Posted on 05/29/2002 3:25:05 AM PDT by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - Former Libertarian presidential candidate Irwin Schiff, who maintains the federal income tax is optional, is being sued by a New Hampshire man who says he lost his business after following Schiff's tax advice.
Steven Swan, a former real estate agent in Auburn, N.H., is suing Schiff for $1 million in compensation for the loss of earnings from his real estate business since 1997, $1 million for physical and emotional distress for the loss of his business and earning ability and $5 million in punitive damages.
The lawsuit was filed May 23 in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., currently lives.
"If you do something where you encourage people to do something to their detriment, whether they believe it or not, it is called a tort, and so I filed a lawsuit for the torts I believe [Schiff] committed," Swan said.
Swan claims in his lawsuit that he first met Schiff at a Libertarian luncheon in New Hampshire in 1995 where Schiff was speaking. Afterwards, according to the suit, the two spent approximately three hours in the hotel lobby, during which time Schiff told Swan about his theories that the federal income tax was voluntary.
Swan says he then bought the books Schiff had authored on how to legally avoid paying income taxes, and even began teaching others about Schiff's theories at seminars.
In 1996, Swan's suit alleges, he used Schiff's theories to try to convince the Internal Revenue Service that he owed the government nothing and planned to pay nothing
Later, Swan was forced to close his business and IRS employees levied his bank accounts. When Swan used Schiff's theories to file two lawsuits against IRS employees, the U.S. District Court in New Hampshire dismissed both.
Last week, Swan directed his legal action at Schiff.
"He honestly believes what he is saying," Swan said. "But I think he is misconstrued. I don't think it is anything he is trying to do purposely, but he is guilty of misrepresentation, fraud and negligence."
Schiff, who ran unsuccessfully for the 1996 Libertarian Party presidential nomination, said Swann's lawsuit is "nonsense."
"My books point out that I went to jail for four years," Schiff said. "My books point out that I sued the government.
"There are disclaimers in all my books, but I stand by everything in my books," he said.
Schiff added that in teaching people about his theories, he gives those who listen the information necessary to avoid paying taxes, but has no control over what is done with the information.
"It can't take Steve six years to learn I am wrong," Schiff said. "Here's what I do: I bring them the law, the statutes and the code, but I tell them they are dealing with the federal government, which is a criminal government.
"If I told [Swan] to go rob a bank, would he do it? What is he, an idiot?" Schiff said.
Swan admitted Schiff did not force him to take any action.
"It's true that I didn't have to listen to him," Swan said. "I didn't have to listen to the guy, but he was so convincing that I did listen to him."
E-mail a news tip to Jason Pierce.
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I am not very bright but what I gleaned from his material and his radio show is he is correct and you can do these things.
Heres where the wisdom I get from God comes in handy even though I am not very bright.You might slip through the cracks. Many people do because the gov.org does not have the resources to take everyone to court. You are right and the law is voluntary but the judges and courts will not allow you or anyone else to win.
So the bottom line in dealing with tax avoidance (which I might add is legal to avoid all the taxes you can and is why we pay so much money to cpa's) is do it if you wish but pray they dont draw your name to make a example of.
This moron should not be allowed to sue Irwin. He is too stupid and ignorant to own a business. I bet five dollars he inherited the company from his dad.
I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents...." –James Madison
"Were the talents and virtues which heaven has bestowed on men given merely to make them more obedient drudges, to be sacrificed to the follies and ambition of a few through the taxing? ." --Samuel Adams"
Our country has labored under a federal income tax system that is inconsistent with the liberty of a free people." --
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett
"That the power to tax involves the power to destroy ... is not to be denied." --John Marshall
"Excise, n. A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom the excise is paid." --Samuel Johnson
"I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity, [such spending] would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded." --President Franklin Pierce
"I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan to indulge in benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds. I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution." --President Grover Cleveland
“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. A wise and frugal government ... shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. ... Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated. ... Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands?" --Thomas Jefferson
here is the riddle.......all but one were patriots!
Which is not to say that the tax -- or the court -- is right. There are ways of changing the debt. There are ways of forcing the parasites into the sun where they wither and die. But it's hard work, not a quick trip to tax-free Fairyland.
What an idiot.
The key word that he should have focused on was "theories". He may have liked the theories being proposed about not paying tax, but the key is that they were just that...theories. Until they have been tried and tested, they remain nothing more than theories.
Oh well, everyone needs to pay a little Stupid-Tax now and then. This guy just paid his all in one lump sum.
Perhaps that is what got Mr. Cooper into so much trouble?
GEORGE W. MALLONE, U.S. Senator (Nevada), speaking before Congress in 1957, alluded to the families that secretly own the "Federal" Reserve Bank and control the finances of the U.S.. He stated:
"I believe that if the people of this nation fully understood what Congress has done to them over the last 49 years, they would move on Washington; they would not wait for an election.... It adds up to a preconceived plan to destroy the economic and social independence of the United States!"
THOMAS JEFFERSON, U.S. President: "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the Government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs."
JAMES A. GARFIELD, U.S. President: "Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce."
HENRY FORD, Founder of Ford Motor Company, commented on the privately owned "Federal" Reserve System scam: "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
LEWIS MCFADDIN, U.S. Congressman, said this about those same international financial conspirators, during the very time they were taking over the monetary control of America: "We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks, hereinafter called the FED. They are not government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers..."
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