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DON'T TRY THIS YEAR-END PLANNING TECHNIQUE

December 26, 2007

Don't stop filing your taxes based on tax protester arguments. The IRS really doesn't like that, and you'll lose, like this man:

A federal judge in Corpus Christi on Thursday sentenced a 58-year-old Odem man to a little more than a year in prison for trying to avoid paying income tax for four years.
Dale Franklin Chastain was convicted in October on four counts of willfully attempting to evade and defeat income tax from 2000 to 2004, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney’s office

But for heaven's sake, if you do such a foolish thing, at least keep your mouth shut:

Chastain was accused of sending hundreds of pages of letters starting in 1999 to tax officials, members of Congress and others citing a variety of reasons why he was not subject to the country’s tax laws, including that he was a “non-resident alien” and because wages were not income.

A non-tax equivalent to this would be to call ahead to the bank and ask if they are open between 12 and 1 for a hold-up, and then to ask the police department to help you out by staying away from the bank at that time because their presence would be inconvenient.

Russ Fox rounds up other tax crime news.

Tags: tax crime.