Posted on 04/13/2005 10:45:43 AM PDT by Arrowhead1952
Austinite earned $2 million, said he owed zero, indictment says.
By Steven Kreytak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Steven D. Shanklin of Austin earned $876,398 in 1998 and filed a tax return claiming he owed none of it to Uncle Sam, according to a federal indictment.
The Cisco Systems Sales and Services Inc. employee made $770,504 in 1999 and $681,955 in 2000 and didn't file a federal tax return in either year, the indictment says.
Shanklin, 48, wrote in a letter attached to his 1998 return that he knew of "no section of the Internal Revenue Code that . . . establishes an income tax 'liability,' " according to the indictment, handed up by a federal grand jury in Austin last week.
Internal Revenue Service agents and federal prosecutors disagreed, and Shanklin now faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of three counts of tax evasion.
At his 3,000-square-foot home in Southwest Austin last week, Shanklin said he has "quite a story" to tell but can't do it until his case is resolved. He declined to comment further.
Shanklin is among the 300 or so people each year who fail to file tax returns or cite frivolous arguments in their returns and are subsequently prosecuted in federal court, according to the IRS. About 180 are convicted and sentenced to prison.
The IRS tries to draw attention to those cases to deter others from buying into bogus tax-avoidance techniques pitched in seminars, in books and on the Internet, said Harlan Carter, the special agent in charge of the San Antonio field office of the IRS criminal investigations division.
"Throughout the United States, there are constantly different types of claims that are being made" to avoid taxes, he said. "One thing that we can stress is the courts have consistently . . . held that there are no legal grounds for their failure to file and their failure to pay."
For example, some might argue that the income tax is unconstitutional or that protesters of specific government programs or actions may withhold taxes. Not true, officials say.
One argument that has circulated in Texas in recent years is that the 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was not ratified properly, IRS officials said. It explicitly states that Congress may directly tax citizens and came in the late 19th century after the Supreme Court disallowed the federal income tax.
It is unclear what specific argument Shanklin cited.
The indictment says that after failing to file a return in 1999, he said in a letter to the IRS that "federal income tax laws do not exist." In 1999 and 2000, he gave his employer a tax form claiming he was exempt from withholding, the indictment says.
Shanklin is free on bail pending trial. After his arrest, he asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Pitman to appoint a lawyer for him, a right reserved for indigent defendants. But Tuesday at a hearing, Shanklin arrived with his own lawyers.
Pitman asked the lawyers, "I assume you'll withdraw his motion for a court-appointed, taxpayer-funded attorney?"
They did.
That's called "evasion".
"I'm just blowing steam."
Somehow, I knew that!
But it's fun to 'speculate' anyway!
Besides. Responding makes me 'look' more intelligent than my wife says I am.
:0)
First, let me make this clear: I am not a tax attourney and when I first heard of Larkin Rose I rolled my eyes. Then I Googled his name and read literally dozens of sites showing how his whole idea was a sham. I also read dozens of sites saying he was right on.
The weight of the evidence, imo, tips in his favor. It is what is so frustrating about the thing. He has not been sent to prison and nobody has been able to point-by-point refute what he says. They just make arguments like the ones on the site you linked. Yes, they mention the exact same parts of the tax code that Larkin uses, except he drills down further to show how the code defines the very words used to have different meaning than what the average lay person would believe them to have.
Again, I am no big fan of LR, I am just sort of watching it from afar and view with interest the attempts to slam him without addressing the details of his points directly. And as anyone knows about the tax code, the devil is in the details.
>>That's called "evasion".<<
Yep.
Skipping the country is one option, if you're willing to leave your home and never be able to come back.
Schiff WAS a scam. His reasons were completely different from LR's. BTW, FWIW, Schiff labelled LR to be a scam artist.
From Quatloos
As stated above, for federal income tax purposes, "gross income" means all income from whatever source derived and includes compensation for services. I.R.C. § 61. Further, Treasury Regulation § 1.1- 1(b) provides, "[i]n general, all citizens of the United States, wherever resident, and all resident alien individuals are liable to the income taxes imposed by the Code whether the income is received from sources within or without the United States." I.R.C. sections 861 and 911 define the sources of income (U.S. versus non-U.S. source income) for such purposes as the prevention of double taxation of income that is subject to tax by more than one country. These sections neither specify whether income is taxable, nor do they determine or define gross income. Further, these frivolous assertions are clearly contrary to well-established legal precedent.
Relevant Case Law:
Great-West Life Assur. Co. v. United States, 678 F.2d 180, 183 (Ct. Cl 1982) - the court stated that "[t]he determination of where income is derived or 'sourced' is generally of no moment to either United States citizens or United States corporations, for such persons are subject to tax under I.R.C. § 1 and I.R.C. § 11, respectively, on their worldwide income.
