SUBJECT: Fifth Amendment vs. Tax Returns
BY: Dan Meador (May 6, 1999)
Lindsey Springer appears to have found an effective defense where tax returns are concerned - the Fifth Amendment prevails over the mandate to sign returns under penalties of perjury.
At a meeting held in Tulsa the evening of Tuesday, May 4, Springer distributed a short
paragraph people should provide to anyone asking them to file State or Federal income tax
returns, the paragraph supposedly constructed by an attorney in the Department of Justice:
"If you are suggesting that I am required to submit a signed Federal or State Income Tax
Return, and that failure to do so results in Civil and Criminal violations of the law, I wish to inform
you that the reason I did not nor will not sign and submit such returns, is based solely on the
exercise of protection the Fifth Amendment provides me in situations like this. The Fifth
Amendment prohibits you from compelling me to give testimony or to submit any evidence which
could be used against me in a criminal proceeding. Since the Federal and State Income Tax
Returns require a valid signature attesting under the penalties of perjury, I respectfully decline to
be compelled or volunteer to give such testimony or evidence."
For the last several years, Springer, based in Tulsa, has assisted with several class action suits
against the Internal Revenue Service in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and elsewhere. As others
dedicated to tax reform and forcing the Internal Revenue Service to comply with law, Springer
has confronted every conceivable evasive Department of Justice and Federal court tactic
imaginable. The break came on a most conspicuous issue, the Fifth Amendment clause
protection which stipulates, "[No person shall] ... be compelled in any criminal case to be a
witness against himself..."
Enlightenment, so far as clarifying the matter, came in a Springfield, Illinois case where Clyde
LaRue refused to provide a handwriting sample for a grand jury convened by the United States
District Court for the Central District of Illinois (Misc. No. 99-06, In the Matter of December 1998
Grand Jury: Subpoena to Clyde LaRue). In the motion to compel LaRue to produce the
handwriting sampler (exemplars), the U.S. Attorney and his assistant cited Gilbert v. California,
388 U.S. 263 (1967), and United States v. Euge, 444 U.S. 707 (1980), to distinguish between
what the government can or cannot compel. In sum, per the Gilbert decision, the Fifth
Amendment protection against forcing someone to testify against himself does not extend to a
mere handwriting sample, but does to "testimonial evidence protected by the Fifth Amendment
privilege against self-incrimination".
In a manner of speaking, whatever lights when out in Georgia in 1965 came on in Illinois in
1999. Springer recognized the substance of the two cited opinions relative to income tax returns,
and was of a mind to share his revelation with the Department of Justice.
State and Federal tax return forms require those who complete and file them to sign under
penalties of perjury. Content of the forms is testimonial in nature, and anyone who signs under
penalties of perjury invites civil and criminal prosecution, general inquiries into private affairs,
statutory penalties, fines, and other unpleasantries too numerous to mention. The conflict
between the constitutionally secured right and statutory law effectively aborts compelling
testimony without a grant of immunity, which only courts have power to grant, so administrative
agencies such as IRS are up the proverbial creek without a paddle when someone refuses to file
a form by claiming the constitutionally secured right not to testify against himself.
According to Springer, the Department of Justice will resist concessions so far as class action
settlements are concerned, but outside judicial forum (off the record, wouldn’t you know),
conceded the Catch 22 predicament relative to compelling testimony on income tax returns.
Constitutionally secured rights are antecedent and superior to the government’s interest, and no
penalty can ensue, regardless of nature, when the right is exercised by someone entitled to it.
Whatever liability the government establishes must be independently secured.
Federal government’s nemesis is in section 7206 of the Internal Revenue Code: "Any person
who willfully makes and subscribes any return, statement, or other document, which contains or is
verified by a written declaration that it is made under the penalties of perjury, and which he does
not believe to be true and correct as to every material matter, ... shall be guilty of a felony and,
upon conviction thereof, shall be fined ... or imprisoned..."
Whether implied or actual, the pontential for criminal liability is a clear and present danger to
anyone who signs State and Federal income tax returns under penalties of perjury.
Consequently, so long as tax return forms require signatures under penalties of perjury, the
constitutionally secured right not to provide testimony that might be self-incriminating nullieifes
willful failure to file penalties. In a manner of speaking, this leaves the Internal Revenue Service
and corresponding State agencies in the position of trains on a track that doesn’t have a depot at
either end.
The Springer break-through comes at a particularly opportune time as other researchers and tax
reform proponents are rapidly unraveling and exposing Internal Revenue Code and Internal
Revenue Service fraud that has been perpetrated against the American people for most of six
decades. Among other things, the Fifth Amendment protection secures defensive ground
necessary to accumulate evidence of fraudulent and injurious initiatives by unscrupulous Internal
Revenue Service and government officers and employees.
Springer can be contacted via telephone at (918) 748-5539.
From: DanMeador <dmeador@poncacity.net
Jim Pruitt wrote:
Hey Dan, with all due respect to Lindsay ... Bill Conklin has been doing th 5th amendment thing
for 20 or more years ... he has won 6 suits against the IRS ... his homepage is ...
http://www.anti-irs.com/ ... thanks for the post ... Jim
MEADOR ADDITION
Yes, I know Bill has hammered IRS on the Fifth Amendment issue, and as I've responded
privately to others on this matter, other people are effectively using it, too. For example, Marcea
Doerr from Sacramento uses the Fifth Amendment in administrative forums -- never gives up
books and records.
Don Beadles of Alva, Oklahoma has about the best approach I've heard of, and it makes no
difference if it is with IRS, the FBI or whoever. He asks, "Are you a committing magistrate?"
The response is invariably, "A what?"
Don then says, "If you don't know what it is, you aren't one, so you don't have authority to grant
immunity. Consequently, I don't have to tell or give you anything."
They vanish in pretty short order.
The point where Lindsey's situation is concerned ... I've read enough of Lindsey's material to
know he didn't write that paragraph. Lindsey is pretty straight arrow -- he wouldn't pass the
paragraph out and misrepresent it. This tells us something: The Feds see the handwriting on the
wall. Sixty years of institutionalized tyranny are about to come to an end. The DoJ doesn't want to
talk about a class action settlement at this juncture because conceding the Fifth Amendment
remedy in a class action decision would bring about a disorderly situation. But they can clearly
see that the game is up.
Dan.