. Something to do with a housing loan benefit renamed from "shareholder's loan" to "private loan". Is "private loan" a normal accounting term? No. Who instructed you not call it a shareholder's loan? Dr. Balogh.

Then the company income tax return. Balogh told the accountants that the fees paid to him were to be included in the return as contract expenses. Is it normal for clients to tell you this, how to report it in the return? No.

Finally tab 361. What is this? The financial statements of Balogh Inc. as of July 31, 2005. Where are the expenses to Mr. Balogh shown here? Contractors fee (I think I wrote $82,00 but doesn't seem enough). You discussed this with Balogh? Yes. Crown said this finished 2005 and we would do the same with the other years after the break.

After break it was on to 2006. Accountant identified the firm's engagement letter for the year ending July 31, 2006. We are engaged to do Balogh Inc. The second to last sentence was "We will not audit or review financial statements nor confirm that they meet generally accepted accounting principles." The engagement letter also included the contractor fees. Is this standard? No, we bolded this to show that it is not standard. Also reference to his status as a natural person and contractor.

At this point I stopped obsessing about trying to keep up. 2006 was largely a repeat of 2005. When witness stated that a document said that all of the 2006 contract payments went to Dr. Balogh the defense lawyer made an objection on the basis that the witness was not qualified to interpret what a third party put on a document. However the third party was a member of the witness's firm so judge gave ok to interpret.

I think this was in respect to a document that asked "How are we handling $440,000 of Balogh Inc.'s contracting costs?" Witness said that they were instructed to adjust contract expenses to eliminate all corporate income. In the end it was recorded as sub-contracting.

One document noted a mistake. They'd gone too far in reducing income and the company had a $15,000 loss. So, on Balogh's instructions to make the company income neutral, the contracting fees were reversed by this amount to make the corporate income nil.

Another query from the accounting staff. Why are we reducing consulting fee when the $15,000 amount has actually been paid? Witness said that we always went back to Dr. Balogh's instructions to reduce corporate taxes to zero without creating a loss.

Tab 378 was a separate letter from the accounting firm to Balogh "outlining our concerns regarding your decision to be a natural person". They had him sign this one.

Tab 381 - What is this? Account handler note to Balogh re July 2007 year end. The point of this email was a preliminary calculation of corporate taxes of $21,000. Increase contractor fee by $118,000 through a management bonus. We can't pay this bonus to Mrs. Balogh because of reasonableness test (since she didn't work for the firm it wasn't reasonable to give her a management bonus). Because of your status as a natural person you may not want to pay more contractor's fees so you may instruct to pay some corporate taxes. Balogh chose to pay the bonus and bring corporate taxes down to nil.

Next some document to the bank where they showed the real income instead of zero by doing a cash flow before contractor's fees giving $573,000. Balogh's 2007 contractor's fees were $540,000. In 2008 revenue down by $161,000 and contractor's fees of $488,000. Fees were $452,000 in 2009. In 2010 Balogh took $442,500 in fees and these were the last statements prepared by the firm. Then lunch. I went off to the Ovaltine Cafe and had corned beef hash.

I came back to find that we had changed courtrooms. Our morning room had been overrun by the invasion of the tiny spiders! Apparently the judge spent the morning swatting them away. Defendant's wife did same and Crown counsel said they were underfoot. I didn't see anything. It was actually unclear what they were. I have ants in my notes but I remember people commenting on spiders. In any case we lost our sunlit courtroom.

Judge reminded the witness that he was still under oath and it was back to direct. Were you involved in any way with Balogh's activities apart from preparing financial statements? I only advised him about structuring a group practice. Did you ever advise about structuring payments and contracts? No.

Crown referred to a letter of January 2007 from the witness to Balogh. Letter confirmed that Balogh did not plan to report contract fees. Balogh had signed it. I was very incredulous when told in 2005. How did you respond? I told him that he couldn't get away with this. What is "this"? I could not believe that you could get away with not paying taxes. Did you prepare Mrs. Balogh's 2005 to 2010 tax returns? Yes. Were there any contract payments on them? No. To your knowledge the contract payments were not reported? Correct.

Why was 2010 the last year you did? I can't recall. There was no formal separation, we just stopped. That ended the examination in chief and time for the cross-examination. A novelty for me. In all of the Poriskyite cases that I've attended and written up I've never sat through a cross examination by an actual lawyer. Arthur Doerksen was the only other Poriskyite who had a lawyer and Doerksen died during the course of his trial.

Q - You've been an accountant for over 40 years?
A - Correct.

Q - It's quite normal to structure financial affairs to minimize tax?
A - Yes.

Q - You advise on how to minimize tax?
A - Yes.

Q - People have all kinds of views of taxes from people who want to pay tax to people who will do anything to avoid paying tax. Correct?
A - Yes.

Q - There are two things, avoidance and evasion. Avoidance is not criminal. Correct?
A - Yes.

Q - It is not unusual to have dentists paid by sub-contract. Correct?
A - No, it is not usual.

Q - It is, in my opinion, it is usual.
A - Not in my experience.

Lawyer mentioned how a doctor working for another doctor can be paid as a contractor. Witness answered yes. I believe that the College of Dental Surgeons does not allow one dentist to employ another. Judge asked for clarification. You are talking about independent dentists, not partners or shareholders? Yes.

Lawyer asked about the change from a shareholder's loan to a private loan.

Q - This is normal?
A - No, we always call it a loan to a shareholder.

Q - Do you have a meaning for a private loan?
A - A loan to a non-shareholder. (note - I was confused at this point whether they were talking about a loan from the company to the shareholder or a loan by the shareholder to the company, Not that it matters for the purpose of the questions).

Q - You said that he was pretty religious about the natural person scheme. He seemed to really believe in the Paradigm scheme?
A - Yes.

Q - He asked for your opinion on it.
A - No. He gave me information to read if you want to find out more and I have no evidence that I responded to him.

Q - When he mentioned natural persons you were incredulous?
A - Yes. There are avoidance schemes that result in no tax but this went much further. I started reading the literature but stopped reading early on. I couldn't understand it.

Q - He didn't seem as concerned about tax as he was with the role of individuals and government. Correct?
A - No, he talked about tax. He was fairly aggressive in his tax avoidance so we implemented some risky tax avoidance measures.

Q - You have a reputation of helping tax avoidance?
A - Yes.

Q - So high income earners go to you?
A - Yes.

Q - Risky schemes other than Paradigm, did they work out?
A - Yes.

Q - Natural person scheme, did you think it too risky?
A - I thought it was weird.

Q - Is it fair to say that you read it but couldn't tell if it was legitimate but odd?
A - I put it aside because it was incredulous.

Q - Did you talk to any other professionals about it?
A - No.

Q - Dr. Balogh told you that there was an accountant who said it was legitimate. Do you recall?
A - No.

Q - You met personally with him once a year?
A - Yes.

Q - In at least one meeting you talked about natural persons?
A - Yes, for the engagement letter.

Q - But he constantly brought it up?
A - No, just once.

Q - Did you have a conversation where you said that you admired him for standing up to his beliefs?
A - No.

Q - You don't remember that?
A - No.

Q - But you continued to do his returns including paying him as a contactor?
A - Correct. We felt that in any event Dr. Balogh needed an accountant to do returns subject to acknowledgement of natural persons.

Q - You made recommendations to him about fees to minimize corporate income?
A - Yes, based on instructions from Dr. Balogh to deduct fees sufficient to eliminate taxes.

Q - Dr. Balogh was quite transparent with his natural person theories?
A - Yes.

Q - He didn't ask you to hide anything, make sham companies?
A - Yes. (note, correct answer actually no to a negative question but it was understood that he agreed with question).

Q - He submitted invoices for fees?
A - Yes.

Q - As Dr. Balogh established contractor fee scenario you had to pay the fee? If Revenue Canada audited the books it would be abundantly clear that Dr. Balogh was taking this as contractor's fees?
A - Yes.

Q - No hiding money?
A - No.

Q - Your firm occasionally communicated between client and the bank.
A - Yes.

Q - Your firm confirmed to the bank that Dr. Balogh collected contractor's fees, correct?
A - Yes.

