Lawyer Pleads to Tax Misdemeanors - Didn’t File Since ‘94

From ABA Journal.com:

A Mississippi attorney who allegedly hasn't filed a federal tax return since 1994 has avoided a trial in the felony tax evasion case he initially faced by pleading guilty today to two misdemeanor counts of failing to file.

Marshall Sanders, 57, who practices in Vicksburg, agreed to cooperate with the Internal Revenue Service in determining his past-due taxes and pay restitution and penalties, reports the Fort Mills Times.

"Under Mississippi Bar Association rules, a felony conviction would have resulted in the loss of a state license to practice law," the newspaper notes.

The government says Sanders grossed more than $2.3 million in 2001 and nearly $500,000 in 2002, reports the Clarion Ledger.

Sanders reportedly is a civil practitioner who earned an economics degree from Harvard University and graduated from Emory University School of Law.

No sentencing date has been set in the case, which is in the U.S. District Court in Jackson.

Toyota To Slow Down U.S. Factory Expansion

According to Reuters, top executives at Toyota Motor Corporation are increasingly becoming concerned that the company has built too many United States factories. They are urging the company to cease their continued expansion of factories throughout the U.S. warning that sales may not keep pace with the company's recent capacity increases. As a result Toyota has scaled back plans for a $1.3 billion assembly plant to be built in Mississippi. The original plan called for the plant to have an annual production capacity of 200,000 units however it was revised to an planned capacity of only 150,000.