alpert@chovax.DEC (02/05/86)
[] There are basically two distinct (but related) issues addressed by the tax movement. Number one is the legality and constitutionality of the income tax itself. Number two regards the illegal methods used by the government, particularly the IRS, during the course of enforcing this tax. In this article we will take a look at the way the IRS conducts its business. The examples herein are *NOT* isolated instances, these are typical of all too many cases documented by organisations that keep track of IRS activites. Also be forwarned that this is a long article -- more than 350 lines. The following is excerpted from the book "To Harass Our People", (c) 1984 by Congressman George Hansen. ------------------------------------------------------ Three recent incidents illustrate how the IRS brutally, sometimes fatally, strikes out at U.S. citizens. These occurred in widely separated areas -- Alaska, Maryland, and Minnesota -- but the cases have much in common. In all three cases the citizens in question had legitimate questions regarding the original IRS assessment against them. All of them tried to obtain a reasonable explanation from the IRS for the tax levied upon them. In each instance, the IRS refused to respond. Litigation by the taxpayer against the IRS was ongoing in at least two of the three cases -- in other words, the IRS's attacks on these citizens came without due process of law. In all of these cases, those affected were stunned to find themselves under siege. Only one had any advance notice at all that his property was to be siezed. Finally, in only one of the three examples was the IRS able to procure a search warrant prior to its acts of terror. (Even this search warrant was granted on questionable grounds, because the case was still in litigation in federal court.) The IRS claims that in every example that it acted according to the law. If this is so, the law must be changed -- and soon. STEPHEN AND MONA OLIVER In 1977, Mona and Stephen Oliver of Fairbanks, Alaska received notification from the Internal Revenue Service that they owed the IRS the amount of $3,300. No explanation of how this sum was arrived at was given. The Olivers discovered an error in arithmetic while examining the bill, so they wrote to the IRS to point out the mistake. The IRS made no response at first, but several months later, the Olivers were informed by the "Service" that they now owed $4,700, again failing to state how this figure was arrived at. The Olivers, who had always faithfully filed their income tax returns, continued to write to various IRS officials but received no adequate explanation. By February of 1979, the IRS had grown tired of the "obstinate" Olivers, who refused to comply with the manifestly arbitrary assessment of the IRS. During this time, the IRS changed its mind again and decided that the correct amount owed was $4,200. Then the agency proceeded to place a levy on Stephen Oliver's wages, which reduced the Olivers' income to below the poverty level. On August 1, 1979, the Olivers were informed that they now owed $9,600 in back taxes. That same morning, Stephen and Mona Oliver drove to the Fairbanks federal building on business related to the IRS. According to Mona Oliver, she and her husband were on the top floor of the federal building when someone came up and informed them that their car was being towed away outside. Running down the stairs, the Olivers found their car hitched to a tow truck. It had been towed off of the public street in front of the federal building and into the building's parking lot. "I was upset. I was shaking. There must have been ten IRS agents around it [the car]. I said 'Is it all right if we remove our personal belongings?' They said that was all right, so we started to take our things out of the car. I was so close to breaking into tears, but that was the last thing that I wanted to do in front of them.," Mrs. Oliver says of the incident. The Olivers claim that they were never notified by the IRS that their property was going to be seized. As she was unloading her belongings, Mrs. Oliver thought to herself, "Where are they taking my car? If they're taking my car somewhere, I want to know where." So she sat down on the seat, closed the door and locked it. Her husband quickly joined her in their small, dilapidated VW. He sat in the driver's seat and locked his door too. This defiance of the IRS infuriated the agents, who began yelling threats and warnings at the Olivers. IRS agents quickly summoned the city police to help them against the unarmed Olivers and from the rapidly gathering crowd of onlookers. The operator of the tow truck was shaken when he learned that the IRS agents did