Lawyer brought up email between the firm and Scotia bank. It said specifically that Balogh took contractor's fees.

Q - There was never any attempt by Dr. Balogh to hide what he was drawing out of the company, correct?
A - Yes.

He then asked the witness a question that was just speculation, whether or not Balogh actually believed Porisky's theories. The witness's said "I don't know" before the Crown could object.

Then on to the documents. Tab 378. It was an engagement letter. My notes say "Point 2, CRA will deny contract fees to the company and will include in income and assess taxes and penalties". I have to assume, since I can't remember, that lawyer just had witness read this out.

Tab 379, bolded part. "We do not advise you regarding fees. If assessed they will result in double tax but impose tax on income you receive from the corporation".

Q - Explain that double tax to me? Can they do that?
A - Yes
Q - Is that legal?

Objection. Judge said that Crown just beat him to it. Then lawyer asked what CRA would do. Objection, irrelevant and speculative. Witness can't talk about CRA policies. Judge agreed. He said that this was not the appropriate forum to discuss CRA policies. Then time for afternoon break.

What I assume that the accountant meant was that it was possible that the CRA could have disallowed the fees as a deduction from company income but taxed them in Balogh's hands as income. I noted at the time that I thought that the lawyer was trying to show the unfairness of disallowing contractor's fees as a company expense while taxing Balogh. I agree with Crown that the lawyer was just speculation. In any case, if there was double taxation, he could have easily proven it as a fact rather than ask a third party witness. Balogh was eventually audited and charged. If the CRA had decided to disallow the fees as expenses they have presumably already done this. If the CRA has actually disallowed them, (which I doubt) the lawyer could have brought this into evidence. Since he has not I assume that the CRA allowed the fees as company deductions and just reassessed Balogh. This is what would have happened in the normal course of events had he reported the fees.

Break over Back to it at tab 374. I think a query about the issue of reducing Balogh's contact fees when he took too much. Lawyer asked;

Q - Why reduce contract fees, why not carry them back ?
A - I can't speak for the writer but it is my recollection that contract fees were too high causing a loss. Instead the advice is to suggest taking the loss back (to a prior year). The response in the document was that, per a telephone conversation "Peter wanted zero tax. This was the first time that this reviewer (who made the query) had seen the file. We followed Mr., Balogh's instructions to a "T" to bring income to zero.

Tab 389 - A document that said that the bonus/contract fees were split. I think the lawyer said that this was a clear suggestion of advise taken on tax planning. "I suggest to you that taxes weren't the important issue with Dr. Balogh, he really believed in his political philosophy" Objection. Judge - rephrase the question. "He really believed this natural person belief" Objection. Judge, break it up too long a question. Try again;

Q - In your discussion with Dr. Balogh do you believe taxes were not important for him?
A - I disagree. Reducing taxes was important.

Q - Did you think he believed in Paradigm?
A - I believed him.

Q - Do you remember a statement that you made to Lloyd Chow in 2011? (Lloyd was a CRA auditor working in Investigations).
A - No.

Q - Do you remember talking to Lloyd Chow.
A - I don't remember the individual.

Q - You had an interview with CRA staff and with a lawyer?
A - Yes.

Q - Did you answer them honestly? You told the CRA that taxes were not the important thing with Mr. Balogh?
A - Can I see the statement?

Q - Yes. Is that your signature?
A - Yes.

Q - Voluntary?
A - Yes. It was October 26, 2011. Let me read this (witness read statement). Peter talked about it like religion. He felt taxes not most important thing in making the point that the government had no right to tell him what to do.

(note - Lawyer seemed to be trying to get the witness to state that today in court he (witness) thought that Balogh did not consider taxes important but that he'd said in 2011 that he believed Balogh when he said that taxes were not important to him. If true this would show a contradiction between what he was saying under oath today with what he said five years ago to the CRA. But from what I picked up in court what the witness had said to Chow in 2011 was that Balogh had told him that taxes were not important. So he was just repeating a statement by Balogh. He was not giving his own opinion regarding Balogh's tax beliefs.)

Q - How long did your meetings with Balogh take?
A - Hour to an hour and a half. They covered issues when Balogh signed the engagement letter.

Q - The purpose of the letter was to protect your office from CA Institute?
A - Yes but also to protect our office from Dr. Balogh.

Q - They (CA Institute) review your office every three years and look for letters like this?
A - No, they check random files.

Q - But they might pull this one?
A - Yes.

Q - You stopped his T1's (personal return) in 2005. Correct?
A - No, last we did was in 2004. You have no knowledge of whether he completed any after that? I don't know.

Q - I have to ask the obvious question. You would not help Dr, Balogh commit criminal fraud?
A - No.

Then the witness made a comment that caused him a lot of grief in the rest of the cross-examination "I thought it was criminal!".

Q - You warned him about civil but not criminal?
A - Yes.

Q - But this also involved the company in the fraud?

Objection and witness excluded. Defense argued that he should answer. Judge said "you could ask him if what he thought what the company was doing was criminal.

Defense - You said that you believed that what Balogh was doing was criminal fraud?
A - Correct.

Q - You said that you would never advise criminal fraud?
A - Correct.

Q - Turn to tab 381. This paragraph is about reducing taxes by incurring contract fees. Isn't that abetting fraud?
A - Initially I didn't think it was fraud. Balogh was convinced about this natural persons business. He instructed us no corporate income. It was our job to record company income. I started to see big numbers,$500,000. I expected the CRA to object to the large amount of fees. When you aggressively evade taxes (notes I can't read) but when you avoid $200,000 taxes a year then it goes to far.

Q - Why didn't you warn him?
A - It was my thought.

Q - Your obligation is to your client and you did not bring that to his attention?
A - Back of my mind but I didn't recall you could go to jail for something so far out there.

Q - You advised him to take out more fees thinking that it was criminal?
A - No he asked, we didn't advise. But you thought it was criminal. No. I'm not a lawyer to advise that it was criminal.

Q - Did you advise him to see a lawyer?
A - No. I thought the scheme would be stopped earlier on but it wasn't. Dr. Balogh wouldn't listen to me

Defense returned to suggesting that the witness advising Balogh to pay out company earnings was part of the criminal offense. Objection. Judge said "We are losing the flow." Break up the questions". I think the judge commented that it was the lawyer's style to ask questions rapidly but he should leave time for an answer. At least I have that unattributed comment in my notes.

Back to email. Lawyer read out a quote I didn't catch which related to ways to reduce the company income to zero so it wouldn't pay tax. He asked witness if this was correct. Yes. Lawyer said "This is confusing to me, you gave evidence to me that you gave opinion that this is tax evasion but your company is advising him in evading tax."

Q - Are you suggesting that he commit tax evasion in the email?
A - I don't understand.

Q - If you believed that he is evading taxes you are advising him to evade tax. If you believe he is committing tax evasion why are you allowing him to file T2s (note - The T2 is the corporate income tax return)?
A - The corporation is not evading taxes.

Q - But you are helping him!
A - How?

Q - By suggesting more fees. You thought that this was an aggressive scheme that you didn't understand but thought that it might work.
A - No, it went past that. He had drunk the Kool-Aid and really believed it.

Q - Do you find yourself in a precarious position? Institute might go after you?
A - That's why we did the engagement letter.

Then the lawyer decided to bring me into the cross-examination! He said something about how the witness better be truthful because "Everything here is being recorded and there is a fellow in here, a retired CRA auditor, recording everything you say to post on a blog." The judge perked up.

Judge - Who is recording?
Defense - (Pointing at me) He is right here writing everything down. It wasn't hard to ID me since the only spectators throughout the trial had been me and Mrs. Balogh.

The judge looked at me then asked if I was recording anything. I said nothing but held up my notebook. But you are not recording anything, no electronic recording? I said no, only writing it down.

