by Pitman Buck, Jr.

[Additional articles by Pitman Buck, Jr., as well as information about his book The Colossal Fraud of 'Involuntary Perjury' and Other Enforced Newspeak, Tricks, and Scams of Big Brother can be found at Mr. Buck's website.]

In an interview with The New York Times (July 5, 1995) the head of the Internal Revenue Service admitted that filling out tax forms, as distinguished from paying taxes, is voluntary:

"And Margaret Milner Richardson, the I.R.S. commissioner, said that in I.R.S. usage, the term 'voluntary compliance' referred to filling out tax forms, not to paying taxes."

The commissioner's admission is quoted above from an article, "The Anti-Tax Man Cometh," that begins on page D1 of the Times business section. Commissioner Richardson's admission that filling out tax forms is voluntary rests not only upon the Constitution's prohibiting government from compelling self-incriminating testimony but also upon section 7206 of the Internal Revenue Code. Section 7206 reads:

"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 not more than $100,000 ($500,000 in the case of a corporation) or imprisoned not more than 3 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution." (See also 18 U.S.C. section 1621 for the definition of perjury.)

Justice Hugo Black declared in United States v. Kahriger, 345 U.S. 22 (1953): "The United States has a system of taxation by confession." Of course, confessions are not legal or valid under the Constitution if they are compelled. To ensure that tax assessment confessions are not coerced, Congress mandated that they have a jurat crafted and intended by law (see the aforementioned sections 7206 and 1621) to be signed willfully (the word means "voluntarily"), if signed at all. Thus, the making and signing of Form 1040 tax returns by individuals is voluntary for the simple reason that tax returns are made and subscribed under penalties of perjury (where filed 1040 tax forms were not signed under penalties of perjury, the courts ruled them to be invalid and not processible as tax returns). Obviously, any statement that subjects its affiant(s) to the penalties of perjury must have been made and signed willfully or voluntarily, not under coercion or compulsion. If this were not true as a principle of law, policemen could legally force people into making and signing -- under penalties of perjury -- confessions to crimes, even imaginary ones.

If an individual may legally be compelled to state under penalties of perjury on a Form 1040 that he or she owes income taxes, he or she also may be legally forced to state under penalties of perjury that he or she murdered someone, even if no one was murdered. Filling out tax forms under compulsion violates the clear, legal intent and premise in § 7206 of the tax code that tax returns be willfully made and subscribed. One need not be a cum laude graduate of a law school to know that a coerced statement -- whether about taxes or murder - though by a signed jurat declares it was made under penalties of perjury is nonetheless a statement verified by a lie. A coerced statement subjects no one to the penalties of perjury; and because by law tax returns are made and signed under penalties of perjury they cannot be coerced. Hence, the filling out and signing of tax forms under IRS intimidation, threats of monetary penalties, threats of federal prosecution and incarceration and/or under the coercion of courts does not subject the form's affiant(s) to the penalties of perjury nor does such coerced behavior constitute compliance with any law -- including the tax code -- but constitutes unwilling compliance with unlawful demands of Big Brother's henchmen and legal terrorists.

Thanks for the admission, Madam Commissioner. Now let us hope that your successor, Charles Rossotti, will get the message, act accordingly and order the despotic IRS agents and thugs who are still in the Internal Revenue Service to stop their harassing of individuals whose knowledge of the law and belief that they are not liable for federal income taxes preclude their lawful ability to self-assess themselves by filling out and signing tax forms under penalties of perjury that they owe income taxes to the IRS. As the English detective, made famous in movies by his uncanny ability to solve murders, would say, It's elementary, Dr. Watson!

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