September 30, 2007
Media Blackout:
161 Federal Tax Charges, 0 Convictions
IRS Suffers Staggering Defeat
Tax
Questions Raised Regarding
Gold and Silver Coins Used to Pay Wages
Around
noon on
Monday, September 17th, a Las Vegas federal jury returned
its verdict refusing to convict nine defendants of any
of the 161 federal tax crimes they had been charged with.
The charges included income tax evasion, willful failure to
file and conspiracy to evade taxes.
The four-month trial centered around the family businesses
of Robert Kahre who paid numerous workers for their labor
with circulating gold and silver U.S. coins, and did not
report the wages. The payments took place over several years, allegedly
totaling at least $114 million dollars.
On
September 20, 2007, three days after the federal trial's dramatic
conclusion, the Las Vegas Review Journal, reportedly
under a degree of public pressure, ran its first (and last)
story about the outcome of the trial. To this day, with
exception of the single article by the Review Journal,
no major media entity has published a news story
regarding the outcome of this important federal criminal tax
case.
The censorship of this important news story is,
unfortunately, not unexpected given the continuing,
worldwide onslaught against the U.S. "dollar" --
specifically the Federal Reserve variety, and the ever
growing numbers of Federal Reserve Notes required to trade
for an actual ounce of silver, gold, oil, or for that
matter, anything.
In short, this failed prosecution has coalesced and exposed
truths our Government desperately needs to hide from the
People: the truth about our money, the truth about our
(privately-owned) central bank, and the truth about the
fraudulent nature of the operation and enforcement of the
federal income tax system.
Click here to read the April, 2005 DOJ
press release announcing the prosecution.
Click here to read the
9/20
story by the Review
Journal about the trial.
According to defense attorney Joel Hansen, who represented
co-defendant Alex Loglia, the primary "willfulness" defense
was that the defendants believed they had no legal
obligation to withhold, pay income taxes or report anything
to the government because, in part, the nominal (i.e., face
value) of the gold and silver coins is so small as to fall
beneath the reporting thresholds set by the Internal Revenue
Code.
The Defendants also argued that regardless of the valuation
of the coins for internal revenue purposes, there is no law
that requires average American workers to file or pay
direct, un-apportioned taxes on the fruits of their labor.
The Government argued that the payments in solid gold and
silver
U.S. coins
must be considered at their bullion (i.e., intrinsic
full-market) value when considering the worth of the wages
for purposes of the internal revenue code.
Attorney Hansen cited two Supreme Court cases bolstering
Defendant's monetary argument at the heart of the defendants
"willfulness" defense.
The essence of the argument is that under the Constitution
Congress is obligated by law to mint and circulate such
coins as demand requires, and must establish the value of
coins as they are used as legal tender, but the coins'
market value, arising as valuable personal "property," is a
distinct, separate attribute of such coins, and is of no
legal consequence if the coins are used as legal tender.
In other words, if a worker is paid with such coins, his
taxable "income" (if any) can only be the face value
indicated upon the coin money paid -- i.e., $1.00 for a
circulating silver dollar or $50 for a circulating gold U.S.
coin. Not surprisingly, the IRS has never issued any public
guidance regarding this significant issue.
The first
case,
Ling Su Fan v.
U.S.,
218 US 302 (1910)
establishes the legal distinction of a coin bearing the
"impress" of the sovereign:
"These
limitations are due to the fact that public law gives to
such coinage a value which does not attach as a mere
consequence of intrinsic value. Their quality as a legal
tender is an attribute of law aside from their bullion
value. They bear, therefore, the impress of sovereign power
which fixes value and authorizes their use in exchange."
The second case,
Thompson v. Butler,
95
US 694 (1877),
establishes that the law makes no legal distinction between
the values of coin and paper money used as legal tender:
"A coin dollar is worth no more for the purposes of tender in
payment of an ordinary debt than a note dollar. The law has
not made the note a standard of value any more than coin. It
is true that in the market, as an article of merchandise,
one is of greater value than the other; but as money, that
is to say, as a medium of exchange, the law knows no
difference between them."
Defense attorney Hansen confirmed that members of the jury
were able to actually hold and inspect the gold and silver
U.S.
coins paid to the workers.
After almost four months of testimony and three and a half
days of deliberation, the jury did not convict any of the
defendants of any of the 161 crimes alleged. Although some
defendants were acquitted of multiple counts, and several
were acquitted completely, others may have to stand for a
retrial if the Government brings charges a second time.
The Review Journal reported the jury foreman claimed DOJ
prosecutors admitted they were "shocked" by the outcome.
In March 2007, the primary defendant, Bob Kahre, filed a
federal civil rights lawsuit against the prosecutor and
IRS
agents who had conducted what he alleges to be an unlawful
search and seizure raid. In 2005, the Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals refused to overturn a previous District Court ruling
holding that the federal prosecutor is not entitled to
absolute immunity for the unlawful raid.
Read more.
Click here to execute a Google News
search to attempt to locate recent news stories about
the Kahre tax trial.
The media suppression of this story is similar to the
widespread mainstream media suppression of the July 11, 2007
acquittal of
Louisiana attorney Tommy Cryer
who was also charged with multiple federal income tax crimes
and relied upon numerous Supreme Court precedents and U.S.
tax laws to establish his "willfulness" defense. Click here
for a
previous WTP update containing a link to Cryer's
100-page Motion to Dismiss which details his legal
arguments.
Click here to execute a Google News
archive search to attempt to locate news stories about
Tommy Cryer's tax trial.
PLEASE NOTE: Following recent
statements by the DOJ, most of the content of the WTP
websites (including our on-line store) has been fully
restored for public access. The "6700" case is currently
being appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
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