It seemed odd to me that the lawyer would make a point about truthful testimony and my reporting just as he was finishing cross-examination. We were now at quitting time and redirect. Judge said he wanted to finish this witness today. Witness excused because of a disagreement between counsel. Something about shareholder's loan vs. private loan that I wasn't listening to because I was trying to catch up. I'm not sure what they were squabbling about. Everybody was trying to remember what was discussed in examination in chief. Whatever the issue was Crown lost. Crown argued to get another question approved. That the way the money was recorded as a contractor fees hid the fact that a shareholder got the fees. No. so witness let back in and excused and that was it for the day.

A note here - Two points. First about the witness's comment "I thought it was criminal!". He seemed to just blurted it out without thought. I did a lot of testifying in Tax Court during my years in the CRA, both direct and cross. One ironclad rule was to answer only the question asked and then stop. If the lawyer wanted more he could ask but a witness should never answer more than required by the question. Never give a personal opinion on anything unless asked directly and, if that happened, wait to give Crown an opportunity to object before answering. This witness showed exactly why that's a good rule. Giving a personal opinion can't help your testimony but it has the potential, as demonstrated here, to give the witness a lot of grief. His comment was entirely irrelevant to the question asked, "You would not help Dr, Balogh commit criminal fraud?" but opened the door for some very aggressive questions about his actions.

The second point is about the argument that the defense tried to make as a result of the accountant's comment. The lawyer tried to minimize Balogh's culpability by implying that he acted on the advice of the accounting firm and that the firm was also involved in the evasion, if evasion in fact happened. This argument, in my opinion, was mixing apples and oranges by trying to transfer the issue of Dr. Balogh's personal income taxes, which his accountant's were not involved in, up to the company level where the accountant's were involved. The lawyer seemed to be trying to implicate the accountants in the claimed evasion by suggesting that they actively participated in the scheme by advising Balogh how much he had to strip out of the company in fees every year to eliminate any tax at the corporate level. By implication if Balogh was relying on his accountants then he wasn't guilty of evasion since he was basing his actions on professional advice. However this argument carried no weight with me for the following reasons;

1 - All of the accountant's involvement was at the company level and the company was not charged with any offenses. The company's books, prepared by the accounting firm, were prepared correctly and fully. It is a common practice in Canada for shareholders/owners of businesses to strip the business of it's annual earnings through fees and bonuses and leave it with no taxable income. I saw it all the time as a CRA auditor. This is entirely legitimate and the CRA generally doesn't care because, supposedly, the owner will pay tax on whatever is stripped out since it is taxable income to him. Balogh was personally charged with tax evasion because he did not report the money he stripped out of the company. This had nothing to do with the accountants since they did not advise him about his personal tax issues or help him prepare his returns. Also, while they may have assumed that he wasn't filing personal income tax returns, they had no actual knowledge of this. Balogh wanted them to prepare only the corporate accounts and, per his instructions, that is what they did. So they proposed no overall "scheme" and did not advise him how to avoid tax. The accountant's comment about the $115,000 that needed to be taken out of the business to bring it's income to nil was not the result of any suggestion the accountants made but was their response to Balogh's specific instructions to them to calculate how much he had to be paid in contracting fees to reduce the corporate income to zero. This was neither advice or a recommendation by the accountants, it was a simple calculation based on their client's clear instructions.

2 - Everything was driven by Balogh. The accountants did not propose any scheme to him or advise him to strip out all of the company income. He told the accountants that he wanted all of the company income paid out to him and he told them that while they were to prepare the company income tax returns they were no longer involved with his personal tax returns.

So there are no smoking guns implicating the accountants and, from the evidence I've heard, they had no responsibility for any tax evasion that Balogh might have been involved in. The accountant obviously suspected that Balogh was not reporting his income but he had no involvement in Balogh's personal tax returns so he had no responsibility for whatever Balogh did, or did not do, at the personal tax level. The accounting firm's only involvement was to prepare the corporate financial statements and corporate income tax returns and this was done entirely correctly.
"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

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Burnaby49
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by Burnaby49 »

May 27, 2016

Bit of confusion because of a last minute change of courtroom. The schedule board on the ground floor still had us in the buggy courtroom but when I got upstairs it was yet another one courtroom. The third in three days. Now that Crown had entered its evidence it was the defense's turn to present its case. Lawyer stood up and said "Defense not calling evidence your honour."

Crown - I'm not quite ready because I thought we had audio visual (it had been set up in our buggy courtroom and we were supposed to go back there today). Judge - I did too but apparently they haven't got all of the bugs out.

Time for closing submissions. Crown needs about an hour. Defense said that he may be unavailable for about six months working on the Fung matter in November but free until next week. Defense will be away all September.

This is the Fung matter;

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10477

So I see my winter being taken up with sitting in the Provincial Court of British Columbia listening to yet another Poriskyite trial and having lunches at the Ovaltine. But after the way this trial worked out (see August 9th entry below) I have hopes of a plea with defense trying to get the best deal he can make. Since every last Poriskyite who has gone to trial (and there have been a hell of a lot of them) has been convicted on all counts I'm assuming that Fung's best interest lies in trying for damage control rather than a trial.

Anyhow next week didn't cut it. Judge said he'd have decision before September but not by next week. We had an adjournment until the audio-visual set up.

Back at it. Crown first. Defendant charged with one count of false statements and five counts of tax evasion. False statement based on filing 2005 tax return falsely. In May 2005 Balogh contracted with Eric Ho of Paradigm in a scheme to evade tax,. Note - This is Eric Ho, currently on the run from evasion and counseling fraud charges;

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=11166

Balogh was the directing mind and sole director and majority shareholder of the corporation. Defense interrupted. He didn't have his laptop and couldn't follow because he couldn't access the documents Crown was referring to. He wanted the hard copies. Judge asked Crown if she could give him a laptop. Defense said that while everything is in the exhibits he can't remember them. "I don't want to delay any more. Can Crown give me hard copies? The problem was that the evidence was on a CD with hyperlinks but defense couldn't access CD. Defense said it was impossible to respond to Crown without the documents in front of him. Judge said that they could hear Crown today (Friday) and defense could give his arguments on Monday. Defense said that would work.

Crown - Back to guiding mind and shareholder of Balogh Inc. Beginning in 2006 Dr. Balogh decided to pay out al of the taxable income reducing company income to zero. Neither the company or Dr. Balogh paid any tax. The income in 2005-2009 was taxable recompense if taken in wages, fees, dividends or benefits. The company accountant repeatedly warned Balogh that this was without merit and would probably result in reassessment and penalties every year.

These are true criminal offenses and the Crown has to prove mens rea. Jurisdiction is admitted.

Note - See Lawson and Millar for that argument. Both argued strenuously that they could not be tried by the Supreme Court of British Columbia because it had no jurisdiction in British Columbia. Not surprisingly the argument failed. While this case is being heard in the British Columbia Provincial Court Lawson and Millar would have doubtlessly tried the same argument had they been on trial in this court.

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10834

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=8223

Back to Crown. She discussed the annual meeting with the accountant. Balogh Inc. incorporated in August 1991 with Dr. Balogh as the sole director. It was located in Metrotown Mall. The accountant prepared Balogh's 2000 to 2004 T1's but not after. Before 2005 he received T4 employment income.

Crown went through, year by year, the amounts that Balogh made that he did not report. Suddenly all of the computer screens went blank and we waited while Crown rebooted the system. Crown showed some cheques but the screen kept going on and off. Crown's screen worked fine but everybody else's, including the judge's, kept cycling on and off. Judge told the Crown that "You should get the CRA setup, this is distracting. I'm OK with my laptop but this is distracting to defense."

The problem was that the courtroom was equipped with a computerized system which displayed documents being reviewed. Everybody, Judge, Crown and defense, spectators, had a screen in sight (spectator screen too far away to be of use). In addition the judge had a laptop with the evidence CD on it so he could use that but defense had nothing if the system was down. The previous courtroom, the one with the spider invasion, had a different setup. The Crown had bypassed the court system by having the CRA set up their own system in the buggy courtroom which had worked fine. But this was still set up in the other room. So judge called a break so that a crew of CRA techies could move the whole thing from that courtroom to this one. The techies said that it would take 45 minutes to an hour so court adjourned until 11:30. Crown said that she should still be finished by lunch.

