Posted on 11/11/2003 5:44:41 AM PST by SJackson
Last month a federal court in Richmond finally took action against one of the country's most virulent tax scams: the "black tax credits." Crystal Foster, 25, and her father and tax preparer, Robert Lee Foster, 51, were sentenced for claiming — and receiving — tax refunds as reparations for slavery. Crystal Foster claimed a taxable income of only $ 3,429 but demanded $ 500,000 from the government in reparations — and got it. The IRS actually paid her $ 507,490.91 to cover the interest due to the delay in sending her a check.
Cases such as the Fosters' have fueled a cottage industry of charlatans and crooks pushing the promise of a "black tax" in what might be the greatest tax fraud in American history. The Internal Revenue Service has campaigned against the myth of a black tax for years, warning citizens that such claims amount to fraud, yet tens of thousands of claims are filed annually.
The court ordered Crystal Foster to repay the money that the IRS mistakenly had paid her and sentenced her to 37 months in prison. She had spent most of the $ 500,000 on a Mercedes, loans and gifts within eight days of receiving the payment. Her father was given a 13-year sentence on four counts of conspiracy to defraud the government. Similarly, Gregory Bridges, a tax accountant in Woodbridge, was convicted in June of preparing more than 100 such fraudulent returns for D.C., Maryland and Virginia residents.
The origin of the black tax and the story of its many victims combines a misunderstanding of history, raw political opportunism and old-fashioned greed.
The myth began with the April 1993 issue of Essence magazine and a piece by "journalist and economics consultant" L.G. Sherrod. Sherrod informed readers that the United States owed them for the value of the 1866 promise of "40 acres and a mule." Citing as an authority "The People's Institute for Economics," she said that the adjusted value of this broken promise was $ 43,209. Readers could claim this amount, she advised, by writing on line 59 of tax form 1040 — which asks the filer to list "other payments" — the $ 43,209 in black taxes.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
The PIE? Good grief. These criminals have no shame.
And we the taxpayers pay for all the waste, corruption, theft and fraud.
There is no tax 'law' in this country. Only the Byzantine Code of the IRS. No one can tell you what a ruling will be on any particular matter at any given time. Have any of YOU ever tried to communicate with these people? They bounce you from one jurisdiction to another. Nothing they give you is binding on anyone else in the IRS. The IRS could make anyone a criminal. It is really like the Inquisition in Spain, not like something set up by rational beings.
Of course taxes are necessary and should be collected, by force if necessary. But this system is increasingly broke and needs to be fixed. Maybe ended is more like it, with an easy to administer flat tax
She knowingly submitted a fraudulent claim accompanied by forged documents prepared by her father. She - and her father - should have been given life for stealing from all of us. As should the criminal IRS employees who aided and abetted this fraud.
I had no idea fraud was involved and still don't. My point is what's allowed and not allowed is a murky swamp of completely arbitrary contradiction within our beloved IRS.
I take your point and will research further.
I am not totally against the idea of reparations for slavery. I think a set amount of money, or payments in kind, such as for college tuitions, or land, or even the option for subsidized emigration to ancestral homelands, might very well be given out to the heads of legitimately constituted households on a one-time basis.
In exchange, there would be no further talk of, or use for, Affirmative Action, Set-Asides, or anything else that is not guaranteed to any US Citizen.
Sentencing set in 'slave reparations' tax fraud case IRS paid out half million dollar refund Thursday, October 23, 2003 Posted: 5:28 AM EDT (0928 GMT)
Robert Lee Foster prepared returns claiming more than $3.6 million in reparations, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.
WARSAW, Virginia (AP) -- Crystal Foster's father advised her to spend the $500,000 income tax refund she got two years ago. When the government came looking for its money, the Fosters said it was their rightful reparations, since their ancestors were slaves.
Though there is no federal reparations program, Foster had spent the money in eight days, buying a $40,000 Mercedes Benz, paying off her student loans and helping her brother pay for his first year at Virginia Tech.
Foster's father, Robert Lee Foster, prepared her tax forms and was convicted along with his daughter of trying to defraud the government. He maintains he did the right thing.
