If I remember correctly, some time ago someone said on the list that s/he wasn't free to not pay income taxes in the USA.
Frederick Mann
SUBJECT: Fifth Amendment vs. Tax Returns
BY: Dan Meador (May 6, 1999)
[Comments by Frederick Mann]
Lindsey Springer appears to have found an effective defense where tax returns are concerned -- the Fifth Amendment prevails over the mandate to sign returns under penalties of perjury.
"If you are suggesting that I am required to submit a signed Federal or State Income Tax Return, and that failure to do so results in Civil and Criminal violations of the law, I wish to inform you that the reason I did not nor will not sign and submit such returns, is based solely on the exercise of protection the Fifth Amendment provides me in situations like this. The Fifth Amendment prohibits you from compelling me to give testimony or to submit any evidence which could be used against me in a criminal proceeding. Since the Federal and State Income Tax Returns require a valid signature attesting under the penalties of perjury, I respectfully decline to be compelled or volunteer to give such testimony or evidence."
[I would amend the above as follows:
"If you are suggesting that I am required to submit a signed Federal or
State Income Tax Return, and that failure to do so results in Civil and/or
Criminal violations of the law, I wish to inform you that the reason I
did not nor will not sign and submit such returns, is based partially on
the exercise of protection the Fifth Amendment provides me in situations
like this. The Fifth Amendment prohibits you from compelling me to give
testimony or to submit any evidence which could be used against me in a
civil or criminal proceeding. Since the Federal and State Income Tax
Returns require a valid signature attesting under the penalties of perjury,
I respectfully decline to be compelled or volunteer to give such testimony
or evidence."
(I would leave the door open to later use other lines of defense as well.
I also made other changes. For details of 5th Amendment protection related
to civil proceedings, see 'Compulsory Production of Documents' by
Larry Becraft <http://fly.hiwaay.net/~becraft/Compulsory.htm>.)]
For the last several years, Springer, based in Tulsa, has assisted with several class action suits against the Internal Revenue Service in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and elsewhere. As others dedicated to tax reform and forcing the Internal Revenue Service to comply with law, Springer has confronted every conceivable evasive Department of Justice and Federal court tactic imaginable. The break came on a most conspicuous issue, the Fifth Amendment clause protection which stipulates, "[No person shall] ... be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself..."
Enlightenment, so far as clarifying the matter, came in a Springfield, Illinois case where Clyde LaRue refused to provide a handwriting sample for a grand jury convened by the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois (Misc. No. 99-06, In the Matter of December 1998 Grand Jury: Subpoena to Clyde LaRue). In the motion to compel LaRue to produce the handwriting sampler (exemplars), the U.S. Attorney and his assistant cited Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263 (1967), and United States v. Euge, 444 U.S. 707 (1980), to distinguish between what the government can or cannot compel. In sum, per the Gilbert decision, the Fifth Amendment protection against forcing someone to testify against himself does not extend to a mere handwriting sample, but does to "testimonial evidence protected by the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination."
In a manner of speaking, whatever lights went out in Georgia in 1965 came on in Illinois in 1999. Springer recognized the substance of the two cited opinions relative to income tax returns, and was of a mind to share his revelation with the Department of Justice.
State and Federal tax return forms require those who complete and file them to sign under penalties of perjury. Content of the forms is testimonial in nature, and anyone who signs under penalties of perjury invites civil and criminal prosecution, general inquiries into private affairs, statutory penalties, fines, and other unpleasantries too numerous to mention. The conflict between the constitutionally secured right and statutory law effectively aborts compelling testimony without a grant of immunity, which only courts have power to grant, so administrative agencies such as IRS are up the proverbial creek without a paddle when someone refuses to file a form by claiming the constitutionally secured right not to testify against himself.
According to Springer, the Department of Justice will resist concessions so far as class action settlements are concerned, but outside judicial forum (off the record, wouldn’t you know), conceded the Catch 22 predicament relative to compelling testimony on income tax returns. Constitutionally secured rights are antecedent and superior to the government’s interest, and no penalty can ensue, regardless of nature, when the right is exercised by someone entitled to it. Whatever liability the government establishes must be independently secured.
Federal government’s nemesis is in section 7206 of the Internal Revenue Code: "Any person who willfully makes and subscribes any return, statement, or other document, which contains or is verified by a written declaration that it is made under the penalties of perjury, and which he does not believe to be true and correct as to every material matter, ... shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined ... or imprisoned..."
Whether implied or actual, the pontential for criminal liability is a clear and present danger to anyone who signs State and Federal income tax returns under penalties of perjury. Consequently, so long as tax return forms require signatures under penalties of perjury, the constitutionally secured right not to provide testimony that might be self-incriminating nulliifes willful failure to file penalties. In a manner of speaking, this leaves the Internal Revenue Service and corresponding State agencies in the position of trains on a track that doesn’t have a depot at either end.
The Springer breakthrough comes at a particularly opportune time as other researchers and tax reform proponents are rapidly unraveling and exposing Internal Revenue Code and Internal Revenue Service fraud that has been perpetrated against the American people for most of six decades. Among other things, the Fifth Amendment protection secures defensive ground necessary to accumulate evidence of fraudulent and injurious initiatives by unscrupulous Internal Revenue Service and government officers and employees.
Springer can be contacted via telephone at (918) 748-5539.
[For an extensive exposition, including many case citations and a wealth of detail, see 'Key Issue #4 - The Fifth Amendment' <http://www.buildfreedom.com/key_issues.htm>.]
Jim Pruitt wrote:
>
> Hey Dan, with all due respect to Lindsay ... Bill Conklin has been doing th
> 5th amendment thing for 20 or more years ... he has won 6 suits against the
> IRS ... his homepage is ...
> <http://www.anti-irs.com/> ... thanks for the post ... Jim
MEADOR ADDITION
Yes, I know Bill has hammered IRS on the Fifth Amendment issue, and as I've responded privately to others on this matter, other people are effectively using it, too. For example, Marcea Doerr from Sacramento uses the Fifth Amendment in administrative forums -- never gives up books and records.
Don Beadles of Alva, Oklahoma has about the best approach I've heard of, and it makes no difference if it is with IRS, the FBI or whoever. He asks, "Are you a committing magistrate?"
The response is invariably, "A what?"
Don then says, "If you don't know what it is, you aren't one, so you don't have authority to grant immunity. Consequently, I don't have to tell or give you anything."
They vanish in pretty short order.
The point where Lindsey's situation is concerned ... I've read enough of Lindsey's material to know he didn't write that paragraph. Lindsey is pretty straight arrow -- he wouldn't pass the paragraph out and misrepresent it. This tells us something: The Feds see the handwriting on the wall. Sixty years of institutionalized tyranny are about to come to an end. The DoJ doesn't want to talk about a class action settlement at this juncture because conceding the Fifth Amendment remedy in a class action decision would bring about a disorderly situation. But they can clearly see that the game is up.
[REPOSTING INVITED - Frederick Mann]
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