When we came back at 11:30 everything was set up and Crown had dug up a laptop to lend to defense so we were good to go at finishing today. Crown started going through documents, cheques, invoices, whatever. I didn't pay a lot of attention. Defense broke into Crown's statement with something I didn't make out clearly. Something about how she shouldn't state something as a fact without presenting evidence. He apparently had a point because Crown went back and linked documents to her statement.

On to Balogh's tax returns. He'd had H&R Block do them prior to retaining the accounting firm. "Dr. Balogh instructed the accountant to deduct amounts paid to him as a contractor and Dr. Balogh accepted all responsibility for this. In (?) Dr. Balogh confessed to his intent not to report his income. The accountant's evidence was that he prepared the financial statements on Dr. Balogh's instructions. This evidence was not shaken in cross."

Crown went through Section 3 of the Income Tax Act, the section that nails all of us Canadians for taxes.
Computation of Income

Basic Rules

3 The income of a taxpayer for a taxation year for the purposes of this Part is the taxpayer’s income for the year determined by the following rules:

(a) determine the total of all amounts each of which is the taxpayer’s income for the year (other than a taxable capital gain from the disposition of a property) from a source inside or outside Canada, including, without restricting the generality of the foregoing, the taxpayer’s income for the year from each office, employment, business and property,

(b) determine the amount, if any, by which

(i) the total of

(A) all of the taxpayer’s taxable capital gains for the year from dispositions of property other than listed personal property, and

(B) the taxpayer’s taxable net gain for the year from dispositions of listed personal property,
exceeds

(ii) the amount, if any, by which the taxpayer’s allowable capital losses for the year from dispositions of property other than listed personal property exceed the taxpayer’s allowable business investment losses for the year,

(c) determine the amount, if any, by which the total determined under paragraph (a) plus the amount determined under paragraph (b) exceeds the total of the deductions permitted by subdivision e in computing the taxpayer’s income for the year (except to the extent that those deductions, if any, have been taken into account in determining the total referred to in paragraph (a), and

(d) determine the amount, if any, by which the amount determined under paragraph (c) exceeds the total of all amounts each of which is the taxpayer’s loss for the year from an office, employment, business or property or the taxpayer’s allowable business investment loss for the year,

and for the purposes of this Part,

(e) where an amount is determined under paragraph (d) for the year in respect of the taxpayer, the taxpayer’s income for the year is the amount so determined, and

(f) in any other case, the taxpayer shall be deemed to have income for the year in an amount equal to zero.
"It is a reasonable inference that the amounts that Dr. Balogh received were his income as a dentist." Then Crown went through the tax calculations. Crown said that she had proven actus. The law of the application of the natural man to income tax has never been in any doubt. Crown cited a David Lindsay case I didn't catch. Mr. Lindsay advanced the same argument in the Kennedy case. Mr. Lindsay relied on the definition of person . Crown cited Turnnir and Sydel. Both are discussed here;

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=7827

Court clerk stopped the proceedings. More computer problems. Her screen froze and she can't make entries. Rebooting didn't help so a stop until more technical help arrived.

Crown - Mr. Balogh had a copy of the Sydel decision at his residence. Crown cited another case I didn't catch about a dentist convicted in 2010. Crown noted that Porisky was convicted in February 2016. She noted that there was a list of Paradigm prosecutions in the appendix. Then we broke for lunch. I didn't come back after lunch. I had another trial to attend at the Robson street courthouse a mile and a half away.


May 30

Last day. Just the final written submission by defense. The defense wished to point out that that actus rea was not proven by the Crown for the years that the defendant did not file his tax returns. These were 2004, 2005, 2006. So he should be acquitted. Crown has talked about deprivation but has not proven any fraudulent act. This is actus reas;

Actus reus is the Latin term used to describe a criminal act. Every crime must be considered in two parts-the physical act of the crime (actus reus) and the mental intent to do the crime (mens rea).

On the first three counts where he under-reported income the Crown has proven actus rea however what is missing in mens rea. Not because of Paradigm's natural person belief but because of advice he received from his accountant.

For charge 1-3 Crown did not overcome the presumption of innocence. It's all in the testimony of the accountant. (note - there are a lot of my notes at this point that even I can't read. Something about sections 238 and 239 of the Income Tax Act, the sections Balogh was charged under). Lawyer went into discussion of "What is fraud?" and "dishonest act". He gave a number of case quotes and citations I didn't bother to record. He mainly seemed to focus on whether reasonable people would consider an act illegal. He applied this to fraud and tax evasion and actus rea from jurisprudence.

He read, from his written submission, paragraphs 86 to 91 of Russell Porisky's 2012 judgment. These are the paragraphs;
A. Is income tax evasion fraud?

[86] The first question that arises is whether income tax evasion is equivalent to fraud.

[87] I have already set out the elements of the offence of tax evasion when dealing with the tax evasion charges. The indictable offence of fraud is set out in s. 380 of the Criminal Code:
380. (1) Every one who, by deceit, falsehood or other fraudulent means, whether or not it is a false pretence within the meaning of this Act, defrauds the public or any person, whether ascertained or not, of any property, money or valuable security or any service,
(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to a term of imprisonment not exceeding fourteen years, where the subject-matter of the offence is a testamentary instrument or the value of the subject-matter of the offence exceeds five thousand dollars; …

[88] The elements of fraud were set out in R. v. Théroux, 1993 CanLII 134 (SCC), [1993] 2 S.C.R. 5, by McLachlin J. (as she then was) at p. 20:
These doctrinal observations suggest that the actus reus of the offence of fraud will be established by proof of:

1. the prohibited act, be it an act of deceit, a falsehood or some other fraudulent means; and
2. deprivation caused by the prohibited act, which may consist in actual loss or the placing of the victim's pecuniary interests at risk.

Correspondingly, the mens rea of fraud is established by proof of:

1. subjective knowledge of the prohibited act; and
2. subjective knowledge that the prohibited act could have as a consequence the deprivation of another (which deprivation may consist in knowledge that the victim's pecuniary interests are put at risk).

[89] In an extradition application, Watt J. concluded that if the elements of tax evasion have been made out, then the elements of fraud are also satisfied. He said, at para. 172:

The submission of a tax return that is false in a material particular, the amount of income received, is an act of deceit and a falsehood. At the very least, the pecuniary interests of the tax collector are put at risk by the falsehood and deceit of the taxpayer. The taxpayer who knows of this prohibited conduct and that it will put the economic interests of the collector at risk has the mens rea of fraud.

Germany (Federal Republic) v. Schreiber, 184 C.C.C. (3d) 367 (Ont. S.C.J.).

[90] The Ontario Court of Appeal agreed. Sharpe J.A. said:

The extradition judge further found that the evidence of fraud, deception and falsification was sufficient to support domestic committal not only on the offence of income tax evasion contrary to s. 239(1)(d) of the Income Tax Act but also on the offences of making false or deceptive statements in an income tax return contrary to s. 239(1)(a) of the Income Tax Act, defrauding the government of income tax revenues contrary to s. 380(1)(a) of the Criminal Code, and uttering a forged document contrary to s. 368(1)(b) of the Criminal Code. It has been held that the offence of income tax evasion may also constitute fraud contrary to the Criminal Code: see R. v. Cancor Software Corp. et al. (1990), 1990 CanLII 6817 (ON CA), 58 C.C.C. (3d) 53 (Ont. C.A.)...

Germany (Federal Republic) v. Schreiber, 2006 CanLII 6189 (ON CA), 264 D.L.R. (4th) 211 at para. 57.

[91] It is open to the Crown to charge an accused under the Income Tax Act or the Criminal Code. In R. v. White, 1997 CanLII 2426 (ON CA), 32 O.R. (3d) 722 (C.A.), the Court of Appeal dismissed appeals against the appellants’ convictions for defrauding the public of income tax owing to Revenue Canada by making false claims on their tax returns. Dismissing the appellants’ argument that the Crown’s decision to substitute charges of fraud under the Criminal Code for charges of tax evasion under the Income Tax Act was an abuse of process, the Court said at pp. 753-754:

In R. v. Cancor Software Corp. (1990), 1990 CanLII 6817 (ON CA), 40 O.A.C. 122, also a case in which the accused defrauded Revenue Canada using the SRTC program, this court approved adding Criminal Code fraud and forgery charges to income tax evasion charges at the end of the preliminary inquiry, 19 months after the original tax charges were laid, in order to expose the accused to more severe penalties if convicted.