NOT have a court order allowing them to seize the car. The driver uncoupled his truck from the car and left. The agents immediately surrounded the VW with vehicles of their own. Minutes later the car was chained to an IRS agent's Jeep. For seven hours, the Olivers held their position inside the car until the IRS secured a search warrant from a magistrate brought in by the IRS specifically for that purpose. (It is difficult to imagine what the IRS was "searching" for in the Olivers' car.) "With no warning at all, they began smashing the windows with billy clubs," Mona Oliver said, "I saw them start on the driver's side, my husband's arm was right up against the glass. I thought, 'If I put my hand up against the window, they'll see it and won't break the glass.' But they smashed the window right into my hand." After the IRS agents had hurled Stephen from the car, they went after Mona. Several agents dragged her across the pavement, leaving her bruised and bleeding. Even under the authority of a search warrant, what these IRS ruffians did is tantamount to assault and battery. These agents seem to have knowingly committed the crime of assault by using excessive force against non-criminal, nonviolent civilians in a civil matter. A government-owned truck soon whisked the car away. The next day the IRS informed the Olivers that they now owed "only" $4,010. On August 23, 1979, the Oliers' VW was auctioned for $500. The crowd of protestors who had gathered outside the building where the auction took place was photographed by IRS agents, and license plate numbers of those at the rally were taken down. DWIGHT AND HALLIE SNYDER Hallie Snyder was alone in her home in Oakland, Maryland with her five-year-old daughter on the morning of February 20, 1980. She had just sent here nine-year-old son off to school. Her husband, Dwight, was working in his small cabinet shop located next to their home. At 9:00 AM, someone knocked on the door of the Snyder residence. As Hallie Snyder walked across the living room toward the door, it was flung open by a man carrying a high-powered automatic rifle. Eight men, all heavily armed, burst into the next room with weapons pointed and ready to fire. Next door, James Dwight Snyder was busy at his saw cutting out a set of custom-made cabinets. He heard the door to his shop swing open and turned his head instinctively. "Freeze!" someone shouted. Snyder looked at the floor in front of the entry to his shop. Several men carrying M16's and submachine guns lay in the prone position with their weapons aimed at him. Outside, state marshalls had blocked off the road. Federal Marshals and IRS special agents armed with M16s had surrounded the Snyder property. More than 30 men had just captured the unarmed Snyder family. James Dwight Snyder is no criminal. He has no criminal record. He has never been accused of a crime, and neither has his wife. In fact, the IRS agents who attacked Snyder and his family new this. The Internal Revenue Service had not come to arrest Snyder, but to seize his property for his alleged failure to pay income taxes in 1971 and 1972. (Whether or not Snyder actually owes the money claimed by the IRS has not been decided. At the time of this writing, Snyder has two cases pending in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.) The Snyders had no idea that the IRS was going to grab their property. About 10 of the IRS agents immediately began tagging various household goods, equipment in Snyder's shop, vehicles, a tractor, and numerous other items, including Snyder's mother's pickup truck. The twenty remaining storm troopers camped around the edge of the Snyder property keeping an eye on Snyder, his wife, and their daughter "preventing them from interfering in the seizure of federal property." Late that afternoon, the IRS brought in a moving van and three wreckers and proceeded to haul their loot away. ALL OF THIS WAS DONE WITHOUT A SEARCH WARRANT. Because Snyder had committed no crime -- indeed, the IRS would not accuse him of a crime because this would have given Snyder the opportunity to a trial by jury -- a search warrant could not be issued. The IRS, however, got around this obstacle by a technicality called a "writ of entry." This order of entry, along with section 6331 of the IRS code, is used by the IRS to seize, by force, a citizen's property without due process of law, in direct violation of the Constitution. The IRS seized thousands of dollars worth of property from the Snyders and sold some of it at public auction. (An injunction issued later by a federal court stopped the IRS from selling at least some of the seized property.) The Snyder case dramatically demonstrates the police-state power and mentality