If someone tells you there’s no such thing as an income tax, run, don’t walk, in the other direction. If someone tells you that all you have to do to avoid the IRS is submit a report of your IRS decoded individual master file to the IRS, run very fast in the other direction. Unfortunately, Lin Bartee and his wife Christine Wenger-Bartee didn’t heed this advice.
Back in 2001, the IRS and Department of Justice allege that the Bartees earned $472,933 from income and liquidating their assets. They filed an extension, but didn’t get around to filing their actual return. Then they allegedly transferred $240,000 to Ms. Wenger-Bartee’s parents who then sent much of that money on to Costa Rica.
In February 2003, they allegedly sent a letter to the IRS noting that they didn’t have to pay taxes because they had decoded their tax file, or some such nonsense. In April of the same year, they declared bankruptcy; however, they allegedly left off the IRS from their list of creditors. In 2004, the bankruptcy court refused to discharge their case. The Bartees then left to join their money in Costa Rica.
The Bartees were arrested in 2009 in Costa Rica but fought extradition. They lost that battle; they’re back in Sacramento as I write this. They’ve been arraigned on charges of tax evasion and bankruptcy fraud.
I wonder what part of 95 years of enforcement they didn’t understand.