Letters from Prison: Lindsey Springer
Form 1040 is "Divorced" from requirement to file
Following is Mr. Lindsey Springer's latest letter from prison. Mr. Springer and his attorney, Oscar Stilley, are political prisoners. I urge you to support them in any way you can. Information for sending financial help can be found at the end of the article.
Lindsey Springer here and I would like to first thank you for being a true American that has not lost hope that liberty was and is what our Nation is all about.
For those of you who are politically involved in our nations "system" I would like to share something with you maybe you have not fully grasped or are on the cusp of grasping it. I am not telling you to not file a tax return or pay any taxes. I am suggesting to you that you learn that these areas of law I point out need to be changed and without delay.
Form 1040.
I am currently serving a 15 year prison sentence based upon being found guilty of conspiring to impede the lawful functions of the IRS, three Counts of attempting to evade or defeat the payment of federal income taxes, and two Counts of willful failure to file federal income tax returns. On the surface you may think boy that sounds terrible and it does. However, if you were to look closer what you would see reveals a major deception by the IRS.
In each of the Six Counts alleged against my liberty and property the Grand Jury said I "refrained" from filing with the IRS Form 1040s, failed to file federal income tax returns, failed to file "United States Individual Income Tax Returns" and failed to make (yes not file but "make") income tax returns to the proper person required by law.
Most would gather from these Six Counts and their chosen language the Form 1040 was an inexorable part of the offense conduct in each Count. I was my claim that I did not willfully fail to file a Form 1040 for any year because Form 1040 did not display compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act. See 44 U.S.C. Section 3501, et seq.
The Secretary of the Treasury and his Commissioner of Internal Revenue (hereinafter "CIR") direct in instructions referencing Form 1040 on its cover that the questions they ask or information sought on Form 1040 is subject to the public protection of the Paperwork Reduction Acts (hereinafter "PRA").
At my Trial the Judge instructed the Jury that Form 1040 did not and does not violate the PRA. He did so during my Good Faith defense that the Court approved me to make and while I was making it! Like the sound bites of the charges above sound bad, so too has the Court learned that a Jury would take the word of a Federal Judge's fact finding over their lay persons view. The Jury obviously had been hung for 2 plus days demonstrating every little thing counted.
I had a web page for years on Form 1040 showing its violation of the PRA and the Government never sought to enjoin me from maintaining it until after the verdict of guilty. At sentencing, the Judge enhanced my sentence finding when I looked the Jury in the eyes and told them under oath "I did not willfully fail to file Form 1040" that the Judge said that statement was "categorically false."
He also enhanced me for encouraging others to "violate the law" where I told them they were not required to file Form 1040 due to the PRA violations I had outlined on my web page and publicly proclaimed. I had been to federal court 5 times on Form 1040 violating the PRA. The Trial Judge even sustained changing Count One's tax liability in its instructions to include Oscar Stilley's liability finding the Grand Jury in paragraph 14 alleged Stilley also refrained from filing Form 1040s.
After I appealed and Mr. Barringer represented my seeking release from prison in part due to the Trial Court error in instructing the Jury Form 1040 did not violate the PRA, the Government opposed my release suggesting Form 1040 was not "necessarily" at issue in any Count of conviction.
The Tenth Circuit on appeal made some startling holdings in affirming my convictions. First, 2 months before they ruled in my criminal appeal, the Tenth Circuit suspended Mr. Barringer from its federal bar leaving me "pro-se" on my criminal appeal and in prison.
Second, the Tenth Circuit held Form 1040 is "divorced" from the requirement to file an income tax return under 26 U.S.C. Section 6012 and 7203 stating "an actual Form 1040 may not even be necessary." They explained the divorced holding this way:
"the obligation to file a tax return and the criminalization of willful failure to do so represent statutory mandates divorced from Form 1040."
So my conviction was upheld and my PRA claims once again evaded by the Federal Courts (who are there to protect liberty supposedly) but now the Tenth Circuit not only goes against itself but also the CIR who publicly states in the 1040 instructions:
"Our legal right to ask for information is Internal Revenue Code Section 6001, 6011, and 6012(a), and their regulations. They say that you must file a return or statement with us for any tax you are liable for. Your response is mandatory under these sections...You must fill in all parts of the tax form that apply to you."
The CIR says in Form 1040 instructions:
"You are not required to provide the information requested on a Form that is subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act unless the Form displays a valid OMB control number."
Consider this. 26 U.S.C. Section 6011 required the Secretary [of the Treasury] to prescribe Forms of Returns. So does Section 7805(b). The real reason the Tenth Circuit and CIR are at opposite ends of whether Form 1040 is subject to the PRA and otherwise mandatory for use has to do with the word "verification." If you read Sections 6061 and 6065 you will see the problem that divides. Section 6065 reads in part:
"EXCEPT AS OTHERWISE PROVIDED BY THE SECRETARY, ANY RETURN....required to be made under any provision of the internal revenue laws or regulations SHALL contain or be verified by a written declaration that it is made under the penalty of perjury."
See the phrase highlighted above "Except as otherwise provided by the Secretary"? What does that phrase mean to you or what was meant by Congress? The Secretary answers the question of what he says it means at 26 CFR 1.6065-1 entitled "Verification of returns" and provides the following rule:
"(a) Persons signing returns. If a return...made under the provisions of subtitle A or F of the code [26 U.S.C. Sec. 1 et seq. or 6001 et seq], or the regulations there under, with respect to any tax imposed by subtitle A of the code [26 U.S.C. Sec.1 et seq.] is required by the regulations contained in this chapter or the FORM and instructions issued with respect to such return...to contain or be verified by a written declaration that it is made under the penalty of perjury, such return...shall be so signed."
