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Assertion: CtC-educated Americans have been prosecuted for their filings FALSE. Here is the 2009 sworn testimony of Shauna Henline, Senior Technical Advisor in just one of the many offices of the IRS: 
Henline's "conservatively, at least 10,000" translates to "conservatively, at least" a couple of hundred thousand, in actuality. See the math here. Now let's look at the truth about the number of prosecutions, starting with this question to Henline:
Henline may really have no idea, or maybe she simply didn't want to say so. But the DoJ does have an idea, and has been made to answer the question. In what is actually the only direct "criminal" prosecution simply for filing CtC-educated tax returns (which didn't, by the way, charge me with allegations that the numbers appearing on the returns are wrong, but only that my signatures attesting to my belief in the correctness of those numbers are not sincere; see more about that here), I filed a few pre-trial motions to dismiss. One of those motions challenged the government to identify even one person ever prosecuted simply for his or her CtC-educated filing. The best it could do was this (from its response to my motion to dismiss on grounds of “selective/vindictive” prosecution):
So, in 2009, six years after CtC-educated filings began and all those refunds started going out week after week, month after month, year after year-- scores of thousands of them-- Roger Menner’s prosecution was the only thing the DoJ could offer to suggest that anyone else has EVER been prosecuted over CtC-educated filings (and only "anecdotally"-- a weasel-word meant to protect the attorney from charges of outright lying to the court, I suspect). And saying that Menner's prosecution was over CtC-educated filings was a lie. The fact is, Menner had never filed CtC-educated returns, and wasn't charged with having done so, or purportedly having done so. As was pointed out in my reply brief:
By the way, this write-up concerning the Menner case is that of my attorney at the time. Here is my own far more comprehensive discussion of this case, posted as a newsletter item in late summer of 2008, along with the indictment. Read the indictment for yourself, then let it sink in: The Menner case was the best the DoJ could do in an effort to suggest that ANYONE has ever been prosecuted simply for filing educated, accurate returns when it really needed to deliver the goods, and that suggestion was a fraud. The truth is, there have been no such prosecutions, either before or since mine. (The handful of lawsuits referred-to in the excerpt above are discussed here-- be sure to read that discussion!) *** LET'S LOOK AT ANOTHER CASE that some in the troll community have misrepresented as being a prosecution over CtC-educated filings. This one is a beaut. The fellow WAS prosecuted for "false filings", but only for his pre-CtC filings. His actual CtC-educated filings, which were made after his errant ones but well before he was charged for those older filings, were carefully omitted from the extensive list of charges, and from the plea bargain deal he was eventually offered. Here's the story: Eugene Warner was indicted in November of 2007 on a long list of charges, amongst which are a couple alleging the filing of false tax returns. See the indictment here. Warner's allegedly false returns were all filed on or before August 29, 2003-- which was only 6 days after the first printing of the book came back to me from the printer and long before the first copy ever left my hands. Plainly, these were NOT CtC-educated returns. However, subsequently, Warner DID become CtC-educated, and filed a number of new, educated returns-- some of which were for the same years as these false ones, by the way. Warner's educated filings resulted in at least three victories (scroll down this page to see them for yourself). Despite the fact that Warner's CtC-educated filings were nearly two years old at the time of this indictment, and had been posted on this site about the same amount of time, those filings go unmentioned in his indictment. A year-and-a-half later, in March of 2009, a superseding indictment was issued Eugene in which 11 counts of "fraudulent refund claims" under a Title 18 statute were added to the charges against Eugene. Several of these new charges appear to have been intended to suggest to the casual reader that Eugene was going to be prosecuted over his educated filings after all (though the fact that the charges involved Title 18 offenses rather than Title 26 offenses says otherwise). But whatever the intent in adding on these new charges, the feds promptly abandoned it and negotiated for a plea of only one conspiracy count, to which none of those gratuitous add-on charges (nor anything else not pre-dating Warner's reading CtC) was related. Think about this. Let it sink in. Like the Menner case which the DoJ's Washington HQ Tax Division lawyers lamely offered as the best thing they could come up with as a supposed prosecution of someone over CtC-educated filings, a complete package of the facts involved in Eugene Warner's case actually shows CtC-educated filings being singled out to be NOT prosecuted. THERE HAVE BEEN A COUPLE OF OTHER CASES LIKE ROGER MENNER'S over the years since 2009. Like Roger's these are cases in which a charge is thrown at what may or may not have been at least a nominally-CtC-educated filing as an orphan "target of opportunity" in an indictment involving actual tax-related offenses, or in which what were imagined to be CtC-educated returns were somehow compromised. As in the Menner case, the distinguishing details of these couple of events (in contrast to the hundreds of thousands of