🚀 go-pugleaf

> There has been a lot of discussion in net.taxes (and a little in net.legal)
> of both:
> 
> 	1. IRS legal abuse
>         2. Constitutionality of the U.S. Tax Law
>         
> 
> 1. Congressman Hansen's legal problems started shortly after he started
> investigating IRS practices.  You may recall something similar happened
> the Senator Montoya from New Mexico (NOT associated with any "extreme 
> right-wing" groups, as someone tarred Congressman Hansen) and Montoya
> lost the next election -- after someone leaked his tax returns to the
> press.  Ten days after he started investigating IRS practices.  Paranoid?
> No, must have just been a coincidence. :-)

Yea, and I have this great bridge in downtown NY for sale.

> A number of you may recall the case early in 1985, also in Northern 
> California, where the IRS sent a request for information to an airline
> pilot about his business expenses for some rental property.  He failed
> to respond to the request for information (which was a mistake).  A month
> later he received a bill for $80,000 in back taxes (which IRS has since
> admitted was wrong -- he didn't owe them anything).  They also attached
> his bank accounts and garnished his wages as part of a "jeopardy 
> assessment" -- the IRS way of making sure you don't run off to South
> America without paying them.  They did much the same thing with his
> house, prohibiting him from entering his own home.  Then our friend
> the pilot did the second stupid thing -- he wrote a letter saying
> effectively, "This is my house, and any IRS agent that tries to take
> it away from without a court order better know that I've got a shotgun
> behind the door."  Note that he didn't threaten any particular IRS agent --
> he just said, "if you don't have a court judgement, you are a common
> criminal and I will treat you as such."
> 
> Well, the Congress had passed a new law, effective January 1, 1985, that
> allows the courts to hold a person WITHOUT BAIL if they are a threat to
> public safety.  This pilot, without a criminal history, was held without
> bail, under this law.  First person to be held that way in California
> under this new Federal law.  After about ten days his attorney persuaded
> the courts that the guy wasn't dangerous and got bailed out.
> 
What!? What kind of law is this? Does this mean that the courts are
empowered to take anyone off the street, with or without a criminal
charge against them, and lock them away for an indeterminate period of
time simply by declaring them a threat? Please clarify.

> Of course, he lost his job.  The stress of living illegally in their
> own home contributed to his wife committing suicide.  Let me stress,
> while the pilot did some stupid things, he didn't actually owe the IRS
> any back taxes.
> 
 
Lovely, next they'll have us believing it was his own fault.

> 8. Do the courts protect our liberties?  No, and it isn't just tax cases.
> How many of you remember last year when a court in Denver issued a 
> prior restraint order against West Publishing (the people that publish the
> law books you find in just about all libraries West of the Missisippi)?
> A judge had accused the Federal prosecutors of improper actions in a
> decision involving a tax case.  The Federal prosecutors found a judge,
> and then an appellate court panel, to prohibit West Publishing from 
> publishing the judge's decision!  I don't know what the final outcome
> was on that case (of course, I'm not so sure the newspapers haven't been
> prevented from publishing about it), but the fact that a judge's decision
> could be prior restrained is real scary.
> 
> 
> I've gone on a long time beating this dead horse -- but those of you
> who are so sure that our civil liberties are intact have got your heads
> inserted into Fantasyland.

Sadly I find myself in agreement. Somewhere in the list of
"famous last words" should have been the sentence "It can't happen here."
Someone please refute this.  (I'm not holding my breath)

Some questions:

	Is there more information about this somewhere?
	Where?
	(Not illegal to publish, I hope)

	How shall we undo this mess?
	Can it be undone, or will it perpetuate itself (ala
	Judges unwilling to bite the soiled hand that feeds them)?

It ends up sounding like "lunatics and fringe groups", but
hearing this makes me flash back to "Atlas Shrugged".
"At the point of a gun" & "with the victim's consent" indeed.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Elias Israel
VenturCom, Inc.
215 First St.
Cambridge, MA 02142

			..!harvard!cybvax0!vcvax1!eli


"Let me tell you how it will be,
 its one for you nineteen for me" -- "Taxman", Beatles