A Waterloo attorney who specializes in tax law will not be able to practice law for at least a year — because he failed to pay his own taxes. Waterloo attorney Gary D. Iverson did not file his own state or federal tax returns for nearly a decade, from 1992 to 2001. He owes as much as four-hundred thousand dollars in back taxes to the State of Iowa and the federal government.

The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled Iverson’s law license will be suspended for a least a year. A panel of lawyers that reviews charges of attorney misconduct had recommended that Iverson’s license to practice law be suspended for at least two years.

But the Iowa Supreme Court decided on just a year’s suspension, citing Iverson’s full acknowledgment that he had failed to pay taxes and his need to work to repay them. The court also noted that Iverson had not tried to shift the blame for his failure to pay taxes, and took all the blame himself.