7 ms·

Just curious, it’s also fraud to understate your income, right? So if you made $95k, but put $94k, that would also be a felony, right?

• downandout 9y ago
  That would probably be prosecuted as perjury instead of fraud, but it’s a felony regardless. Fraud generally requires an element of actual or attempted pecuniary gain, and understating income would likely make that element difficult to prove. However, perjury covers any false statement made under penalty of perjury (which many credit applications are). It could be prosecuted as fraud if you attempted to use the understated income in order to avoid/minimize collection activity or negotiate a favorable write-down of a debt etc.
  • vog 9y ago
    [deleted]
    • SamReidHughes 9y ago
      Credit applications and tax forms have the incentives in the opposite direction.
      • deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    • shkkmo 9y ago
      Yes, understating your income when reporting it to the IRS (for taxes) is fraud. However the situations being discussed are credit/loan applications. Since understating your income in that application doesn't generally provide any material benefit, there would be no "element of actual or attempted pecuniary gain"