In every issue of this fine rag my hack team of wannabe journalists and I tackle some of the most laughable criminal acts that have recently happened in our area. Then - if we're doing our job - we write about those crimes in a way that makes you chuckle, or at the very least gives you something better to do than rant and rave about how shitty and insensitive this year's line of holiday Lexus commercials is.

Enjoy. - Matt Driscoll

They've been in the news a lot lately - taxes, that is. And when the national economy struggles, as it has for the last three years or more, that's to be expected.

To some, taxes seem to be the root of all evil. To these people, nearly all the country's problems can be traced back to big government and its insatiable need to fund itself ... with their money.

Conversely, others would like to see more taxes (on the uber-wealthy, mainly). These people point to an ever-growing income gap, a disappearing middle class, and the absurdity of making life even easier for the ridiculously rich while getting by gets more and more difficult for the working schleps that make it all possible.

A 62-year-old Tacoma woman recently sentenced to seven years in prison seems to be a member of the first group.

According to reports posted on The News Tribune's "Lights & Sirens" blog, Sharon D. Kukhahn of Tacoma's North End was convicted in May of a bevy of illegalities - including four counts of tax evasion and corrupt interference with the internal revenue laws - after prosecutors successfully argued she advised clients against paying taxes while plotting to promote a trust scheme designed to illegally hide clients' assets from the IRS. Also convicted of personally evading federal income taxes between 2003 and 2006, prosecutors say Kukhahn screwed the government out of at least $4 million in revenue over the course of her wrongdoing. In a press release quoted by the Trib in its coverage, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle says Kukhahn also operated a bogus letter-writing service "designed to thwart IRS efforts to collect taxes owed."

With Kukhahn's sentencing on Wednesday, Nov. 16, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle opined that he has rarely encountered such "greed, obfuscation, delusion and treachery." Despite the fact that Kukhahan's defense attorney, Paula T. Olson, pleaded for only probation for her client, the seven-year sentence handed down by Settle was no doubt largely a result of this. Federal prosecutors noted that Kukhahn used proceeds from her criminal misdeeds to purchase a yacht, a Mercedes, land in Panama and a waterfront home in the North End.

"This is not a person with criminal intent and greed at the forefront of her thinking. She actually believed, and continues to believe, that she was helping people," Olson tells the Trib.

Not sure if that's supposed to help her argument or not.

For the record, Kukhahn did pen an apology letter to Judge Settle, saying she was sorry if "my actions have caused anyone harm."

"It was and never has been my intent to harm this great country nor to harm any other countryman or countrywoman with any of my actions," she was quoted as writing in the Trib. - Allingham and Sandmo, Volcano Tax Evasion Special Correspondents