Talk:Tax protester history in the United States/Archive 1

Attribution
Material in this article was split out from the overly-long Tax protester article. The edit history of this material is contained with that article. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:15, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Requested move
Tax protester history → Tax protester history in the United States This article deals almost exclusively about this phenomenon in the United States. Please discuss at Talk:Tax protester. —  AjaxSmack    06:25, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Definition of tax protest(er)
I have reorganized the section on the history of the use of the term "tax protester" by adding several dictionary definitions of the term "protest" as that term has historically been used. A key concept with a formal tax "protest" has usually been that the taxpayer paid the tax without conceding the legality of the tax. An argument that a tax is illegal can be valid or invalid. In this broad sense, for example, the Internal Revenue Service actually has a formal procedure for taxpayer to file a written "protest" prior to the issuance, by the IRS, of a statutory notice of deficiency.

Beginning in the mid-1970s, so many taxpayers began raising frivolous arguments (about Federal income tax) in court, however, that the courts began using the term in a more specific way -- to describe people who raised, well, frivolous arguments about the legality of the tax. I've added some background to the article. Yours, Famspear 19:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


 * OK, I noted that someone else was expanding the definitional areas in the article on Tax protester -- with some duplication of what was already here. The definitional section here in this article was more extensive, but I made a choice to move the whole thing over to the Tax protester article, as that article is really the introductory article in the series. As this is an article on Tax protester history, you could argue of course that the definitional history could go in either place, of course. Yours, Famspear 18:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

John L. Cheek added
I have added some history to the article on Mr. John L. Cheek, one of the most famous tax protesters of all. The material was adapted from the Wikipedia article on the United States Supreme Court decision in the Cheek case. John L. Cheek is famous, of course, in part because the Cheek case is a United States Supreme Court decision bearing directly on a tax protester as a criminal defendant, and is arguably the only United States Supreme Court case directly addressing the mens rea element of "willfulness" in the specific context of a tax protester case. Indeed, the defense raised by tax protesters -- that the individual lacked willfulness because of a good faith belief based on a misunderstanding caused by the complexity of the tax law itself -- is routinely called the "Cheek defense" by tax practitioners. Famspear (talk) 23:29, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Tax protester/Request for comment
A request for comment has been opened on the general topic of tax protester theories, and whether the articles that address them are NPOV. bd2412 T 18:06, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Tax protester/Request for comment reminder
Just a reminder that I have proposed to call for a conclusion to this discussion on tax protester rhetoric on February 6. If anyone has anything more to add to the discussion, speak now! bd2412 T 16:57, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 15:55, 1 May 2016 (UTC)