of the IRS. An IRS official in Baltimor who was asked to explain why the IRS sent in more than 30 armed men stated, "When resistance is anticipated, steps are taken to assure the safety of the IRS officials... involved." What ever happened to the liberty, safety, and well being of America's citizens? DONALD McGRATH Donald McGrath did not believe that he owed the IRS $39.65. He wrote to them and told them so. He asked to have an IRS official meet with him and explain to him why he owed thiry-nine dollars and change. The IRS never responded to this request. According to McGrath, "Sensing that the IRS may try to implement a seizure on my account, I wrote to the bank and asked them not to honor any IRS demands other than by my consent or an order issued from a competent court. I then received a note from the bank stating that they...would honor an IRS levy...Shortly I received another letter from the bank stating that they had turned my money over to Mr. Thoen of the IRS and sent me a canceled check they had forged on my account ($39.65). It was a small sum, but Mr. McGrath was furious. Donald McGrath, crop duster and farmer, acting as his own attorney, filed a claim against the bank in district court. In the meantime, McGrath agreed to pay half of a $3,000 loan he had taken out with the bank to purchase a combine, but, because of displeasure with the bank over the IRS dispute, he refused to pay the remainder until the courts made a decision on the levy made by the IRS. The battle in the local courts between McGrath and his bank and the IRS raged on for months until Tuesday, July 29, 1980, when an order to seize McGrath's combine was issued by a local court. The Grand Forks, Minnesota, Herald carried the following account of the next day: The incident occurred after Schroeder, Lt. Larry Bangle, and Sheriff Deputy Robert Rost escorted an implement dealer's truck to a farm field where McGrath's combine was located. Officers had served notice on McGrath Tuesday warning him that they intended to seize the vehicle. Sheriff Taylor said the deputies arrived at the field about 11:30 AM and were told by someone on the site that McGrath had said not to move because he was coming back with a gun. Taylor said the person was not a member of the McGrath family. The combine was picked up and sheriff's vehicles escorted it toward Grand Forks on County Road 4 with one car heading the entourage and another behind. Taylor said McGrath's car approached the group from the rear when they were less than two miles from Grand Forks and passed one car and the truck with the combine, cutting in front of the two vehicles. McGrath, his wife, and son were in the car. McGrath jumped out and words were exchanged, Taylor said. He said one sherriff's car pulled out in front and blocked the road, warning McGrath on his loudspeaker that they were from the sheriff's department and that he was under arrest and should drop his weapon. The trucker towing the combine pulled into a ditch. Taylor said McGrath got in his car, which drove straight toward the sheriff's car. His son was driving while McGrath leaned out of the passenger's side window with a pistol. A number of shots were exchanged ... the flurry ended when McGrath was shot [in the head] through the windshield with a 12-guage shotgun. Schroeder was the only one from the department to fire. [The police report states that Schroeder may have fired first. McGrath was the only person injured. It is far from clear that McGrath was actually firing at the officers since his bullets only hit the tire of the other car.] The sherriff said McGrath apparently has no criminal record. McGrath was taken to the hospital in critical condition. His son, who had driven the car, was charged with attempted murder. Mrs. McGrath was charged with being an accomplice to attempted murder -- even though she was merely riding in the back seat of the car when her husband was shot. A week later, Donald McGrath died from extensive brain damage, as of this writing the charges against Mrs. McGrath and her son have not been dropped. All of this stemming from an arbitrary assessment and collection of $39.65. The normal reaction is to say that McGrath must have been crazy to make a fuss over less than $40. But there is another consideration. McGrath was born and raised in this country. Throughout his life, he had been told by his schools, his newspapers, his government that he was a free man living in a free society. His Bill of Rights, he had been told ad nauseum, was the envy of the entire world. Then he ran across the IRS. He assumed, as he had been trained to, that if someone claimed that he owed them money, he would get a fair hearing and a jury trial if he