TAX COURT RULING FURTHER SHREDS AMERICAN LIBERTY
Nathan Mehrens of Americans for Limited Government penned a wonderful opinion piece for Fox News last week highlighting how the U.S. tax code infringes on our fundamental liberties as well as our wallets and pocketbooks.
“Reforming the IRS is not enough — if we truly wish to usher in a new era of economic and individual freedom, we must abolish the agency and its oppressive tax code altogether,” Mehrens concluded.
He’s correct …
The latest example of the tax code’s oppressiveness? A decision reached in U.S. Tax Court related to attorney-client privilege – or the time-honored prohibition against attorneys being compelled to testify against their clients (or turn over documents related to their communication with clients).
According to the court, this most fundamental of American liberties is now up in the air.
“When a person puts into issue his subjective intent in deciding how to comply with the law, he may forfeit the privilege afforded attorney-client communications,” the court found.
Wait … so let’s make sure we’ve got this straight: Those who work with their lawyers to minimize the federal government’s annual (or quarterly) ass rape of their businesses are now no longer protected by attorney-client privilege?
Correct … not only that, those who refuse to cough up these protected communications would be barred from presenting anything in their defense (and remember, in tax court U.S. citizens are guilty until proven innocent).
“Naturally, you won’t hear a word about this in the mainstream media,” writes Simon Black of the Sovereign Man website. “But it certainly begs the question, what’s the point of even having a trial? Or a constitution? When every right and protection you have can be disregarded in their sole discretion, one really has to wonder how anyone can call it a ‘free country’ any more.”
Indeed … the erosion of individual liberty continues.
This is yet another example of why our current system of taxation needs to be scrapped. Not only is the income tax the most economically damaging method of revenue generation – the system established to collect it has become thoroughly corrupt and invasive.
34 comments
I haven’t read the opinion, but it’s hardly news that if you defend a claim of tax evasion or fraud on the basis that “I was just relying on what my attorney told me,” then sometimes you waive the attorney-client privilege on that issue. This is nothing new and has been part of the common law for some time. Of couse, this tax court may have stretched the boundaries (not sure) but I doubt it justifies the hyperbole I see in this article.
Will using hyperbole? Say it isn’t so!
Aunt Piddy Pat!!! Fetch TBG his smelling salts!!
This is Correct. you can not blame your attorney for bad advice, IE an opinion that I am sure has disclosures all over it, and get the penalties waive without having to show the opinion. That would be like Will being paid with Cash from T-Rav to give him good articles but not reporting to the IRS bc his attorney told him he did not have to in a BS Opinion that is not worth the paper it is written on. Then the IRS comes knocking and wants to know about this cash and Will says “my attorney said it was fine so you can not charge me Penalties and Interest but I refuse to show the opinion bc of Attorney Client Privilege.” What a Joke of a story. This has been on the books for years.
This wasnt a serious piece anyway.Just an attempt by Fits to see if the usual hysterics here would bite.
They did.
“TAX COURT FURTHER SHREDS AMERICAN LIBERTY.”
Yeah, many (or most) know it’s not a serious piece, but it purports to be. We know he’s been reduced to trolling, so maybe he doesn’t believe what he writes. We also know that he had to have some filler, as there is a natural refractory period before he can post the latest fluff piece on T-Rav.
You can’t just let out one huge, long fart in the middle of the room, it makes people pissed off and leave. But if you go off to the corner and drop smaller bombs over time, nobody is the wiser save for the few that walk by you enough to realize what you’re doing.
I read it, and you’re right, mainly. I won’t bore everyone with a technical analysis of the opinion. It is sufficient to say that it is hardly newsworthy. There are lots of cases in which an implied waiver of the privilege can occur if the client is asserting his good faith as a defense of some kind.
It should also be noted that this is a Tax Court ruling and is subject to a couple of levels of appeal. It should also be noted that it is not a “Tax Code” issue at all, but rather an issue of evidence law.
It should also be noted that Folks is a bonehead.
See reply to OGOB, supra.
There you go wasting our time with actual facts and rational analysis, *again*. I grow weary of your lack of understanding regarding the purpose of this blog. Can’t you just get ginned up and start screaming like everyone else? Abortion! Isolationism! Down wit Big Gubmint! Public schools bad – private schools good! Up with weed! Come on bro, get with the program…
Um, this is not a blog – it is a “This website.” You know – as in “This website” does this, and “This website” opposes that, and “This website” will continue to call out… (So silly. So pretentious. I always read it to myself in a very stentorian voice – makes me feel like I’m someplace important).