Like the accused in Cancor, White faced a more serious sentence under the Criminal Code than under the Income Tax Act. But as McKinlay J.A. observed in Cancor at p. 128:

The major complaints of the appellants are the more severe penalties possible on conviction on the Criminal Code charges, and their contention that the Crown pursued the Criminal Code charges for an improper purpose, i.e., to make an example of the accused. If it was otherwise proper to commit the accused on the Criminal Code charges, the nature of the penalty is surely not a complaint available to them - although the laying only of charges with possibly inadequate penalties, given the nature of the Crown's allegations against the accused, might raise public criticism against the Crown.

In short, the Crown's exercise of its prosecutorial discretion in substituting fraud charges did not amount to an abuse of process.
http://canlii.ca/t/fppg9

Overall the lawyer kept far, far away from Porisky and Paradigm. Actus rea must be proven before mens rea. We submit that the Crown has not asked the court to consider actus rea in counts 4-6. Here deprivation is admitted (government deprived of tax dollars) but Crown did not show dishonesty. All of the income was accounted for. Meticulous records were kept. There were no offshore accounts, no cash or concealed payments. He did not file returns reporting less than he received (because he did not file returns at all). He did not ask the accountant to reclassify expenses. Everything was documented and followed the accountant's advice to document all payments in invoices. The money was in his personal bank account. The accountant agrees it was all transparent. No indicia of dishonesty present. He just refused to follow 150(1) of the Income Tax Act. Not to do what one is compelled to do is not dishonest. Defense said that not obeying the building code or a child not obeying its parents is not dishonest.

Note - 150(1) is a long section. If you want to read the whole thing be my guest;

http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts ... .html#h-94

This is the pertinent part;
Filing returns of income — general rule

· 150 (1) Subject to subsection (1.1), a return of income that is in prescribed form and that contains prescribed information shall be filed with the Minister, without notice or demand for the return, for each taxation year of a taxpayer,
Defense referred to British Columbia tax evasion cases. Actus rea was not an issue in these cases because accused not represented and did not effectively defend. (I think he was trying to point out that similar cases aren't relevant because of the defendants' inept self-represented defenses and the outcome might have been different had they used the services of a lawyer). He went into Kennedy (http://canlii.ca/t/1jflb) and Turnnir noting that Turnnir had been the presiding judge's case. It was my case too because the Turnnir decision was the incentive that got me reporting on Quatloos. He was the subject of my first posts and discussion;

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=7827

I'd agree with the lawyer on this one. Turnnir was an idiot who did a disastrous job of representing himself. He basically begged to be found guilty. At that time I was totally ignorant about Russell Porisky and Paradigm. As I wrote;
He got this nonsense from a seminar given by someone called Russell Porisky who convinced him that, as a "natural person", as opposed to the "person" defined in the Income Tax Act, he was not taxable on any compensation received because it was his private property.
The lawyer also discussed Klundert, a case that has demolished a number of Poriskyites so far. This is our Klundert discussion;

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=5876

Essentially Klundert says that honestly believing that you don't have to pay tax is not a defense from tax evasion charges.
[60] There are solid policy reasons for drawing a distinction between an accused who mistakenly believes that he or she is complying with the Act and an accused who knowingly violates the Act, but mistakenly believes that the Act is invalid. The former is trying to comply with the law. Particularly where the law is complex, a mistake concerning the applicable law can logically negate the blameworthiness of the person’s conduct. The latter is not trying to obey the law, but is instead deciding which laws should be obeyed. An acquittal based on a mistaken belief as to the validity of a law would undermine the rule of law.

[61] There can be no suggestion that a person who honestly believes that the Act is invalid has no option but to evade the payment of taxes and then defend a charge of tax evasion on the basis of a belief that the Act is invalid. As Dr. Klundert acknowledged, there were mechanisms in place whereby he could have challenged the validity of the Act without evading payment of taxes owed under the Act. He chose not to pursue any of those avenues. Indeed, even in this case, he did not defend the charge, as he clearly could have, by asking the judge to declare s. 239(1)(d) invalid.
http://canlii.ca/t/1hqhg

You can see how this quote is somewhat awkward for our lawyer. He is arguing that "Not to do what one is compelled to do is not dishonest. He had said that not obeying the building code or a child not obeying its parents is not dishonest." But Klundert emphatically says otherwise. So he's apparently trying to discredit Klundert by claiming that it doesn't carry significant weight since Mr. Klundert represented himself. Unfortunately for that position Klundert was cited in Porisky, Gould, Sydel, Lawson, Sigglekow, Tyskerud, and many other cases and the courts agreed with Klundert in all of them. So our lawyer has an uphill job convincing this court that Klundert is not relevant. Defense found another way to differentiate Klundert. Mr. Klundert knew that the Crown would pursue him aggressively so he moved his assets offshore. Balogh did not. Lawyer seemed to think that paragraph 39 of Klundert was important;
[39] Bayda J.A. provided a helpful analysis of the elements of the offence of tax evasion. He first examined the meaning of the word “wilful” in arriving at the mens rea requirement. I will return to that analysis later. He then turned to the conduct component. He said at pp. 494-495:

I am not prepared to go so far as to say that only in those cases where there is an artifice or scheme can there be a conviction for evasion under this subsection. The presence of an artifice or scheme would tend to make it easier to draw the necessary inference of intent to evade payment of taxes, but in my respectful view it cannot be said that the existence of an artifice or scheme is a necessary element of the offence created by this subsection. Where the necessary intent is present, then the “manner” in which the intent is carried out is not important. The plain words of the subsection specify it may be done “in any manner” [emphasis added].
Lawyer said that in this case deprivation was caused by a failure to file returns. Was this fraudulent? It is not. The failure to file is not an act, it is a failure to act. So fraud in 2007 to 2009 (years not filed) is not proven. For 2004 to 2006 the underreporting is clearly actus rea but is not mens rea. There is a reasonable doubt that Balogh knew that he had taxable income in 2004 to 2006. Paradigm and natural persons irrelevant. If they are relevant there was no evidence submitted to show that Balogh he supported it. While the Crown has evidence that Balogh had documents from Porisky and Paradigm there is no evidence that he followed them. Same with natural persons. Dr. Balogh is not relying on these concepts but the evidence of the accountant.

The accountant is clearly a party to the tax scheme. He has a powerful motive to disassociate himself from Mr. Balogh. Balogh gets the benefit of the doubt regarding the scheme. The relevant evidenced shows tax avoidance (note - tax avoidance is not criminal). This is legitimate and he helped them with this. When he claimed he believed the scheme was not legitimate the only evidence of this is the engagement letters. He said he wrote them for two reasons, to protect himself from Balogh and professional rule. Objectively he assisted and promoted his scheme. The intention between Balogh and accountant was just one more aggressive tax scheme. Accountant suggested contact payments by cheque rather than by journal entry. This showed that the contract payments were legitimate. The first concern about the contractor's status was in 2006 (I think he was referring to the accountant, notes unclear). Mentioned that tax might be imposed. He noted (I assume in engagement letter, unclear again) that they were following Balogh's orders. This show that paying contractor's fees were not criminal. There was no concern that scheme should not be followed. There is evidence that the accountants were encouraging the scheme. The accountant said that if the company was audited the contractor's fees could be denied as deductions, it was not a strong position. The message was that it was acceptable to carry on the practice. He quoted a 2007 email saying that contractor's fees had to be increased $115,000 to bring the corporate income to nil.

Dr. Balogh cannot be faulted for not believing that his accountants advised him to structure his income in an illegitimate and dishonest manner (as awkward as that sounds it is what my notes say). This raised reasonable doubt that he had the intent to evade tax. And that ended the defendant's closing statement.

Anyhow, time for the Crown's rebuttal.