wanted one on the issue. So he told the bank not to give his money away without his consent or a *court order*. The bank, conditioned to fear the IRS, paid the IRS out of McGrath's money. Maybe McGrath is not the one who is out of step. Maybe we have all become so conditioned to fear the IRS that any resistance seems absurd. Now consider the bank. From what other claimant would the bank have accepted a claim as absolute without a court order? The answer is simply no other agency or creditor. No government, no creditor, could come into a bank and demand a depositor's money solely on its own say-so and get it. The bank knew how McGrath viewed the matter. It knew that it was the focus of a battle between the IRS and an indignant citizen. Yet for $39.65, it played a major part in putting a man in the ground. Not only did it fail to compromise or give McGrath back his $39.65, but it spent substantially more to fight McGrath in court over the note on his combine. There are few lawyers in the world who will fight a $1,500 battle when a $39.65 compromise will solve it. But the bank fought out its battle, and McGrath is forever dead. On the morning the incident took place, the sheriff apparently knew that he was provoking a confrontation. He sent three armed men with the implement truck. Was anyone in doubt about how McGrath viewed the whole matter? Three armed deputies... one can wonder which side prepared, provoked, and accomplished lethal violence. Even the local police believe the deputy fired first. He fired into a car carrying three people, only one of whom could have been dangerous. The worst part of the whole matter is that no creditor -- not the federal government, not the state, no private citizen, literally *no one* -- is empowered by law to take another's property without due process of law, EXCEPT THE IRS. It would take the declaration of martial law by the President to authorize any other federal agency to seize private property without a court order. Based upon experience elsewhere, it is even conceivable that the IRS arranged the entire matter by provoking an incident to teach the locals a lesson, that even over small amounts they can be destroyed. Another instance of IRS overkill for small amounts: A prominent citizen reports that one day he found the IRS had seized $12,000 from his checking account. Most of that money was there to pay against checks that had already been written, and he didn't know that he owed the IRS anything. He had had no prior contact with an agent. As it finally turned out, the owed them $35 from a past return. The taxpayer explained he was shocked to learn that the agent had arbitrarily selected $12,000 as the figure to assess -- "To get your attention," he said. Such action is not unusual -- it is within the power assumed by the IRS and granted to it by numerous court decisions. The IRS can go into your bank account and obtain bank records without your knowledge or consent. And the IRS can seize your funds and hold them until they are satisfied or until they have been forced to release them. In this case, it was reported that over 45 checks written on the taxpayer's business account bounced all across the United States. His principal supplier cut off his credit, his reputation with the bank was damaged; the harm was almost irreparable. Even after it was determined that he owed them only $35, it was also reported that it took two weeks for the funds to be released. Recently when he applied for credit to lease a car, he found that the lien was still on his credit record because the IRS had neglected to record the release, causing a lot of embaressment and a great deal of explaining. In no way can the IRS justify creating such disasters for private citizens over token amounts of unpaid taxes. It is situations such as these which may well have provoked the phrase "THE POWER TO TAX IS THE POWER TO DESTROY." ------------------------------------------------------ The address of George Hansen's organization, Victims of Government United Everywhere, is: V.O.G.U.E. P.O. Box 3776 Washington, DC 2007 ------------------------------------------------------ And this is barely the tip of the iceberg. Bob Alpert ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-chovax!alpert
jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck) (02/05/86)
