In a story seemed destined for a "ripped from the headlines" murder case on Law & Order, a Diamond Bar, Calif. IRS agent has plead guilty to cheating on his taxes.


Jim H. Liu, 43, an audit employee of the Internal Revenue Service, admitted to one federal count of subscribing to a tax return Monday, and will be sentenced to up to three years in federal lockdown as a result.

Worst of all is how Liu cheated: he claimed a $4,200 loss on the 2002 sale of a property in Pomona, when he in fact earned a profit of $48,000; which would have netted the government about $14,000 in taxes. He may have admitted his error gracefully when he was audited and paid up; but instead, he forged documents to say the property had been purchased for $231,500, instead of the actual price of $185,000.

You'd think an IRS agent would know better than to lie to the government once he'd been confronted. But no. (Here's a freebie for the Law & Order writers: Liu kills a co-worker who sees him forging the purchase documents, staging it to look like a suicide due to overwork. You like?)

Silly Liu. If he'd just waited until now to sell the property, he could have gotten his wish; he could have sold the property for a big loss and claimed away.