First Crown had a couple of corrections to something, didn't note what, then on to actus rea. Defense had indicated that artifice was required before actus rea could be proven. This was not the case as shown in paragraph 35 of Klundert. This is the cited paragraph;
(i) The Actus Reus

[34] The components of the conduct requirement of the crime of tax evasion are captured by the words:

… in any manner evaded or attempted to evade … payment of taxes imposed by the Act.

[35] The offence requires proof of an act or course of conduct which has the effect of evading or attempting to evade payment of taxes actually owed under the Act. In normal parlance, the word evade can refer to the act of deliberately avoiding something, or it can carry a sinister connotation meaning an underhanded or devious way of avoiding something.
http://canlii.ca/t/1hqhg

Crown also cited paragraph 13 in Porisky;
[13] The conduct which the Crown is required to prove is:
… that the accused voluntarily performed an act or engaged in a course of conduct that avoided or attempted to avoid payment of tax owing under the [Income Tax] Act.
R. v. Klundert (2004), 2004 CanLII 21268 (ON CA), 187 C.C.C. (3d) 417,
http://canlii.ca/t/fppg9

The judge noted that in that case the accused was self-represented. My notes are confusing in the next part, I've left it too long before writing up. I thinks the Crown said that there is no evidence supporting the argument that Balogh relied on the accountant's advice. His advice made the accounts traceable but did not condone them and he did not prepare Mr. Balogh's personal returns. The search found documents relating to Paradigm and there is a letter where Balogh points out his natural person belief extensively.

Defense's turn - Letter from Balogh was not signed. It was typed so there is no evidence that his client wrote it. There is no evidence whether he acted on it or not. Just evidence that he gave the accountant a DVD that he did not understand. Then something about mens rea that I missed and defense done.

Judge said that it would take time to decide and he also had to decide on the delay issue. While your client would understandably want this done tomorrow I have a lot of material to go through. Defense - How long a session will it take? An hour or two. Judge said that he couldn't possibly commit before July (actual decision date was August 9th) so I'll leave it with the case manager. Judge asked if parties available in August. Yes. So next hearing date will be for the Reasons for Judgment. Given what defense had to work with I thought he did a good job, particularly in cross-examination. It's up to the judge to decide if it was good enough but the history of Paradigm prosecutions to date (100% guilty convictions) doesn't give Dr. Balogh much grounds for optimism.


August 9, 2016

Today was the judgment but I couldn't go. My wife inconsiderately broke her left arm very badly a few days before and she required surgery which was done on the 10th. However from the 8th to the 10th we had to go to Vancouver General Hospital every day at 6:30AM and wait to see if she could get fitted into a surgical time slot so I spent the 9th in VGH waiting. But I got the results, if not the reasons for judgment. These were the charges against Balogh;
Count 1
Peter BALOGH, of the District of West Vancouver, Province of British Columbia, between May 8, 2006 and May 1,2007, made, or participated in, assented to or acquiesced in the making of false or deceptive statements in Peter Balogh's T1 Individual Income Tax Returns for the 2005 and 2006 taxation years, filed as required by the Income Tax Act, by understating income in the amount of $699,000 for the said taxation years, and did thereby commit an offence contrary to paragraph 239(1Xa) of the Income Tax Act.

Count 2
Peter BALOGH, of the District of West Vancouver, Province of British Columbia, between December 31, 2004 and May 10, 2006, did wilfully evade or attempt to evade compliance with the Income Tax Act by failing to report his taxable income in the amount of $317,000 for the 2005 taxation year, and did thereby evade the payment of taxes in the amount of $86,458, committing an offence contrary to 239(1)(d) of the said Act.

Count 3
Peter BALOGH, of the District of West Vancouver, Province of British Columbia, between December 31, 2005 and May 1, 2007, did wilfully evade or attempt to evade compliance with the Income Tax Act by failing to report his taxable income in the amount of $382,000 for the 2006 taxation year, and did thereby evade the payment of taxes in the amount of $100,252, committing an offence contrary to 239(1)(d) of the said Act.

Count 4
Peter BALOGH, of the District of West Vancouver, Province of British Columbia, between December 31; 2006 and June 16, 2008, did wilfully evade or attempt to evade compliance with the lncome Tax Act by failing to report his taxable income in the amount of $560,000 for the 2007 taxation year, and did thereby evade the payment of taxes in the amount of $150,880, committing an offence contrary to 239(1)(d) of the said Act.

Count 5
Peter BALOGH, of the District of West Vancouver, Province of British Columbia, between December 31,2007 and June 16, 2009, did wilfully evade or attempt to evade compliance with the Income Tax Act by failing to report his taxable income in the amount of $528,000 for the 2008 taxation year, and did thereby evade the payment of taxes in the amount of $141,399, committing an offence contrary to 239(1)(d) of the said Act.
Dr. Balogh was was found guilty of all counts. There is still the outstanding issue of a s.11(b) Charter application for unreasonable delay and additional submissions were made on that. The judge reserved his decision on delay. It will be released on November 17th, fortunately at the Robson Street provincial courthouse rather than the Main Street courthouse. Robson Street is much closer to Skytrain.
"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeI-J2PhdGs
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by grixit »

How is your wife doing now?
Three cheers for the Lesser Evil!

10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by Burnaby49 »

grixit wrote:How is your wife doing now?
Doing very well but she still can't drive for another six weeks. Which is a problem because she's always out and about driving somewhere while I stopped driving almost twenty years ago. I rely entirely on Vancouver's excellent public transit system. She did all the driving in our southern California road trip earlier this year when we apparently passed right by your home town. So I was suddenly in the position of driving her and us about after a two-decade break.

This was complicated by my having a sudden knee injury that essentially crippled me for three months so that I couldn't drive just when she couldn't drive either. Last week a doctor at the University of British Columbia Sports Medicine Center managed to fix my knee up as good as new (or as new as a 67 year old knee gets) after a very unpleasant fifteen minute procedure. So we're mobile again.

Normally when something goes wrong at my age, particularly knees and other joints, you expect it to be permanent so it was a great surprise, and relief, to hobble into the doctor's examination room using two hiking poles and walk out apparently completely cured. Our free medical system is worth every penny.
"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeI-J2PhdGs
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by The Observer »

Burnaby49 wrote: Our free medical system is worth every penny.
It's free? And here all this time I thought Canadian citizens had to pay taxes to support it. No wonder everyone wants to move to Canada - its the first country to engineer the dream of a free lunch.
"I could be dead wrong on this" - Irwin Schiff

"Do you realize I may even be delusional with respect to my income tax beliefs? " - Irwin Schiff
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by Burnaby49 »

The Observer wrote:
Burnaby49 wrote: Our free medical system is worth every penny.
It's free? And here all this time I thought Canadian citizens had to pay taxes to support it. No wonder everyone wants to move to Canada - its the first country to engineer the dream of a free lunch.
Call it pre-paid. I've paid taxes to support it my entire adult life but, fortunately, have made very little use of it. Some broken ribs a few years back, an appointment at the Sports Medicine Center last week. Expand that to the family and you have my wife's broken arm. That's about it for the last few decades.

The medical system is what pisses me off about hypocritical weasels like Keith Lawson.

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=8223

He testified in court, in a plaintive cry from the heart while trying to talk the judge out of imposing a jail sentence, that he's made copious use of the medical system for the past few decades. Extensive hospital stays, frequent trips to emergency, probably, overall, in the hundreds of thousands of dollars of costs. Yet he did his best, for those same years, to actively evade paying the taxes necessary to at least help defray some of his share of the costs.

What angered me wasn't the evasion, just another fraud, but his self-righteous justification for it. He wasn't trying to evade tax, not at all, he wanted to pay his fair share. But after he'd studied income tax law he discovered that, legally, the best way to meet his tax obligations was by actively evading paying income tax. Funny how his research ended with that self-serving conclusion. He said over and over how he was an honourable man trying to do the honourable thing so when his research told him this required him to commit tax evasion he went for it. He actually broke down on the stand sobbing and crying about how he'd only tried to do what was right and he didn't want to go to jail for trying to be an honourable man.

