Every year the IRS releases a list of positions that will be considered frivolous under Section 6702 of the Internal Revenue Code. Today, the IRS issued Notice 2008-14. There are some new positions that will be considered frivolous:
- (9)g. The Ninth Amendment exempts those with religious or other objections to military spending from paying taxes to the extent the taxes will be used for military spending.
- (11) Only fiduciaries are taxpayers, or only persons with a fiduciary relationship to the United States are obligated to pay taxes, and the United States or the Service must prove the fiduciary status or relationship.
- (14) A taxpayer who is employed on board a ship that provides meals at no cost to the taxpayer as part of the employment may claim a so-called “Mariner’s Tax Deduction” (or the like) allowing the taxpayer to deduct from gross income the cost of the meals as an employee business expense.
- (25) A taxpayer may claim the section 6421 fuels tax credit, which is limited to gasoline used in an off-highway business use, even though the taxpayer did not purchase and use gasoline during the taxable period for which the credit is claimed for an off-highway business use. Also, if the taxpayer claims an amount of credit that is so disproportionately excessive to any (including zero) business income reported on the taxpayer’s income tax return as to be patently unallowable (e.g., a credit that is 150 percent of business income reported on Form 1040) or facially reflects an impossible quantity of gasoline given the business use, if any, as reported by the taxpayer.
The penalty for filing a frivolous return is $5,000. As a reminder, the IRS notes,
“Returns or submissions that contain positions not listed above, which on their face have no basis for validity in existing law, or which have been deemed frivolous in a published opinion of the United States Tax Court or other court of competent jurisdiction, may be determined to reflect a desire to delay or impede the administration of Federal tax laws and thereby subject to the $5,000 penalty.”
There are 43 positions listed in the notice; I only copied the “new” positions for the 2007 tax filing season. As I’ve said repeatedly, there is an income tax and you must pay it or suffer the consequences.