From the Sun-Times: 
 
IRS expert: Ryan didn't report $80,000 
 
January 25, 2006 
 
BY NATASHA KORECKI Federal Courts Reporter 
 
 A tax agent testified Tuesday that former Gov. George Ryan didn't report about $80,000 over four years on his federal tax forms. 
 
 But Ryan's lawyers rebutted that he ultimately paid taxes on 80 percent of that amount -- only years later when previous errors were found. 
 
Shari Schindler, an Internal Revenue Service forensic accountant testifying for the government at Ryan's public corruption trial, said Ryan failed to pay taxes on personal expenses from his campaign fund. 
 
Through a series of charts, Schindler sought to put into perspective weeks of testimony regarding trips, gifts and travel involving Ryan's campaign fund. 
 
 She explained that Ryan was allowed to use campaign cash as he chose, as long as he paid taxes on personal expenses. He failed to do so in some instances, she said, and that's against the law. 
 
Feds: Secret cash was taxable 
 
 Ryan, 71, is charged with steering state contracts and leases to friends, and also with a number of tax counts, including lying on personal income tax forms and diverting campaign money to family without paying taxes on it. 
 
HIGHLIGHTS 
 
PROSECUTION: George Ryan failed to report $80,000 worth of income over a four-year period. 
 
DEFENSE: He did report much of that money, through amended tax returns. 
 
UP NEXT: IRS agent continues her testimony today. 
 
Ryan received about $9,700 in consulting payments from the Phil Gramm for President campaign. Prosecutors say in 1995 and 1996 Ryan secretly took the cash as he headed Gramm's Illinois campaign effort. Aside from that, Schindler said Ryan should have paid taxes on it. The money was given to various Ryan children, according to records and testimony. 
 
 Schindler also said Ryan should have paid taxes in 1996 and 1997 on $55,000 that Ryan's campaign gave to his son-in-law, Michael Fairman. Fairman testified Monday he did no work for the money. 
 
Corrected but still charged? 
 
 Ryan lawyer Dan Webb said his client did eventually pay taxes in the Gramm and Fairman instances, through amended tax forms in 2002. Webb asked Schindler why Ryan was charged with lying on his tax returns when he had corrected them years later. 
 
 "He filed it after the investigation already started," she explained. 
 
 Webb picked away at Schindler's theory, stacking six thick books of IRS codes and rules to illustrate an impossibly complicated tax code that Ryan, a pharmacist from Kankakee, couldn't be expected to untangle. 
 
Webb asked if it was reasonable to say that Ryan didn't intentionally underreport his income because he didn't even know he was violating tax code. 
 
Charts to counter charts 
 
 Schindler responded that Ryan hired people to figure out his taxes and that Ryan's counsel at the time he held office had sent him a letter specifying what gifts are taxable. 
 
 But Webb put up his own chart, subtracting several of the amounts put up by the government, leaving $15,000 in question -- down from more than $80,000. 
 
Webb suggested that some of the trips and gifts Schindler says comprise that remaining $15,000 could involve a subjective interpretation of complicated tax laws. 
 
 Webb also said Ryan's onetime legal advisor, Roger Bickel, and Ryan's former chief of staff, Scott Fawell, were the ones responsible for telling Ryan what campaign expenditures should be reported as personal income.