Tax question: Partnership returns K'1's and personal returns?

Question

On a K'1 it will show what each partner took as draws for the year. It will also show (in a 50/50 partnership) how much income was made during that year. It will show how much is left in the capital acount plus or minus to start the year and end the year. My question is if one of the partners skips town with a disproportioned amount of money (after 3 years in partnership) taking 70% of the funds, what does the partner declare on his personal returns for the year (especially the one with the 30% take)? Is that person stil responsible to pay taxes on the 50% or the 30% that was drawn out, as all the rest of the monies was taken by the other partner.

Answer 1

On a 50%/50% partnership, the K-1 for each partner should reflect 50% of the income/expenses of the partnership. So although the other partner may have taken 70% of the cash, both are you are still taxed on 50% of the partnership income.

However, distributions reduce each partner's capital account, so [1] if and when a partner's capital account goes negative (unless he guaranteed the debts of the partnership) or [2] the partnership is wound up, the partner who had taken the 70% of the distributions will have a larger ordinary gain than you.

In your particular situation, you need to decide if by skipping town, the partner has abandoned his partnership interest and a final partnership return needs to be filed.

Answer 2

How, exactly, would that happen? Doesn't a CPA firm do the taxes for the partnership? If so, how could one partner get away with lying about his portion?