Williams v. Commissioner, 114 T.C. 136, 138 (2000) - the court rejected the taxpayer's argument that his income was not from any of the sources listed in Treas. Reg. § 1.861-8(a), characterizing it as "reminiscent of tax-protester rhetoric that has been universally rejected by this and other courts.
Corcoran v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2002-18, 83 T.C.M. (CCH) 1108, 1110 (2002) - the court rejected the taxpayers' argument that his income was not from any of the sources in Treas. Reg. § 1.861-8(f), stating that the "source rules [of sections 861 through 865] do not exclude from U.S. taxation income earned by U.S. citizens from sources within the United States." The court further required the taxpayers to pay a $2,000 penalty under section 6673(a)(1) because "they . . . wasted limited judicial and administrative resources.
Aiello v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1995-40, 69 T.C.M. (CCH) 1765 (1995) - the court rejected the taxpayer's argument that the only sources of income for purposes of section 61 are listed in section 861.
Madge v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2000-370, 80 T.C.M. (CCH) 804 (2000) - the court labeled as "frivolous" the position that only foreign income is taxable.
Solomon v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1993-509, 66 T.C.M. (CCH) 1201, 1202 (1993) - the court rejected the taxpayer's argument that his income was exempt from tax by operation of sections 861 and 911, noting that he had no foreign income and that section 861 provides that "compensation for labor or personal services performed in the United States . . . are items of gross income.
See also http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html#section861
The reason why Rose has never been prosecuted? He may not be using his own system. He's just selling it.
>> Skipping the country is one option, if you're willing to leave your home and never be able to come back.<<
Yep. I know people that have done it. They are still very happy. Life is a mist.
See also
Tax Scammer Hit with Injunction for Failed 861 Argument
U.S. Judge Christopher C. Conner has issued a preliminary injunction against Thurston Paul Bell of Hanover, Pennsylvania, prohibiting him from marketing a tax scam known as the "861 scam" that takes the absurd position that only foreign workers owe income taxes.
Mr. Bell has also been ordered to post a copy of the injunction on the website of his bogus tax organization, the National Institutute for Taxpayer Education, at http://www.nite.org NITE is popularly known by those who investigate scams as the "National Institute for Tax Evasion", and is known for promoting bogus tax theories that have been proven to be failures.
In addition to advising his clients that they have been the victim of a tax scam and that they are liable for back taxes and penalties to the IRS, Mr. Bell is also required to turn over information relating to his clients to the U.S. Justice Department, which presumably will now track down Mr. Bell's clients and prosecute them individually for tax evasion.
The 861 argument is a theory that has been consistently rejected by the courts. In a recent case, Mr. Brian Takaba argued the 861 theory in his defense, but the tax court ruled that the argument was frivolous, and hit Mr. Takaba with not only the tax but also a $15,000 fine which Mr. Takaba must now pay.
The 861 argument has been the tax scam of choice by not only Thurston Bell, but also tax scammers Larken Rose and Rick Haraka a/k/a/ Rick Bryan.
Read more about the injunction against Thurston Bell at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/politics/12BELL.html
Yes but it's not legal. If you ever come back, you are liable.
Unless, of course, you have payed your taxes up to the point that you liquidated and then moved out of country.
When you come back, if the question ever arises you can then prove you were not a resident of the United States during your absense.
You do not owe taxes if you do not earn here.
Corrent but his assumption was that you made the income and then skipped without reporting it. If you made it and the IRS finds out, you owe for it when you get back.
Yes, yes, I first came upon that poker chip site about two years ago. Like I said, it is very compelling. But it is not as compelling as the other side. Then again, you get enough "Judge Greer" decisions and it really doesn't matter if you are right or not, does it...
I must re-iterate, I am not a LR supporter. I pay my taxes, grudgingly, and watch with a little envy those who have the cajoles to actually do something. I have too many people that depend on me - at the moment at least b;) - to do anything else.
Besided, the Bible is very clear about what a Christian is to do about paying taxes. But if the tax code in fact does not tell me to pay taxes, then I am doing nothing immoral by not paying them.
That is a tack a lot of Christians have taken with this, btw....
I am quite familiar with this.
Well, that worked for David Dinkins.
"If you made it and the IRS finds out, you owe for it when you get back."
Correct.
But, if you can provide payment to the IRS before comming back they 'may' be more lenient.
I know I wouldn't try it myself.
Until the IRS procecuted the first 100 and scared the rest in to uping the money.
It might work, if americans had the backbone to do it.
But it will never happen.
>>If at least 50% of the taxpayers boycott the IRS, and refused to file a return much less pay what they owe. This would probably be enough to not only jam the courts, but shut down the federal government.<<
Which is why the government fears the self employed. Employees like me would have a very, very difficult time doing any of this stuff. The female pilot I mentioned earlier did it by claiming 99 deductions.
I know that the 300 number has to be wrong. 30,000 or 300,000? Maybe, but not 300.
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