Tax Protester Conspiracy Arguments - Conspiracy Arguments, in General

Conspiracy Arguments, in General

Tax protester Irwin Schiff, following his criminal conviction for tax fraud that resulted in the imposition of a 13-year prison sentence, released a statement asserting in part that "the entire federal judiciary is involved in a monumental, criminal conspiracy to collect income taxes in violation 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 Schiff's web site continues to state: "Since the income tax was repealed in 1954 when Congress adopted the 1954 Code, it is clear that for 50 years federal judges in conspiracy with U. S. Department of Injustice prosecutors have been illegally and criminally prosecuting people for crimes that do not exist in connection with a tax that nobody owes."

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. What we uncovered has clearly been designed to circumvent the limitations of the Constitution for the United States of America and to implement the Communist Manifesto within the 50 States. 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. Through the clever use of language, the government promotes the fraud.

Frequent claims in support of the income tax conspiracy include:

• Some specific event in U.S. history, such as the Civil War, the Great Depression, or the passage of some national debt threshold, actually caused the United States to cease to exist under the Constitution; all actions in the name of the U.S. government since that event are part of a conspiracy by those in power to retain the appearance of constitutional authority.
• The United States never actually achieved independence from Great Britain, and secretly continues to operate under British rule.
• The government prosecutes only people who are not sufficiently well informed to make the above arguments, and secretly settles with those who are.
• The United States Supreme Court grants certiorari only to cases wherein the tax protester has a poorly-defended argument.
• The courts rely only on the many cases where tax protesters lost, and ignore those few where tax protesters prevail.
• The gold fringe around the American flag, as displayed in many federal courts, designates them as Admiralty courts, which cannot hear other kinds of cases, or signal that the court is operating under martial law. In United States v. Greenstreet, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas noted: "Defendant Greenstreet's response to Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment identifies this Court as an 'Admiralty Court' without further discussing his allegation. If his reference is to be construed as a jurisdictional challenge, his motion is denied. Others have attempted to persuade the judiciary that fringe on an American flag denotes a court of admiralty. In light of the fact that this Court has such a flag in its courtroom, the issue is addressed. 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. To think that a fringed flag adorning the courtroom somehow limits this Court's jurisdiction is frivolous ... Unfortunately for Defendant Greenstreet, decor is not a determinant for jurisdiction." No court has ever upheld this argument, as neither the presence (or absence) of a flag (or of any other standard or element of decor), nor the fringe on a flag (which has no heraldic or vexillological significance), has any bearing whatsoever on the jurisdiction of a court.