Unless the Secretary directs a return of tax be signed under penalty of perjury by some regulation the only other way he informs you whether he wishes you to verify information you are asked to provide is "on the Form and instructions."
So, what regulation requires an return of tax required by Sections 6011 or 6012 to be verified under penalty of perjury? When you find no such regulation exists the only other way the Secretary "otherwise" provides or tells you whether the Form he seeks you to answer questions on must be verified by a written declaration under penalty of perjury (called a jurat) is when he prescribes the Form of Return and places that jurat on that particular Form.
If the Form is "divorced" from Section 6012 and 7203 then so is the obligation to provide such information under penalty of perjury. Remember "Except as otherwise provided by the Secretary"? If the Secretary does not prescribe a regulation and the Form he prescribes is "divorced" then he as otherwise provided that you need not submit the information under penalty of perjury.
In fact, if he does not have to prescribe a specific form in which the information is to be communicated as the Tenth Circuit's divorced holding clearly states, what information would you be required to provide? How would you present it? Would you send a piece of notebook paper and write here is my W-2 and here is how much I feel I owe? What about Congress seeking to have all Returns of Tax filed electronically? How would you do that if the Form 1040 was "divorced" from the requirement to file a return? You can see the problem the Tenth Circuit ran into with the words of the CIR in Form 1040 instructions and Congress' mandates under the PRA.
As the Supreme Court stated in CIR v. Lane-Wells, 321 U.S. 219, 223(1944):
"the purpose is not alone to get the tax information in some form, but also to get it with such uniformity, completeness, and arraignment that the physical task of handling and verifying returns may be readily accomplished."
So, why would a Court one heart beat away from the Supreme Court turn Form 1040 upside down and against the CIR and Congress? The tax system is based on a 1927 Supreme Court decision entitled U.S. v. Sullivan, 274 U.S. 259, 262-63(1927) which held the Fifth Amendment does not protect a person from having to answer Government questions seeking information about how much income and that income's source simply because some of the information is privileged from being compelled. The genius behind the issue is what other reasons will Government use tax information for besides to determine or verify what you owe?
If you think everyone pays there fair share guess again because that thought is stinker thinking. Remember the Presidential election where Mr. Buffet and Governor Romney paid less than 15%? What about the 13 million illegals who do not file or pay income taxes? What about the 2.5 million false returns reported filed last year alone? Under Section 6011 Congress directed 80% of all returns of tax be filed electronically by 2007.
When in electronic form do you realize what all they can do with your tax information? You don't? Well Congress took care of that in the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. The IRS is required to actually certify they have provided intelligence of what the Government will do with your information on the Form 1040 on OMB form 83I. Guess what? Its not on Form 1040. Get the Form and see for your self. Look for where they say all the plans they have for the information you give them about your return of tax.
What is in the instructions is a statement they plan on sharing your information with other law enforcement agencies. What kind of notice is that? In the 2005 Government Accountability Report ("GAO") GAO told Congress that just telling the public they need the information to carry out the laws of the United States was not enough. What does that statement mean anyway? What specific laws are they referring to they refuse to say and told GAO and Congress to tell you would take to much time for you to look them all up!
In 1927, the Fifth Amendment in Sullivan was said to have been pressed too far but probably not. But today, without the Fifth Amendment this experiment is over. So when you wonder why the Court holds interest is not a penalty imposed by the IRS, See Springer v. IRS, 231 Fed. Appx. 793(10th Cir. 2007), or how a penalty is actually a tax in the Affordable Health Care Act of 2010 recently affirmed by the Supreme Court, or how a failure-to-pay penalty is not a penalty under the PRA at Section 3502(14), see Springer v. CIR, 580 F.3d 1142, 1144-45(10th Cir. 2009), and or now how the CIR's "mandatory" Form 1040 is "divorced" from the duty and obligation to make or file a return of tax under sections 6011 or 6012, the dominant word or term is "penalty." In my case penalty means punishment.
If you do not get zealously and civilly involved in changing the system for those who come after you or me soon the Courts will be saying the Government can deprive you of your liberty or property without due process because the term "penalty" is not mentioned in the Fifth Amendment.
Remember this. The Two Governments system enjoyed by each State citizen was created by our forefathers (and mothers) to protect individual liberty and freedom. Currently most people do not even know what the term "liberty" in the Fifth Amendment means. I do!
America, for now I will leave you with this. We cannot govern ourselves without God's help. It is time to clean out each our closets instead of coming out of the closet the way we are. Then you can help others clean out the system and make it stronger to protect liberty instead of having to say we gave up liberty for the bigger picture. What bigger picture? God bless you.
Thank you so much for the support you have given us so far. I pray that you are rewarded for your generosity, both in this life and the next.
PayPal donations can be made to gnutella [at] mindspring [dot] com
Mailing address for donations or other inquiries (cash, or blank first name on checks):
_________ Springer 5147 S. Harvard, #116 Tulsa, OK 74135
Letters to Lindsey (no donations or packages to this address):
Lindsey Springer, 02580-063 FCI Big Spring 1900 Simler Ave Big Spring, TX 79720
Thanks, Lindsey & Family