untroubled actual CtC-educated filings for well over a decade now) emphasize the reality: There are no prosecutions of anyone simply for making actual CtC-educated filings (other than the unprecedented and unrepeated show-trial assault on me). FOR INSTANCE A FELLOW NAMED GREG BOYD was indicted in 2013 and convicted on charges of filing three returns he didn't really believe to be true-- for 2004, 2005 and 2006. His later identical returns prompted no charges. Boyd's returns were meant, it would appear, to be educated filings. But Boyd actually left the 1099 MISCs with which payments made to him were reported unanswered-- instead of rebutting the 1099s, Boyd filed completely irrelevant 4852s somehow thinking that would do the trick (4852s are relevant to only one kind of 1099-- the 1099-R). In addition, Boyd also had a long history of bankruptcies and past filing oddities, such as erratically disputing IRS claims against him or agreeing to pay them, and more. This government filing in the case will give some idea of that history. All of this combined to create a good basis for Boyd being validly charged with not really believing-- or even knowing-- what he said on the returns for which he was charged, and for having actually meant them as some form of evasion. The icing on the sour cake Boyd had baked for himself was his repudiation of the charged returns, and his 2012 return declaring all his earnings to be "income", done while under indictment. His "defense" in trial was to stipulate that his charged returns were incorrect and to owing taxes for those years, and to claim to having been in the grip of misunderstandings when filing them-- but he's feeling much better now. Unsurprisingly, Boyd was convicted on all counts. THERE IS ALSO THE RECENT INDICTMENT of James Back. Back is charged with not really believing what he said on three educated returns, and also with not filing at all for the next three years. Back had secured complete refunds for his three years of educated filings. Unfortunately, he then got spooked-- probably from listening to trolls-- and stopped filing, despite withholdings and W-2 allegations identical to those of the earlier years continuing to be made. At the same time, he filed, in at least one of those years, some kind of fake form described as a "Form W-0". This latter failure-to-file behavior-- agreeing by silence to allegations about payments of exactly the same character as those he had deemed false on his educated returns-- and his resort to the use of some kind of fake form, contradicted Back's earlier filings. This made a perfect case that Back really hadn't believed what he said on those filed returns. After five years of these damning contradicting indicators, Back was indicted for filing false returns (that is, returns he didn't really believe to be correct) and for failure to file. In October of 2014, Back was convicted after apparently offering no real defense to the charges, and instead merely telling the jury "taxation was immoral and unfair, and that he simply refused to submit to it anymore," and "that there is no evidence that state or federal laws apply to him," according to a newspaper reporting on his conviction. Boyd's and Back's cases are just like Menner's and Warner's. They are each distinguished by key elements which make them NOT cases in which anyone was charged with a crime for simply filing CtC-educated returns. GREG BELCHER is another one-time educated filer who succumbed to IRS harassment (and pressure from family) and set himself up for a prosecution and conviction. After years of educated filing, Greg's courage faltered briefly at one point. He agreed to pay federal income taxes concerning one year in regard to which he was being targeted with a flurry of intimidating notices from the tax agency. Soon afterward Greg found himself charged and convicted for purportedly filing false returns, having made his sincerity manifestly ambiguous, at best. (Greg was also charged and convicted for "Corruptly Obstructing, Impeding and Impairing the Due Administration of the Internal Revenue Laws" in regard to having written a flurry of slightly angry letters to those creating 1099s about him, urging-- or kind of ordering-- them to cease and desist.) FINALLY, I WANT TO BRIEFLY SHARE some words about Jim Allen, a doctor from Pennsylvania corruptly forced into a plea of having "filed false returns" under the influence of that bad fellow Pete Hendrickson and his book 'Cracking the Code-...'. This truly is a despicable affair, but revealing of the desperation of the "ignorance tax" schemers in 2019, the 16th year of the unending issuance of complete refunds to educated American men and women across the country. As Jim explained it to me after being targeted for the poster-child role in the "suppress CtC" campaign in April of 2018, back even before CtC was published, and long before Jim found his way to it, he and his wife had ranged far afield in efforts to avoid the income tax. These included creating a fake religious entity through which they routed their earnings and in the name of which they bought their house and cars; and concealing assets in offshore bank accounts. It was only many years after getting entangled in all their bad choices that Jim found CtC. He and Maria began simply filing knowledgeably and honestly, and really achieving the liberation from the "ignorance tax" they had been seeking. Only once that I know of did he face even so little as a bit of temporary resistance from the IRS-- an event notable enough to make the 'Every Which Way But Loose' collection (here). UNFORTUNATELY, even though having learned the truth about the tax, and that his and Maria's earlier choices had not only been wrong but