So he actively and enthusiastically cheated the government out of taxes he legitimately owed while demanding full use of the medical system the taxes funded. I'm missing what part of that might indicate that he's anything other than a hypocritical parasite.
"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by notorial dissent »

Some how, I think his definition of "honourable" is considerably different than yours or mine.
The fact that you sincerely and wholeheartedly believe that the “Law of Gravity” is unconstitutional and a violation of your sovereign rights, does not absolve you of adherence to it.
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by Burnaby49 »

Today Balogh had a hearing to get the decision on his delay application. This was his argument that his charges should be stayed because it had taken too long from charges being laid to the end of the trial. I couldn't attend because I was at Michael Millar's sentencing hearing;

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10834&start=40#p236547

However I found out the results. Peter Balogh’s delay application was successful and the charges against him were stayed by the judge. So at the last moment his lawyer pulled victory right from the jaws of defeat! He'd been convicted on all counts and his sentencing hearing was scheduled for next week.

I attended Balogh's delay hearing and wrote it up here;

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=11111#p227737

We're going to be seeing a lot of this. The Supreme Court of Canada recently, in the Jordan decision;

http://canlii.ca/t/gsds3

has come up with new and much more stringent guidelines on how long a period between charges being laid and the trial concluding is allowed before delay prejudices a defendant's right to a fair trial. Just this week a man in Ontario charged with murder had charges stayed as a result of delay. So that makes Balogh the second Paradigm follower to escape a tax evasion conviction after a trial. The other was Arthur Doerksen who died just as his trial was concluding.
"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeI-J2PhdGs
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by Burnaby49 »

I have some unexpected news on Dr. Balogh but, since I haven't posted anything about him in well over a year, a quick recap.

Peter Balogh is a dentist who was convicted of income tax evasion after following Russell Porisky's Paradigm tax evasion scheme. I attended and wrote up much of his trial. Dr. Balogh was convicted on all five counts on August 9th, 2016. However he'd claimed unreasonable delay at trial as grounds to throw out his charges. At the time he made the delay argument the judge had not released his decision on Balogh's charges. In November 2016 the judge found Balogh guilty on all charges but stayed the convictions before sentencing on the basis that Balogh's constitutional rights had been violated by unreasonable delay. I last posted about Dr. Balogh on November 17, 2016 where I wrote;
Today Balogh had a hearing to get the decision on his delay application. This was his argument that his charges should be stayed because it had taken too long from charges being laid to the end of the trial. I couldn't attend because I was at Michael Millar's sentencing hearing.

However I found out the results. Peter Balogh’s delay application was successful and the charges against him were stayed by the judge. So at the last moment his lawyer pulled victory right from the jaws of defeat! He'd been convicted on all counts and his sentencing hearing was scheduled for next week.
The Crown appealed the charges being stayed and, over a year later, the appeal decision has been released. It's not good news for Dr. Balogh;
Conclusion

[86] I find that the trial judge erred in his analysis of the s.11(b) of the Charter; and made a palpable and overriding error in fact when he miscalculated the delay; and in failing to apply the transitional case exception.

[87] I would set aside the judicial stay of proceedings and order that convictions be entered on all counts on the Information.
R. v Balogh
2018 BCSC 180
http://canlii.ca/t/hq952

As the saying goes justice delayed is justice denied. In Canada's case delay is included as part of our constitution;
Proceedings in criminal and penal matters

11. Any person charged with an offence has the right

(a) to be informed without unreasonable delay of the specific offence;

(b) to be tried within a reasonable time;
But, before the Supreme Court of Canada's decison in Jordan, what constituted "a reasonable time" had never been quantified. Jordan set specific limits;

[49] The most important feature of the new framework is that it sets a ceiling beyond which delay is presumptively unreasonable. For cases going to trial in the provincial court, the presumptive ceiling is 18 months from the charge to the actual or anticipated end of trial. For cases going to trial in the superior court, the presumptive ceiling is 30 months from the charge to the actual or anticipated end of trial.[2] We note the 30-month ceiling would also apply to cases going to trial in the provincial court after a preliminary inquiry.[3] As we will discuss, defence-waived or -caused delay does not count in calculating whether the presumptive ceiling has been reached — that is, such delay is to be discounted.

R. v. Jordan
[2016] 1 SCR 631, 2016 SCC 27
http://canlii.ca/t/gsds3

I've explained Jordan elswhere. For a reasonably detailed analysis of the Jordan delay rules see this;

viewtopic.php?f=50&t=10834&p=235591#p235533

Delay is a more complex issue than you might imagine. Basically there are three components to delay, all of which are critical in a Jordan analysis (the "new Framework" mentioned in the above quote). These are defense delays, Crown delays, and the inherent delay in the system which the Supreme Court called "Systemic or Institutional Delays". The court's job, in a delay hearing, is to allocate the total time between the charges being laid and the conviction between these three sources of delay. If the combined total from the Crown and the court systems share exceeds 18 months charges are stayed. Balough's delay hearing, which I attended and wrote up in his discussion, was essentially the Crown trying to maximize the amount of delay attributable to defense because that didn't count towards the 18 month total and the defense trying to minimize the amount of delay it was responsible for causing.

In my posting of the May 12, 2016 hearing I wrote;
Then on to the delay because of counsel's scheduling conflict. He criticized Crown's argument that Balogh could have changed counsel. An argument how a lawyer and client had a special relationship of trust and how it was not like changing grocers. So to say that the counsel he trusted, and built a special relationship, could just be changed, I can't accept that. Counsel couldn't make it because of an issue with another client and it was the CRA's decision to allow case to be put on hold. I didn't make out if he wanted to ascribe this delay to crown or to court. Certainly not to his client. Then some comments about how the delay at the beginning because of Balogh refusing to identify himself shouldn't be ascribed to his client because Balogh was doing what he thought was a legitimate defence. After that judge said that a decision was not necessary now. Crown asked what was next. A voir dire on evidence seizure tomorrow.
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=11111#p227737

This is a good example of how parties try to get as much of the delay as possible dumped on the other side. The delay being discussed resulted from an adjournment requested by Balogh. He'd retained new counsel but his new lawyer was in the middle of a murder case and couldn't start work Balogh's defence until that trial was over. So Balogh, through his lawyer, requested an adjournment until the end of the murder trial. The court agreed to the adjournment after the Crown declined to contest it. The delay attributed to the requested adjournment eventually came to 7 months. The lawyer, as quoted above, wanted this delay attributed to the Crown because they hadn't contested the adjournment request. This meant, in the lawyer's submission, that the Crown was responsible for the delay, not the defence. That didn't make any sense at all to me because, if it worked, every defence lawyer would be dragging his heals running out the clock then demanding that charges be stayed because if delay. If the court, aware of this, refused the adjournments it would leave defense a potential appeal on the grounds that they were not allowed the time to properly prepare their case.

The trial judge decided not to attribute the seven months delay to the defense which mean that it became part of the 18 month maximum delay limit. The first thing that the appeals judge did was review the trial judge's allocation of this part of the overall delay and decided, as I thought all along, that it should be attributed to defense and therefore not part of the 18 month limit.
Analysis

Did the trial judge err in not attributing seven months of delay to the respondent (between October 2015 and April 2016) when Crown and the court were available to reset trial dates, but second counsel was not?

[47] The trial judge found that it would be unreasonable to expect the accused to change counsel at that stage of the proceeding. With respect, I disagree with the trial judge in this regard (but acknowledge that this, in and of itself, does not provide a basis for appellate intervention). All of the parties were aware in April 2015 that second counsel was not available until 2016. At that point, it would have been reasonable to require the accused to find new counsel. In April 2015, disclosure had been provided to the defence (by October 2013) and the many appearances in court addressed scheduling matters only. A 7-month period to retain new counsel in those circumstances, where two lengthy adjournments had already been provided to the defence, was reasonable. The first trial dates and the second trial dates were both adjourned at the request of the respondent. The first trial dates were adjourned at the respondent’s request because first counsel withdrew from the record and second counsel applied to adjourn the first trial dates in January 2014. The second trial dates were adjourned at the respondent’s request in September 2014 due to second counsel’s unavailability.

