Tax protesters in the United States advance a number of conspiracy arguments asserting that Congress, the courts and various agencies within the federal government—primarily the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)—are involved in a deception deliberately designed to procure from individuals or entities their wealth or profits in contravention of law.
Schiff's web site continues to state: "Since the income tax was repealed in 1954 when Congress adopted the 1954 Code, it is clear that for 50 years federal judges in conspiracy with U. S. Department of Injustice [sic] prosecutors have been illegally and criminally prosecuting people for crimes that do not exist in connection with a tax that nobody owes.
"[1] One tax protester web site, called www.tax-freedom.com, quotes from an article by William Cooper titled "BATF/IRS - Criminal Fraud", from the publication Veritas (issue no.
6, September 1995), as follows: Investigation of the alleged Internal Revenue Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has disclosed a broad, premeditated conspiracy to defraud the Citizens of the United States of America.
Examination of the United States Code, the Code of Federal Regulations, the Statutes at Large, Congressional Record, the Federal Register, and Internal Revenue manuals too numerous to list, reveals a crime of such magnitude that words cannot adequately describe the betrayal of the American people.
Marx and Engels claimed that, in the effort to create a classless society, a "graduated income tax" could be used as a weapon to destroy the middle class.
The concept behind the theory the proponent asserts is that if a courtroom is adorned with a flag which happens to be fringed around the edges, such decor indicates that the court is one of admiralty jurisdiction exclusively.
Such an argument was made by Eddie Ray Kahn, a co-defendant of Wesley Snipes in the latter's high-profile tax evasion case.
For example, he sought to be immediately freed because the indictment lists his name in all capital letters, and he claimed U.S. attorneys have no jurisdiction because Florida supposedly was never ceded to the federal government".
See, e.g. United States v. Frech[7] ("Defendants' assertion that the capitalization of their names in court documents constitutes constructive fraud, thereby depriving the district court of jurisdiction and venue, is without any basis in law or fact"); United States v. Washington[8] ("defendant contends that the Indictment must be dismissed because 'KURT WASHINGTON,' spelled out in capital letters, is a fictitious name used by the Government to tax him improperly as a business, and that the correct spelling and presentation of his name is 'Kurt Washington.'
One group, calling itself "We the People", has stated that government personnel are engaged in a conspiracy in connection with Federal tax forms and "OMB [Office of Management and Budget] control numbers" in connection with a criminal tax case involving a tax protester: In sum, the PRA [the Paperwork Reduction Act] requires that all government agencies display valid OMB control numbers and certain disclosures directly on all information collection forms that the public is requested to file.
[The defendant's] sole defense was he was not required to file an IRS Form 1040 because it displays an invalid OMB control number.
They also must have known that a trial would expose the ongoing conspiracy between OMB and IRS to publish 1040 forms each year that those agencies knew were in violation of the PRA.
That would raise the issue that the Form 1040, with its invalid control number, is being used by the Government to cover up the underlying constitutional tort -- that is, the enforcement of a direct, unapportioned tax on the labor of every working man, women and child in America.
[11] The New Hampshire Union Leader also reported that "the Browns believe the IRS and the federal income tax are part of a deliberate plot perpetrated by Freemasons to control the American people and eventually the world.
The argument that Federal reserve notes are not taxable income when paid to a taxpayer because the notes are not gold and silver and may not be redeemed for gold and silver, and variations of this argument, have been officially identified as legally frivolous Federal tax return positions for purposes of the $5,000 frivolous tax return penalty imposed under Internal Revenue Code section 6702(a).
By contrast, to establish civil liability to pay the tax, no mens rea on the part of the defendant is required to be proven.