Oh, uh, yes, yes! Absolutely! That’s what I meant to say. Very influential website of great import, and all that. Bully good then! Either way- stop confusing everyone with facts and other dangerous stuff like actually reading the source material. Just nutty, all that…
Hyperbole is one of the few reasons I still come here.
I am dealing with the IRS as a target now as I was turned in by a jealous competitor. It’s unbelievable how bad they are and what happens when you become a target.
Will understated the lengths the IRS will go to to ruin someone they want ruined.
Uh-oh. They have my IP address now. Oh, well.
They have to go through a bunch of bullshit to get it even if they wanted it via disqus. I wouldn’t worry.
It’s once you pop up on their radar that you worry(which is you unfortunately). The asshats in the IRS are overworked and undermotivated so it’s doubtful they’ll do the leg work required to track down your anonymous disqus posts.
They like shit that falls into their lap, not stuff they got to root around for like pigs in the mud.
Let’s recalll,….just what was the original tea party of Boston fame all about? Oh yeah,…”Taxation without representation” Tea, anyone? One lump or two?
“But it certainly begs the question, what’s the point of even having a trial? Or a constitution?”
Isn’t the real travesty here the misuse of begging the question in this quote?
You’ve got that right. As much as I’d like to see (for examample) tax attorney Tom Rice in prison, whatever he did for any of his clients who may have been (like him) a part of the Coastal Kickback scam, the principle of attorney-client privilege should hold, forever.
Apparently the feds didn’t think there was any scam, because it’s been years since they launched the “investigation” and nothing has come of it.
Remember it took them 4 years to take down Charlotte’s Mayor even when they had him dead to rights after 6 months. The Feds are on their own time table.
This is the Obama gestapo..
FITS reluctantance to cal it what it is…IS the problem. We’re getting raped..and FITS cowardly fear of not-being-cool lets Obama get away with it..
Blame yourself FIT$…
I, too, am disgusted with the IRS auditors going from house to house to find Jews to send to concentration camps.
That’s what they do, right?
You HATE Christians because you claim they are fundamentalists, w/ a literal interpretation of The Bible….Yet you are so rigid in your thinking, you can only apply words, literally…
Loosen up idiot…there is a whole world of understanding out there if you would open your mind…
Hey tango, let me see if I understand you correctly. Fits calls it ass rape, but because he won’t call it the Obama gestapo, Obama gets away with it, right?
So then, all Fits has to do is call it the “Obama Gestapo”, and Obama’s reign will come crashing down?
FITS is part of the media. The media has covered up for Obama…if they did their job,…yes, He would have crashed years ago…(before re-election)….
You’re not THAT stupid, are you???
Rape is the right term, and Amway has also financially raped millions of people: http://www.stoptheamwaytoolscam.wordpress.com
FITS is defending lawyers? Or the right to have a lawyer? WOW!
Noone who wishes they were a lawyer more than Fits.
The chick on the left looks like an older, dirtier Kristen Stewart.
I’m getting a nosebleed from the lofty heights of the conversation…
Let’s consider the bigger picture for a second
——
Caribou Barbie might hit menopause. It will be the only thing she’s finished. But it hasn’t made any difference so far, so you can’t write it off prematurely. Atlas might shrug, people will realize Ayn Rand was an atheist, and the entire T party will short circuit and go up in smoke. Then who’re ya gonna call? Ghostbusters? Christine “I am not a witch” O’Donnell? Actually, I bet the T Party’s big bang is going to amount to ejaculatio praecox and instead of a climax, we’re gonna see a black hole. Ted Cruz will leak out to Canada but forget he renounced his citizenship and get sucked back in. Same problem for Bachman, she’ll forget whether she’s Swiss or not. There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, but I’ll give good odds on Hilary for 2016. Where’s an activist judge when you need one? There won’t be anybody left to impeach.
What does this have to do with the older, sluttier Kristen Stewart?
Not a whole lot, actually…
On a related note, the Obama administration has been ordered to release portions of a legal memo on its drone killing program because it has waived any privilege by selectively disclosing information about the program and its legality.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/nyregion/panel-orders-release-of-document-in-targeted-killing-of-anwar-al-awlaki.html?_r=0
There will be a revolt by the people. And when it happens, tons of politicians will become targets for violence.