Businessman Found Guilty of U.S. Tax Charges (Simkanin)

New York Times ^ | January 7, 2004 | CARLTON STOWERS

[Hon]

Businessman Found Guilty of U.S. Tax Charges By CARLTON STOWERS

Published: January 8, 2004

FORT WORTH, Jan. 7 - Jurors found a Texas businessman who has not withheld taxes from his workers' paychecks since 2000 guilty on Wednesday on 29 federal charges.

The charges stemmed from the refusal of the defendant, Richard M. Simkanin, to withhold taxes from the paychecks of the 49 employees of his company, Arrow Custom Plastics of Bedford, Tex. He was also charged with filing fraudulent tax refund claims and refusing to file personal returns.

[Hon]

"Mr. Simkanin, 59, a mechanical engineer who has been in jail since last June, faces a maximum of 139 years in prison, according to federal sentencing guidelines."

[Support Free Republic]

Rank	Location	Receipts	Donors/Avg		Freepers/Avg		Monthlies
34	Colorado	175.00	6	29.17	293	0.60	125.00	9

Thanks for donating to Free Republic!

Move your locale up the leaderboard!

[Hon]

" In an order outlining his reasons for keeping Mr. Simkanin in jail pending his new trial, Judge McBryde referred to the defendant and others who share his views on tax laws as "cult-like."

By the time of his arrest, Mr. Simkanin, who no longer considered himself a citizen of the United States and instead loyal only to the Republic of Texas, was, according to his indictment, liable for $175,000 in uncollected taxes. Still, he believed that nowhere did the Constitution or any other specific law state that the vast majority of workers were legally obligated to pay taxes."

Looks like he's going to have a lot of time to study up on the problem.

[FirstPrinciple]

There is a good reason the feds are freaked about this. As soon as withholding is gone and people have to write thousand dollar checks on April 15th, that would be the end of the present tax system. The federal govt will intimidate freedom loving citizens at all costs.

[GeronL]

did anyone really think he would be let off??

[Hon]

You probably hope that we someday have the same kind of low tax compliance of third world countries like Peru or Somalia. Wouldn't that be grand?

[candeee]

Before I realized the judge would prevent him from defending himself, I believed the jury would find him not guilty. Don't forget the last jury had only one hold out preventing his aquittal.

[GeronL]

Watch them deny any appeals.

[Hon]

I believe Simkanin's flacks claim that it was the other way around, with only one juror wanting to convict last time. But I believe you are probably correct about them having it backwards.

How do you figure Simkanin was prevented from defending himself?

[candeee]

You misread my post - only one juror last time did not want his aquittal. In this trial, McBryde allowed/created a very biased and hostile environment that prevented a fair trial. McBryde kept claiming questions addressing the basis for Simkanin's beliefs were beyond the scope of the trial. - You'd think Simkanin and the jurors should at the very least be provided with the specific law/s supposedly broken. Of course the rest of us "pay our taxes" so therefore they must be legally due. After all the prosecutors "are from the gov't and they're here to help us."

[Hon]

LOL! Sure, the prosecutors should have to prove how trying to collect $235,000 in refunds when you haven't paid ANY taxes is against the law.

Sure, the prosecutors should have to prove why a citizen of the Republic of Texas has to pay taxes to the United States. LOL!

Have you ever heard of the expression "frivolous argument"? It's what these tax evaders try to pull all the time. Every court has heard them time and again. The wheel doesn't need to be re-invented every day.

[Drammach]

Woman found Not Guilty of Tax Evasion Charges..

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34031

She simply questioned whether there was a SPECIFICALLY STATED law requiring a U.S.Citizen to pay income tax.

The Feds were unable to prove their case...

The 16th amendment was never legally ratified, but DECLARED RATIFIED by the Sec. of State.

Same with the 17th, which allowed election of Senators by popular vote...

I am never amazed at the large number of "Opinions" concerning Income Tax, Search and Seizure, and other constitutional issues that come unknowingly out of the mouths (so to speak) of innocents..

The Federal Government does not have an "inherent right" to run our lives and take our hard earned income BY FORCE..

And pro government abuse Judges are not God..

[Hon]

Kuglin was acquited of criminal intent because the jury thought she was too stupid to understand how to do her taxes.

Heck, they thought she was so stupid she didn't know she didn't have 99 dependents.

She still has to pay the taxes she owes, plus penalties, plus her attorney fees. The legality of the income tax was never in question.

Every one of your points is laughably shopworn and has been thrown out of every court in the land where they have been advanced hundreds of times over.

Study up a little before you pretend to be aware of the issues:

http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html

The jailtime you save might be your own.

[sawyer]

16th I am sure would not pass now but in its time it passed with the right number of states.What we need is the congress and presidents to stop spending all this money. We get what we ask for so why do we as a voting people keep putting in these crazy spenders?Course who paid taxes when the 16th came in is not the same type people who pay now and the country is different. I know you can not return to days gone by.

[William McKinley]

ping!

[eno_]

I never thought of the terrorists as smart. Maybe they are not smart, but smarter than I had thought in their efforts to circumvent security. If only they used such zeal and ingenuity to bring their backward societies into the 21st century instead of plotting the death of civilians.

I would not mind. Hundreds of thousands of federal tax sucking non-workers out of work? THAT would be grand. And I don't particularly care how we get there.

[eno_]

Whoops, wrong quote.

[ancient_geezer]

The 16th amendment was never legally ratified, but DECLARED RATIFIED by the Sec. of State.

Strange, not according to the Congress, and Courts, nor was their even a single protest pf any state over having the results of their ratification of the 16th improperly recorded.

The argument is based on imperfections of copies and punctuation, pointed out by the Sec. of State. Imperfections which if applied to the bill of rights would render them illegally ratified. You want to go along with that, you are indeed a fool.

In any case the 16th was never necessary to the taxation of one's wages, the only thing the 16th actually made any difference on was the taxation of rent, and returns from stocks, bonds, and like financial instruments as a result of the Pollock decision finding the taxation of earnings from property to be equivalent to taxation of property itself, (i.e. direct taxation).

[mtbopfuyn]

The outcome may have been different but for the fact that he knew it was wrong by making scapgoats out of his employees.