[48] At the time that the third trial dates were being adjourned on April 10, 2015, defence was already responsible for the first two trial adjournments. This necessitates more urgency on the part of the respondent and his counsel to bring the matter to trial.

[57] As noted, Jordan’s comment on the culture of complacency was critical of all parties in the criminal justice system. While defence counsel could previously expect that trial dates would be moved to accommodate his or her future trial commitments, Jordan and Warring make it clear that that is not longer the case in a post-Jordan world, particularly where the Crown and the court are ready to proceed, especially so where there have already been two adjournments at the request of the defence.

[58] As of April 10, 2015, the matter was already more than 34 months old (almost two times the presumptive ceiling as set out in Jordan). The third trial dates were adjourned from July 2015 because the seized trial judge was unavailable. That is not attributable to either the Crown or the defence. The reason that the trial did not proceed in October 2015 when the court and the Crown were available was due to the unavailability of second counsel. On that basis, the 7-month delay from October 2015 to the end of April 2016, was attributable to the respondent, based upon a proper Jordan analysis.

[59] In accordance with Jordan, the time between October 2015 and April 2016 is not “neutral” for the purposes of calculating delay given the history of this matter. The respondent chose second counsel to represent him. Second counsel had already adjourned the second trial dates due to his own unavailability. The trial judge erred in not ascribing this time period to defence delay.

[60] The trial judge was in error on this point and this error warrants appellate intervention. This error was magnified by the previous adjournments granted to the respondent that were entirely attributable to the respondent.

[61] I allow this ground of appeal and further add 7 months to defence delay. This correction means that the delay attributable to the defence is 28.8 months. The delay, exclusive of those periods properly attributable to the defence, is 22.7 months.

This meant, after another adjuctment, that the trial still overran the Jordan limit by a few months;

[65] With this mathematical error corrected, the time period subject to the Jordan ceiling (corrected to apply the attribution of an additional 7 months to the defence) is reduced to 21.9 months. The delay, then, exceeded the Jordan ceiling by 3.9 months. The new framework of analysis for s.11(b) is that once the 18-month presumptive ceiling is reached, the Crown bears the burden of either rebutting the presumption of unreasonableness based on exceptional circumstances, or for cases already in the system, the Crown can show that the time the case has taken to come to trial is justified based on the parties’ reasonable reliance on the law as it previously existed: Jordan, at paras. 95-96, 105.

However Jordan had an escape clause. During the transition to full Jordan cases that were heard before Jordan's release could be over the limit and still not result in undue delay if they delay could be justified.

[68] In Jordan, the Court noted at para. 102 that for cases already in the system when Jordan was released, it should not automatically transform what would previously have been considered a reasonable delay into an unreasonable one.
So the appellate judge went through the same analysis as the trial judge to determine the reasonableness of the various delays but without a rigid 18 month limit. The conclusion was that Balogh was responsible, both directly through adjournment requests, and indirectly, through passive approach to his own trial, to the bulk of the delay and therefore the delay was not "undue".
c) Reasons for the Delay

[75] Morin contemplates a weighing of five principal factors. Here, I find that almost the entirety of the delay rests at the feet of either the respondent or so-called “institutional” delay. While this was not a particularly complex case, the actions and attitude of the respondent did not show any steps to ensure a speedy trial.

[76] Some examples include:
• The respondent did not appear in court during his first summons even though he acknowledged in an affidavit filed the day before the court date that he knew of the court date the following day;

• On September 6, 2012, the respondent refused to respond to his name in court and refused to be fingerprinted;

• On September 5, 2013 – nine months after first trial dates were set – the respondent’s first counsel got off the record and it took the respondent more than 3 months to obtain second counsel;

• The respondent applied to adjourn his first trial dates;

• The respondent applied to adjourn his second trial dates; and

• The respondent was unable to secure fourth trial dates for an extra 7 months due to second counsel’s unavailability.

[77] Many of these events involved the respondent’s choice of legal representation and his own actions. The respondent is the one responsible for two trial adjournments. I have found that he was responsible for a portion of the fourth. In these circumstances, he can hardly turn around and claim his right to be tried within reasonable time is infringed.

[78] The Court of Appeal has held that an accused who remains passive in the face of protracted proceedings, delayed in part because of his own actions, should not be able to succeed under s.11(b) of the Charter: R. v. Sanghera, 2014 BCCA 249 (CanLII) at para. 142. It is undeniable on these facts that, at various times in these proceedings, the respondent remained passive and delayed these matters.

[79] By contrast, I see no evidence that Crown counsel was ever passive in its approach to having this matter move along. In fact, the trial judge noted this (delay ruling, para. 52): “A review of the various transcripts of appearances in this case indicates that for the most part the Crown has been ready to move this case to trial.”

[80] While there is certainly institutional delay – insofar as it would take more than a year and a half for the first trial dates to conclude and the adjournment of the third trial dates, none would render what occurred in this case outside the bounds of what counsel would reasonably rely upon under the Morin framework.

[81] Under the Morin framework, prejudice and seriousness of the offence “often played a decisive role in whether delay was unreasonable.”

[82] Jordan explains how to analyze the new framework for cases that exceed 18 months that were already in the system before the decision was released (referred to as “transitional cases” at paras. 95-96 and 105):

a. there is a presumptive ceiling of 18 months after which delay becomes unreasonable;

b. after the ceiling is reached, the Crown must rebut the presumption of unreasonableness based on exceptional circumstances; and

c. for cases already in the system in which the ceiling is reached, the Crown must satisfy the court that the time the case has taken to come to trial is justified based upon the parties’ reasonable reliance on the law as it previously existed.

[83] I accept that there was prejudice to the respondent in the circumstances of having first counsel withdraw from the record and the adjournment of the third trial dates. However, the prejudice is mitigated in this case by his release from custody following his charges. The prejudice was further mitigated by the nature of the charges themselves: unlike other charges that could involve major restrictions on liberty, reputational damage, or non-contact conditions with those close to you, these charges arose out of accounting practices allegedly instigated by the respondent, contrary to the advice of his company’s chartered accountant. The only person involved was the respondent himself. The “victim” was the whole of the citizens of the country, in a sense.

[84] In these circumstances, I find that any prejudice the respondent received from the delays in these matters – not directly attributable to his actions or attitude – is sufficiently mitigated that the balance of convenience points to this delay being reasonable under the Morin framework.
[85] The trial judge erred in his analysis of the transitional exceptional circumstance. I would allow this ground of appeal.

Conclusion

[86] I find that the trial judge erred in his analysis of the s.11(b) of the Charter; and made a palpable and overriding error in fact when he miscalculated the delay; and in failing to apply the transitional case exception.

[87] I would set aside the judicial stay of proceedings and order that convictions be entered on all counts on the Information.
"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeI-J2PhdGs
Burnaby49
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Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by Burnaby49 »

I just made my last posting in time. I'd been sitting on it a while and finally got around to writing it up yesterday. Today I found that Dr. Balogh has appealed the results of his appeal.

A bit of explanation needed on that one. We have three levels of court in British Columbia that can be involved in tax evasion cases, the Provincial Court of British Columbia, the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and the British Columbia Court of Appeal. The Provincial and Supreme courts are the trial courts. The Supreme Court is the higher court. The BCCA hears appeals from both. However appeals of summary conviction decisions from trials at the Provincial Court (as this one was) are first heard by a single judge of the Provincial Court. My previous posting was about the Crown's appeal of Balogh's trial decision heard by the single judge. Balogh had the right to appeal this decision to the BCCA and he has just filed an application for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal.
"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeI-J2PhdGs
Burnaby49
Quatloosian Ambassador to the CaliCanadians
Quatloosian Ambassador to the CaliCanadians
Posts: 8219
Joined: Thu Oct 27, 2011 2:45 am
Location: The Evergreen Playground

Re: Peter Balogh - Poriskyite Holistic Dentist

Post by Burnaby49 »

Peter Balogh gets another kick at the can;

http://canlii.ca/t/hv8qk
"Yes Burnaby49, I do in fact believe all process servers are peace officers. I've good reason to believe so." Robert Menard in his May 28, 2015 video "Process Servers".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeI-J2PhdGs