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COURT PROVIDES CLUES FOR THE CLUELESS - WITH LINKS!

June 09, 2005

Joseph D. Meyer needs a clue. Judge Barbara Crabb is trying to help.

Mr. Meyer filed suit in the U.S. District Court for Wisconsin, Western District, arguing that efforts to collect tax from him are illegal because the federal government has no authority to tax U.S. indivvdulas who don't earn wates from international commerce or U.S. possessions, no code section makes him liable for tax, blah, blah, etc.

Judge Crabb tells it like it is -- with hyperlinks!

It appears from plaintiff’s submissions that he obtains his erroneous view of the Internal Revenue Code from an internet website, www.taxableincome.net. The excerpt that plaintiff submitted to the court as an attachment to his “Report per order scheduling preliminary pre-trial conference” indicates that this website is typical of similar websites and seminars that have proliferated in recent years and have convinced many people, incorrectly, that they are not liable for payment of federal income taxes. Somehow, the charlatans who run these websites and conduct tax avoidance seminars continue to fool unsophisticated people to the benefit of their own bank accounts. They manage to do this despite the fact that no court anywhere has agreed with their interpretations of the tax code or Constitution and in the face of numerous successful felony prosecutions of many of their colleagues. See, e.g., www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/04/16/national/main506237.shtml (reporting arrest of anti-tax seminar leader Lynne Meredith on federal charges)

Judge Crabb asks Mr. Meyer the question we have:

Can ... plaintiff really believe that if (his) view of the law were correct, highly paid, highly trained and highly motivated tax lawyers would not be challenging the Internal Revenue Service’s efforts to collect income tax from persons who are not engaged in “international and possessions commerce”? Id. Do they really think that as lay people, they have discovered a valid view of the tax laws that has eluded not only the tax lawyers in private practice but all of the judges in the United States?

Best of all, Judge Crabb cites one of our favorite web sites, Quatloos:

Rather than spending his money and time reading the misrepresentations, half-truths and full-fledged falsehoods perpetrated by Tom Clayton, MD, and his ilk, plaintiff would be better served if he were to read a legal text on taxation, its history, constitutionality and application such as Federal Taxation of Income, Estates and Gifts, by Boris I. Bittker and Lawrence Lokken. If he does not want to make the effort such a text requires, he might find much of interest at www.quatloos.com/taxscams/Tax_Scams_Museum.htm or www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/friv_tax.pdf. At the latter website, he would find the legal reasons why his arguments are groundless, at the former, he would find excellent advice. Among other things, he would be reminded that no one has ever won a civil case arguing the kinds of theories that he is arguing in this case and that hundreds of people who have relied on the arguments have not only lost their cases but have been required to pay penalties to the IRS and have been sanctioned for advocating a frivolous theory to the court. www.quatloos.com/taxscams/taxprot.htm.

So Mr. Meyer lost. Judge Crabb has scheduled a hearing for Mr. Meyer to show cause why he shouldn't pay penalties for wasting the court's time with frivolous arguments.

It's good to see courts using hyperlinks and web-references. Now if we can just get the courts to use html, rather than pdf files, and if we can get the Iowa district courts to not be so stingy about posting opinions, we can really get the tax law into the internet era.

Cite: Meyer v. Commissioner, DC-WD Wis., 5-18-05.

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