Taxable Talk

I’d love to be frivolous during tax season. But the inbox is full, the piles of paper don’t go anywhere unless I move them, and my next day off is April 16th. I can get a good laugh when I get an email letting me know that, “Russ, you’re full of ****. There is no law mandating anyone file a tax return or pay income tax.” Yes, I received such an email today. It appeared that it was over one page, but after the first sentence I hit the delete key.

Yesterday I wrote about Richard Hatch. He got 51 months at ClubFed for his bout of frivolity. Wesley Snipes tried to say that only foreign-source income was taxable. He got 36 months at ClubFed.

Tax Court judges don’t have the same sense of humor that I do about frivolous arguments. Michael Balice found that out:

Petitioner has responded to this motion by contending (among other things) that he is not subject to IRS deficiency procedures and that wages are not “income” because they result from the exercise of his “irrefutable right to work.” We will grant the motion for summary judgment and sustain the tax deficiencies and additions to tax determined by the IRS. We will also require petitioner to pay under section 6673(a) a penalty to the United States in the amount of $25,000 for asserting frivolous positions in this Court.

I’ll make this simple: Yes, Virginia, there is an income tax and you must pay it. Or as my favorite author, Rex Stout, put it, “Either pay [the income tax] or suffer a loss of privileges.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2015 at 10:00 pm and is filed under IRS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.