In article <921@decwrl.DEC.COM> alpert@chovax.DEC writes: > >[] > >There are basically two distinct (but related) issues addressed by >the tax movement. Number one is the legality and constitutionality >of the income tax itself. The income tax is specifically authorized in an amendment to the Constitution. It's foolish to say the tax itself is unconstitutional. If you want to say that some IRS methods may be unconstitutional, that's another matter. > Number two regards the illegal methods >used by the government, particularly the IRS, during the course of >enforcing this tax. In this article we will take a look at the >way the IRS conducts its business. > >The examples herein are *NOT* isolated instances, these are typical >of all too many cases documented by organisations that keep track of >IRS activites. Also be forwarned that this is a long article -- more >than 350 lines. > >The following is excerpted from the book "To Harass Our People", >(c) 1984 by Congressman George Hansen. You mean FORMER congressman George Hansen, who left Congress in disgrace after a number of shady financial deals, and who is now connected with several extreme right-wing organizations. I don't believe a word the man says. > [ IRS beats up citizens with billy clubs, threatens them with M-16's ] Please post references to legitimate media coverage of any of these incidents: regular daily newspapers, news magazines, or wire services, documentation from groups opposed to the income tax will not do. -- - Joe Buck - ihnp4!pesnta!epimass!jbuck or ihnp4!pesnta!epicen!jbuck
levy@ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy) (02/09/86)
<Oh oh here it comes. Watch out boy, it'll chew you up! \ Oh oh here it comes. The LINE EATER! [Line eater]> In article <137@epimass.UUCP>, jbuck@epimass.UUCP (Joe Buck) writes: >In article <921@decwrl.DEC.COM> alpert@chovax.DEC writes: >>There are basically two distinct (but related) issues addressed by >>the tax movement. Number one is the legality and constitutionality >>of the income tax itself. >The income tax is specifically authorized in an amendment to the Constitution. >It's foolish to say the tax itself is unconstitutional. If you want to >say that some IRS methods may be unconstitutional, that's another matter. >> Number two regards the illegal methods >>used by the government, particularly the IRS, during the course of >>enforcing this tax. In this article we will take a look at the >>way the IRS conducts its business. >>The examples herein are *NOT* isolated instances, these are typical >>of all too many cases documented by organisations that keep track of >>IRS activites. Also be forwarned that this is a long article -- more >>than 350 lines. >>The following is excerpted from the book "To Harass Our People", >>(c) 1984 by Congressman George Hansen. >You mean FORMER congressman George Hansen, who left Congress in disgrace >after a number of shady financial deals, and who is now connected with >several extreme right-wing organizations. I don't believe a word the >man says. >> [ IRS beats up citizens with billy clubs, threatens them with M-16's ] >Please post references to legitimate media coverage of any of these >incidents: regular daily newspapers, news magazines, or wire services, >documentation from groups opposed to the income tax will not do. >- Joe Buck >- ihnp4!pesnta!epimass!jbuck >or ihnp4!pesnta!epicen!jbuck But there is no such coverage, as the media wisely recognized that if it reported these incidents, it would be the next victim of IRS abuses, ain't that right, Mr. Alpert? :-) To make sure the devil gets his due: Of course I hear it's far from impossible that this CAN happen. Even Reader's Digress put out an article on this kind of abuse many, many years ago. ('60s) Perhaps a clue to this lies with another article, which states that the IRS is a member of the executive branch of the U.S. government, working as it does for the treasury, which means that conscienceless managers know that they CAN get away with this kind of murder, having in essence, many of the same powers as the President. Perhaps it would be wise to hire an attorney the instant there is any kind of disagreement with the IRS which shows the telltale signs of getting ugly (stonewalling, for instance, would be a clue based on the tales we've been shown). Then at least a court case could be forced, possibly forc- ing the IRS to put their hand on the table and to submit to an individual court decision. (I say individual since I've heard that the IRS has on occasion re- fused to follow a court ruling on tax policy in general, though it was forced to honor the ruling for the specific case in which it was brought. Anyone care to illuminate whether this is so?) -- ------------------------------- Disclaimer: The views contained herein are | dan levy | yvel nad | my own and are not at all those of my em- | an engihacker @ | ployer or the administrator of any computer | at&t computer systems division | upon which I may hack. | skokie, illinois | -------------------------------- Path: ..!{akgua,homxb,ihnp4,ltuxa,mvuxa, vax135}!ttrdc!levy