"Black people are not treated as humans, but as things by the U.S. government," he said in an interview at the Northern Neck Regional Jail. "We were used as resources to enrich this country and we get no inheritance from the wealth we brought."
Billions sought According to the Internal Revenue Service, more than 80,000 tax returns were filed in 2001 seeking nonexistent slavery tax credits, totaling $2.7 billion. More than $30 million was mistakenly paid out in slave reparations in 2000 and part of 2001.
FACT BOX More than $30 million was mistakenly paid out in slave reparations in 2000 and part of 2001.
That number dropped significantly last year after stepped-up scrutiny of tax returns and an aggressive media campaign targeted against scam artists promising to secure tax credits for blacks.
But the government has also begun quietly cracking down on filers of false claims after years of looking the other way.
Foster and his daughter each were convicted in July of conspiracy to defraud the government. Robert Foster also was convicted of four counts and Crystal Foster of one count of making false claims.
Both were scheduled to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Richmond on Thursday. Defendants in similar cases have received up to seven years in prison.
'I was picked out to be harassed' The case against Robert Foster has taken several bizarre turns.
Foster renounced his U.S. citizenship in jail and professed allegiance to the Moab Tiara Cherokee Kituwah Nation, an obscure Charlotte, North Carolina, group whose members claim they are descendants of African Moors who came to the New World before European colonialists.
Foster filed papers in U.S. District Court seeking to vacate the judgment against him based on lack of jurisdiction by the U.S. government. The judge rejected the motion.
Foster also tried unsuccessfully to fire his attorney, Thomas Johnson, and hire an "indigenous attorney" who identified himself as justice secretary for the Kituwah Nation.
Foster, a 51-year-old tax return preparer, said he endured years of racial discrimination during his career with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Richmond. In 2000, he sued his former employer, claiming he was passed over for promotion as an accountant because he was black. The case was settled for $5,000, leaving Foster bitter.
"I was picked out to be harassed," he said. "I was always outspoken."
Foster, who admitted he called U.S. District Judge Richard L. Williams a "white devil" in court, said he doesn't hate anybody. "But I do hate the actions of some people."
The issue of slavery reparations has long simmered in the United States, but some say it may be gaining momentum.
Blacks last year filed lawsuits in several states against a number of large corporations, alleging they profited from slavery for two centuries and that blacks should be compensated.
More recently, Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich said that if elected president he would order a study of reparations for descendants of slaves.
IRS spokeswoman Michelle Lamishaw said the idea of filing reparations claims may have originated with a 1993 Essence magazine editorial urging blacks to seek refunds of $43,206 per household as a delinquent tax rebate. The magazine said the figure was the modern-day equivalent of 40 acres and a mule, which Congress voted to give former slaves following the Civil War. The deal was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson.
Foster said he increased the total tenfold to account for inflation. According to the U.S. attorney's office, Foster prepared returns claiming more than $3.6 million in reparations, most for about $500,000 each.
In the refund that was mistakenly paid out, 25-year-old Crystal Foster claimed she had overpaid taxes on long-term capital gains in 2000. She listed the fictitious "Black Capital Investments" fund of the U.S. Treasury as the source of the gains.
Foster received her refund check in October 2001. Prosecutors say only about half the money has been recovered.
Johnson, Robert Foster's attorney, declined to comment on the case. But Foster said from jail he did not believe he broke the law.
"This was not an effort to defraud the U.S. government," he said. "This was purely a protest against the U.S. government."
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.
What they don't tell you is that they fabricated Form # 2439 which shows income tax withheld on capital gains by a regulated investment company (sorry, haven't been able to track that source down yet - I believe it was in an interview a black Richmond paper published.)
That WOULD be a real money saver wouldn't it? Maybe we could get the Revs Al and Jessie to push it.
However, their really big mistake was in making the IRS look really stupid. BTW, how are they supposed to pay the money back from jail? I don't want to waste any more bandwidth defending these rascals, however, they have a point.
I.E., The IRS is bound by neither due process, nor common sense.
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