The District of Columbia Court of Appeals imposed reciprocal disbarment based on a Maryland decision imposing that sanction.

In considering the appropriate sanction for these Rule violations, the Maryland Court of Appeals weighed the severity of Mr. Katz’s misconduct—the failure “to timely file his income tax returns for 14 years,” and the underpayment of “his taxes for 15 years to the tune of approximately $2.5 million”—noting that it was “far more egregious than that of other attorneys [the Maryland court] ha[d] suspended for failure to file and pay their income taxes.” Id. at 1011. The court also noted that a “critical consideration” was Mr. Katz’s “intentional dishonest conduct for personal gain,” again contrasting cases in which the court had determined that the lesser sanction of suspension was appropriate because “the willful failure to file [wa]s not the result of fraudulent or dishonest intent.” Id. at 1012. “In light of the severity of [Mr.] Katz’s intentional dishonest conduct, and finding no mitigating factors,” the Maryland court “concluded that disbarment [wa]s the appropriate sanction.” Id. at 1013.

The court rejected the contention that he should receive a lesser sanction

More to the point, Mr. Katz cites no cases from this jurisdiction where we have declined to disbar someone for failing to timely pay, over a period of many years, millions of dollars in taxes owed…

Mr. Katz filed his federal tax returns one to five years late for fourteen years, during which period he “grossly underpaid” his federal taxes even though he “had available to him large amounts of discretionary income” which could have been used to fulfill his tax obligations. Katz, 116 A.3d at 1006, 1008–09 (noting that “there is no indication that Katz used the money for anything other than personal, excessive expenditures”). In the Maryland court’s view, Mr. Katz’s “willful[] fail[ure] to file his federal income tax returns” amounted to fraud and “intentional dishonest conduct for personal gain.” Id. at 1009, 1012. Thus, on the undisputed facts and the Maryland court’s characterization of those facts, which Mr. Katz has not contested, his misconduct was far more egregious than the misconduct of Mr.Kerr. The mere fact that Mr. Katz was never criminally prosecuted does not alter our conclusion on this point.

The court’s opinion was per curiam.  (Mike Frisch)