Watch What You Say

I've mentioned on several occasions how, when it comes to taxes, the normal protections we Americans have under our Constitution are not in effect.  Basically, our masters in all branches of the government have consistently ruled that money for the imperial Federal government trumps all personal liberties. 

While I don't agree with almost any of the routine violations of our civil rights by the IRS, I do have some sympathy for their campaign against frivolous appeals.  As I have described ad nauseam, the tax protestor scammers try to shirk their legal responsibilities based on a variety of idiotic arguments as to why they are not required to file tax returns. They teach their followers to raise these arguments when IRS comes looking for their money and tax returns.  The IRS bureaucracy and the Tax Court system have been clogged up for years working on cases involving these same ridiculous tax protestor arguments.  It has become so bad that they have been assessing a a variety of frivolous appeal penalties against people who have raised the same arguments that have long ago been debunked. 

While the tax protestor community considers this a violation of their freedom of speech, I understand the IRS's need to not tolerate the same old crap being tossed at them over and over again.  As IRS explains in this recent news release about several cases where the frivolous appeals penalties have been assessed, they can charge up to $25,000 per incident against people who raise any of these arguments.  For an IRS report on what these arguments are, check out this pdf document.  This is why, whenever I encounter someone who is all hot and bothered about IRS and taxes, and starts to mention any of these idiotic reasons why taxes aren't legal, I warn them to keep it to themselves because if they mention that to an IRS employee, they could be hit with a $25,000 fine.

 KMK

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 3/11/2003 04:39:00 PM Send this post: