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WND Exclusive
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*LAW OF THE LAND*
Court: Taxpayers can ignore IRS summonses
Ruling says action has no teeth without federal court order
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Posted: February 1, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
A U.S. appeals court has ruled the IRS cannot compel taxpayers to turn
over personal and private property without a federal court order and
that taxpayers can ignore the agencies summonses until actual
enforcement action is taken.
In the case Schulz v. IRS, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in
Manhattan ruled:
... absent an effort to seek enforcement through a federal court,
IRS summonses apply no force to taxpayers, and no consequence
whatever can befall a taxpayer who refuses, ignores, or otherwise
does not comply with an IRS summons until that summons is backed by
a federal court order. ? [A taxpayer] cannot be held in contempt,
arrested, detained, or otherwise punished for refusing to comply
with the original IRS summons, no matter the taxpayer's reasons, or
lack of reasons for so refusing.
Bob Schulz, the plaintiff, is head of We the People,
<http://www.givemeliberty.org/> an organization that has taken separate
legal action against the federal government for its failure to answer a
"petition for redress of grievances" regarding the income tax. Though
the court affirmed a lower court decision in favor of the IRS, saying
Schulz's motion to quash an IRS summons lacked "subject matter," it used
the ruling as a means to clarify the agency's power under 26 U.S.C.
Section 7604.
A statement on the group's website went on to say: "Without declaring
provisions of the code unconstitutional on their face, the court, in
effect, nullified key enforcement provisions of the Internal Revenue
Code, stripping the IRS of much of its power to compel compliance with
its administrative demands for personal and private property."
We the People claims the court decision will benefit the organization's
class-action lawsuit against the IRS.
States the group: "The court has expressly recognized that the IRS, as
has been asserted in the right-to-petition lawsuit, routinely violates
people's due process rights in their day-to-day administrative
practices. As such, the findings of the Second Circuit firmly establish
for the District Court the substance of the causes of action put forth
in our right-to-petition lawsuit."
Schulz's lawsuit stemmed from an IRS summons served on him in relation
to an investigation. He claims the summons was a direct infringement on
his First Amendment rights.
Activists of the "tax honesty" movement, in which WTP is a leading
voice, believe the federal government lacks any legal jurisdiction to
enforce the income tax, that there is no law that requires Americans to
pay the tax, and that the tax is enforced in a manner that violates the
U.S. Constitution.