Local IRS conviction has Hollywood parallel
By Dan Herbeck
The same tax scheme that got actor Wesley Snipes into trouble with the Internal Revenue Service also resulted in the recent misdemeanor conviction of an East Aurora chiropractor.
After a trial in federal court, John E. Weisberg was convicted last week of three counts of willfully failing to file tax returns. Jurors were unable to reach a verdict on an additional count of the same charge.
Authorities said Weisberg was a member-client of American Rights Litigators, or ARL, a Florida organization that — according to the IRS — promoted “multiple tax fraud schemes.”
“At trial, Weisberg claimed that he relied upon the legal and accounting advice of ARL in not filing returns,” Agent Timothy Shanahan of the IRS Criminal Division said Wednesday. “However, the evidence at trial showed . . . that Weisberg knew he had a duty to file tax returns and that he used ARL as a means to obstruct and impede the IRS.”
What you have to keep in mind in these cases is that the defendants are not engaging in civil disobedience because they claimed that they acted legally. Thus, there is no moral challenge to the law as unjust.
I have challenged tax protesters to name a single case where they won a legal ruling from a court on the merits (not a factual judgment from a jury). They never have.
11:55 am on February 24, 2008