unnecessary, Jim and Maria left these fake and evasive-looking arrangements in place. Jim said he felt that trying to undo them would be dangerous to their well-being. A bad call, as it turns out. Sometime a bit prior to April of 2018, it appears, Jim and Maria's past bad practices came to the attention of Melissa Siskind (or her associates at the DoJ). Siskind is the woman who prosecuted Doreen Hendrickson for the unique "crime" of refusing a DoJ-written order to testify falsely-- a prosecution distinguished most prominently by this little bit of corruption, this little bit, and this little bit, too. Melissa Siskind apparently viewed what was discovered about Jim and Maria to be an opportunity to strike a blow at CtC. (She seems to view this as a personal project, perhaps because this site is where her corrupt behavior noted above has been observed and displayed). Siskind (or her associates) approached Jim and proposed a deal. He would make a plea renouncing his educated filings, and in exchange he would never face charges on the other stuff-- which Jim felt could not be defended against. More significantly to Jim by far, Maria would be left entirely untouched, and could continue in her own medical practice, keeping the household intact and the couple's son safe and provided for. ALL-IN-ALL, the Jim Allen story is a shameful story. It has been written by the evil effects of the "ignorance tax" scheme and the things to which it drove some folks prior to the advent of CtC, and by the corruption of those still struggling to prop the thing up and wheeze a few more years of life and a few more $trillions out of it before it collapses in a heap. It's also an instructive story, though. As in every other case, the Jim Allen example is distinguished by NOT being a prosecution on the allegation that simply filing honest CtC-educated returns violates any law or is anything but lawful and proper (facts underscored by the hundreds of thousands of fully-vetted and honored filings since 2003). Thus, the conniving of Melissa Siskind and her associates in squeezing Jim and Maria into this show-trial plea-theater itself emphasizes the invulnerability to even corrupt prosecutors of honest CtC-educated filings unencumbered by exploitable external debris. At the same time, this contrived display of Jim Allen hung out in the public square reveals just how desperate and empty-handed those trying to prop up the "ignorance tax" scheme really are. *** BTW, ALL OF THE ABOVE NOTWITHSTANDING, it's important to keep in mind that what really matters is the truth about the law and our rights and our moral obligations, not convenience or safety. Even if people WERE being prosecuted for simply for making accurate, honest and proper rebuttals and claims, we would all still be just as much under a moral and civic responsibility to act to uphold the law, come what may... "Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right." -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The main point of rebutting and shining light on the misrepresentations used to try to discourage the CtC-educated and to frighten away those not yet educated is not to argue that doing what's right is always "safe". It is, rather, to counter the subtler ploy behind these lies: a "resort to authority" fallacy suggesting that CtC must be wrong about the law, else there would be no adverse behavior by our noble prosecutors and judges and other civil servants. The absurdity of the proposition that the beneficiaries of the "ignorance tax" and their appointees and agents would attempt no concerted and occasionally even corrupt efforts to suppress a truth fatal to their comforts, luxuries, power and position is pretty-much self-evident, I trust. Everyone at above-room-temperature-status knows that even though they may be only a minority, there are nonetheless plenty of corrupt people in positions of power who WILL attempt to fool others in defense of their gravy-train, and some of whom will even defy the law in such efforts to the extent that they believe they can safely do so. Indeed, we've just seen one explicit example of official corruption in service to an effort to suppress CtC-- the misrepresentation to a federal court by a US attorney about the Roger Menner case. If you read through the posts here and here, you'll see a series of such misrepresentations and other corrupt offenses by people in positions of trust and honor in the United States government. My prosecution itself makes clear that officials will not just lie, but will do much worse when they believe they will get away with it. Read about some of the more egregious kangaroo-hops undertaken in that mugging here (and be sure to not miss the appellate court's backdoor admissions of the illegitimacy of my conviction in response to my Motion to Vacate, which you'll find toward the end of that documented discussion). The take-away, then, is not that bad things can't or won't ever happen in connection with doing the right thing. It is, rather, that representations by those seeking to oppose and suppress the plain truths revealed in CtC are not to be taken as true on their face in a direct sense, and not at all in their intended implication that opposition to CtC by powerful interests invested in the status quo is evidence against the correctness of its revelations. On the contrary, the behavior of officials seeking to resist or discourage those acting in the light of CtC is simply more evidence of its correctness, and never more plainly so than in misrepresentations of facts such as those discussed here. That's the real message of everything presented by the trolls-- it simply requires a little reading between the lines with one's thinking-cap in place. |
