Is It Illegal To Not Pay Taxes?

[The following post is by TDV Chief Editor, Jeff Berwick]

Human beings have a major cognitive dissonance problem when it comes to taxes.  For some reason they don’t see it as an armed extortion racket.  Some even think it is “voluntary”… but as we’ll show, it is far from voluntary.

Some people may fail to file taxes for numerous reasons, like personal or business problems, feelings of hopelessness or fear due to the burdensome tax process, anti-theft sentiments, or beliefs that the penalty won’t be worse than the expense and trouble of filing.

The US tax system is officially based on taxpayers willfully paying their obligations. Unofficially, its based on the barrel of a gun, which you will learn about in this article. If you fail to file for a period of time, the US government will, officially, consider a voluntary disclosure when deciding whether or not to, unofficially, murder you, or, if you’re “lucky,” throw you in a cage. If you comply, the government might even reduce your tax liability if you’re toiling in poverty enough as it is.

For whatever reason you don’t file, remember these important things:

• Knowing failure to file a return can get you thrown in a cage and even more of your money than before extorted.

• It is not the policy of the IRS to prosecute ordinary people who make simple mistakes, or whose returns were lost in the mail, but it will throw you in a cage if you don’t pay your taxes eventually.

• If you derive your income from doing things like selling certain plants, the IRS will likely try to throw you in a cage if you don’t pay your taxes.

• If you cooperate, you are less likely to be prosecuted.

• The more you dislike having your money stolen by the government, the more likely the IRS is to throw you in cage.

• In order to throw you in a cage or steal a bunch of money from you for a “tax crime,” the IRS does not have to prove how much you owe.

• The IRS can extort taxes, interest, and penalties for all of the taxes you have owed over the years, and can throw you in a cage for noncompliance.

• The IRS has programs in place to find nonfilers, extort money, and throw them in a cage.

Irwin Schiff, Peter Schiff’s father, was a prominent figure in the tax protest movement until the government threw him in a cage for not paying income tax. Irwin is serving a 13-plus year sentence for his “tax crimes” (which are simply a refusal to be extorted) in Texas. The government recently postponed his release date from October 2016 to July 2017.  In an abbreviated manner, here are some of Irwin’s arguments against taxes from Wikipedia:

1. that no statutory deficiency in Federal income tax can exist until an assessment has been made;
2. that no tax assessment can be made unless a tax return has been voluntarily filed;
3. that the Internal Revenue Service, in enforcing the income tax, seeks to impose a tax not authorized by the taxing clauses of the United States Constitution;
4. that the United States Tax Court has no jurisdiction over Schiff; and
5. that the United States Tax Court is not a court.

Another argument used by Irwin Schiff was, that “for tax purposes, ‘income’ only means corporate ‘profit.’ Therefore, no individual receives anything that is reportable as ‘income,’” also failed to keep him out of jail. 

In New Hampshire, another tax crime, with a dramatic standoff, happened in 2007. 

Edward (born 1942) and Elaine Brown (born 1940), New Hampshire residents, were all over the media when they refused to pay years of backtaxes, leading to an armed (!) standoff with federal agents at their New Hampshire residence. The couple was arrested on October 4, 2007. 

The Browns even invited in the arresting agents, which further proves to me that my comparison of the government with a vampire is spot on. As one of the undercover overseers stated to the press, “Ultimately, this open-door policy that they [the Browns] seemed to have which allowed the Browns to have some supporters bring them supplies, welcome followers and even host a picnic—this proved to be their undoing… They invited us in. We escorted them out.”

Edward and Elaine were identified by the FBI as self-identified “sovereign citizens.” Edward is scheduled to be released in 2045, and Elaine is scheduled for release in November 2042.  They would be 103 and 102, respectively, upon their release. Depending on how you look at it, they were lucky they didn’t die during the standoff.

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