Court Bars Tax Fraud Scheme
Nevadan promoted claim that citizens can "opt out" of paying taxes
01/30/2012 | By Truman Lewis
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ConsumerAffairs.com
| Tax Preparation
A federal court has permanently barred David Champion from promoting a tax fraud scheme designed to assist his customers evade federal taxes. The civil injunction was signed by Judge Percy Anderson of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
The court determined that Champion promotes a tax fraud scheme based on the frivolous claim that U.S. citizens can choose to opt out of federal income taxation by declaring themselves to be “non-taxpayers.”
The court found that Champion promotes the scheme through websites, a radio program and a self-published work entitled
Income Tax: Shattering the Myths. According to the government complaint, Champion, who currently resides in Nevada, repeatedly helped his customers evade taxes by establishing sham “pure trusts” to which they transferred their business and personal assets, and he falsely informed his customers that their purported trusts did not need to file income tax returns or pay taxes.Judge Anderson held that Champion’s theories concerning the government’s taxing authority are wrong. Among other things, the injunction order bars Champion from instructing people that they may become “non-taxpayers,” from offering his services to assist others in taking advantage of this false status, and from forming trusts for others.
The government alleged that Champion’s misconduct led to civil and criminal penalties against his customers. The complaint states that Internal Revenue Service (IRS) inquiries into eight of Champion’s customers revealed that he had assisted them in evading payment of approximately $1.4 million in income taxes.
In the past decade, the Justice Department’s Tax Division has obtained hundreds of injunctions to stop tax-fraud promoters and unscrupulous tax-return preparers.
Frank Cole (Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:07:26 +0000): "The only two certainties in life are death and taxes." –Mark Twain.
Roger Bradley (Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:12:49 +0000): I can't believe there are still people out there that honestly believe they can out smart the IRS even if they really did have those kind of rights just how long do you think it would take the IRS to close the gap with a new set of rules. If you ever think you are going to outsmart the government, you may want to rethink every thing. The fact that this came out of Nevada is even less shocking , after all look who they voted back into congress. Clint Eastwood as dirty harry is a saint by comparison.
Douglas Taylor (Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:08:33 +0000): There are people out there that outsmart the government everyday their called congressmen senators, lobbyist large corporations etc etc etc and I can't believe we the people keep voting in the same ol same ol.The only people who get screwed are all the average joe and jane tax payers who can't afford a room full of Tax advisors or have insider info to use. At least we had some change with the Tea Party but not enough, send a real message VOTE RON PAUL and get this country back to greatness or at the very least fairness.