Tax Protesting as a Hobby

[Cpt Banjo]

Nice article by Prof. Bryan Camp of Texas Tech Law School about a recent Tax Court Case involving a tax protester who'd drunk way too much TP Kool Aid and made tax protesting his hobby.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blo ... .html#more

As Camp observes, "The legal term for “stupid” is, of course, “frivolous."

[Cspeter8]

I agree, it is a nice article.

Sometimes the tax scammers will claim IRS management since around 2017 prefers to leave 99.9% of non-filers alone. Does anyone have any statistic sources to refute wild claims like that?

[JamesVincent]

I agree, it is a nice article.

Sometimes the tax scammers will claim IRS management since around 2017 prefers to leave 99.9% of non-filers alone. Does anyone have any statistic sources to refute wild claims like that?

That's not how it works. You make a claim, you support that claim. Find anything official that agrees with your claim and post it. It is not our purview to dispute every asinine claim out there.

edit: missed a word

[Cspeter8]

That's not how it works. You make a claim, you support that claim. Find anything official that agrees with your claim and post it. It is not our purview to dispute every asinine claim out there.

Evidence for the 99.9% assertion must include two parts:
1) the number of non-filers
2) the number of cases the IRS pursues against non-filers

Here is content submitted for your assessment as to quality of evidence regarding part 1:
https://ibb.co/1RB8QNV
(please excuse the imgbb advertising. The original link had a filename with characters incompatible with this website)

If you want more context regarding where I found this file, it was from https://www.freedomlawschool.org/step-3 under reason 1.

[wserra]

Here is content submitted for your assessment

And here is my assessment:

• Data from 25 years ago.
• "The vast majority of this taxpayer population are due refunds or would owe little or no tax." We appreciate your donation towards reducing the national debt.
• It is true that the vast majority of non-filers who actually owe tax are never criminally prosecuted. However, what percentage of them wind up owing not only the tax, but interest and penalties as well? And how many of those wind up with liens against their property and/or levies on their income? Mottahedeh, for example.

By the way, Cspeter8, I recall your first post to this board, in which you make various ridiculous claims about the law. I also recall my response, asking you to substantiate them. That was three weeks ago. Are you going to do that, or just pretend it never happened?

[The Observer]

Are you going to do that, or just pretend it never happened?

Well, he did state that he would..."endeavor to earn back your trust" on the other thread. Maybe he has put it on his list of things to do.

I guess you can continue to hope.

[Cspeter8]

By the way, Cspeter8, I recall your first post to this board, in which you make various ridiculous claims about the law. I also recall my response, asking you to substantiate them. That was three weeks ago. Are you going to do that, or just pretend it never happened?

wserra, I reviewed your links to my first post to this board. I do not pretend that it never happened. I state publicly here with appropriate humility that your assessment is correct, characterizing my initial claims about the law as ridiculous. I cannot possibly substantiate claims that I agree with you were ridiculous. I have received a valuable education on your board, and I seek to continue my learning, if you all will be gracious to allow me to do so.

[Cspeter8]

Well, he did state that he would..."endeavor to earn back your trust" on the other thread. Maybe he has put it on his list of things to do.
I guess you can continue to hope.

Hey, I love your cat photo!

[Cspeter8]

It is true that the vast majority of non-filers who actually owe tax are never criminally prosecuted. However, what percentage of them wind up owing not only the tax, but interest and penalties as well? And how many of those wind up with liens against their property and/or levies on their income? Mottahedeh, for example.

Yes, I think your assessment is spot-on.

I want to be careful to make clear I am not advocating that anyone engage in willfully not filing a legally required 1040 form when I ask this. I'm just trying to learn how effective or hazardous certain "benefits" Peymon now offers to his freedom plan customers could be in theory, assuming all the non-legal pitfalls were not at issue, for sake of discussion.

Although Mr. Saccatto was slapped with a civil judgement that will probably ruin his senior years, he did not get a criminal conviction sending him to jail. Has anyone ever been successfully sentenced to prison for not filing a 1040 form, and if not, why not?

If not filing a 1040 form can only result in a civil judgement, practically speaking, can Peymon defeat the IRS enforcement mechanism against non-filers by operating a war-chest to litigate in court and pay all civil judgements against plaintiffs on their behalf when they loose, if he gets enough people to enroll and pay up?

[Cspeter8]

Also, can you think of any criminal statute that Peymon is violating, of which the IRS or other agency is choosing not to prosecute him? Are there RICO statutes, or anything like that?

[wserra]

wserra, I reviewed your links to my first post to this board. I do not pretend that it never happened. I state publicly here with appropriate humility that your assessment is correct, characterizing my initial claims about the law as ridiculous. I cannot possibly substantiate claims that I agree with you were ridiculous. I have received a valuable education on your board, and I seek to continue my learning, if you all will be gracious to allow me to do so.

I appreciate you saying that, and hope you believe it. If you do, no more snark from me.

[wserra]

Has anyone ever been successfully sentenced to prison for not filing a 1040 form, and if not, why not?

Absolutely so - assuming you mean failure to pay the tax as well as not filing. (If you don't owe anything, there is no requirement to file.) That said, there tend to be aggravating factors in such cases, such as not paying a whole lot or being indicted for evasion as well as failure to file. We covered one of the best-known examples here - the actor Wesley Snipes. Snipes was originally charged with (and acquitted for) evasion and various false statement crimes, but was only convicted of three failure-to-file counts, for which he received three consecutive one-year sentences. There are certainly other people who have gone to jail only having been convicted of 7203. Has anyone ever gone to jail for it in a case only involving a small amount of money and no other charges at any point? I really don't know. I would guess there are not a lot. But don't forget the liens, levies and judgments. Mottahedeh hasn't, even though he lies about having them on him.

If not filing a 1040 form can only result in a civil judgement, practically speaking, can Peymon defeat the IRS enforcement mechanism against non-filers by operating a war-chest to litigate in court and pay all civil judgements against plaintiffs on their behalf when they loose, if he gets enough people to enroll and pay up?

First of all, he'll do that when hell freezes over. Even if he did, it would be pointless. Paying someone else's taxes constitutes income to them, on which they would then have to pay taxes. Finally, he can't pay his own taxes. How is he going to pay other people's?