Pretty cool, huh? Here's something from a WashingtonPost.Com article that covered this story:
Last week a jury in Memphis acquitted a woman of criminal charges arising from her refusal to pay federal income taxes on $920,000 she earned from 1996 to 2001. The basis for her refusal, which the jury apparently found sufficient, was that the Internal Revenue Service hadn't showed her where in the law it says she had to pay.Apparently people have tried similar defenses in the past. And while every previous case has ruled against such income tax protestor, it appears that the USGov is paranoid that everyone will start doing this so much that they've gone ahead and violated an individual's right to free speech. According to the WashingtonPost.Com article
...the IRS has persuaded a federal court in Nevada to bar protester Irwin Schiff from selling a book that contends taxes are voluntary.There just might BE something to this...
Read the whole Washington Post article and learn all about it!
From WashingtonPost.Com:
The Tax Protesters' Refrain Works for Once
By Albert B. Crenshaw
Sunday, August 17, 2003; Page F05
Last week a jury in Memphis acquitted a woman of criminal charges arising from her refusal to pay federal income taxes on $920,000 she earned from 1996 to 2001. The basis for her refusal, which the jury apparently found sufficient, was that the Internal Revenue Service hadn't showed her where in the law it says she had to pay.
She wrote the IRS a letter in 1995, she said, demanding an answer to her question, and when none was forthcoming, she filed W-4 forms indicating she didn't owe tax. The IRS eventually brought criminal charges of tax evasion and filing false W-4s. If she had been convicted by the federal court jury, she would have faced up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines.
The defense employed by Vernice Kuglin, a 58-year-old FedEx pilot, was a variation on a longtime theme of tax protesters, which in essence says that Congress somehow neglected to put the trigger in the tax gun -- all this tax law but no provision saying you actually have to pay.
Other courts have been giving this argument short shrift. The U.S. Tax Court, which specializes in handling civil tax cases and has grown thoroughly impatient with tax protesters, is increasingly willing to hand out penalties of thousands of dollars in such cases. And the IRS has persuaded a federal court in Nevada to bar protester Irwin Schiff from selling a book that contends taxes are voluntary.
Nonetheless, a jury was persuaded by Kuglin's argument -- that because IRS forms say the agency is required to cite various code sections before asking for taxpayer information, it is required to respond to her demands that she be shown where it says she has to pay.
"I've been asking the IRS that question for 10 years," she said in a television interview after the verdict. "What section of the Internal Revenue Code makes me liable for the individual income tax? And what law requires me to file the Form 1040 form? And for 10 years I have not gotten a response to that particular question."
It's doubtful that many Americans truly believe that taxes are voluntary -- that would at the least be an oxymoron, according to most dictionary definitions of the word "tax" -- but this verdict and other developments make it clear that there is a growing disconnect between many of the people and their governments -- federal, state and local.
These folks either don't see the connection between the taxes they pay and the services they want -- the price we pay for a civilized society, in Oliver Wendell Holmes's famous phrase -- or they don't feel the services are worth the money.
California seems to be an example of the former. The state's voters have repeatedly approved vast government spending initiatives while clinging to anti-tax Proposition 13, which severely restricts property tax increases. Soaking the rich worked for a while, but the tech downturn undid that. So, given the choice of raising taxes or cutting services, Californians are . . . throwing out the governor.
And while many Californians may be hoping the Terminator will pull off a stunt even more improbable than those he has performed on the screen, up in Oregon they've said to heck with it. Voters there said earlier this year that they'd sooner close schools and free prisoners than raise taxes.
So what's going on?
Looking back, it seems that where once taxes were viewed as a communal effort -- we'll all chip in and pay for things we couldn't afford individually, with the rich paying more and the poor paying less, but with wide agreement on what we need -- they are now seen as a feeding trough for interest groups. Combine that with the growing cynicism about who actually pays taxes, and you have a recipe for systemic breakdown.
Every time a jury lets a Vernice Kuglin go free, it encourages others to try the same thing.
The IRS can still bring a civil collection action against Kuglin, but we can't expect, and probably don't want, the agency to have to bring a court case every time it tries to collect taxes.
The lesson here for unhappy taxpayers is that if we are to have functioning government, we have to pay our taxes. And when some people don't, we have to back the government up when it makes legitimate collection efforts. Failing to do so doesn't "teach the IRS a lesson." It merely makes government less efficient and more expensive, raising the cost to law-abiding taxpayers.
Instead of blaming the IRS or the governor or whomever, if you are unhappy with the way things are going, pay attention at election time. Find out what candidates are promising and think about what the costs would be and whether you think they're worth it. Write or e-mail the candidates and let 'em know what you think and that you're going to vote.
And for the tax-and-spend politicians, there's also a lesson, or a warning. The taxpaying public is not a cow to be milked to pay for promises made to interest groups to buy their votes. There are many programs and promises that may sound good on the stump, but will they work and is the general public willing to pay for them? If the answer is no, and you're willing to go ahead and promise them anyway, you're no better than the tax protesters.
Spending on pet insurance climbed 342 percent from 1998 through 2002, though fewer than 1 percent of pet owners carry it, according to a report published by Packaged Facts, a division of MarketResearch.com. That represents compound annual growth of 45 percent for the five years, with sales last year totaling about $88 million. Meanwhile, spending on veterinary services has risen 83 percent since 1996, the report said.
Beginning Nov. 1, the IRS will charge a $150 application fee to taxpayers seeking an " offer in compromise," which is an agreement with the agency to settle a tax debt for less than the full amount. Such deals are available to taxpayers who can convince the IRS they can't pay all they owe. The agency expects the fee to reduce frivolous claims, such as those filed simply as a delaying tactic. The fee can be waived for taxpayers who are truly broke.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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