Talk:Flint v. Stone Tracy Co.

Deleting material sourced by tax fraud web site

I am deleting the material regarding the link to the "Sovereignty Education and Defense Ministry" (SEDM), which is actually another "activity" of Mr. Christopher M. Hansen. For those Wikipedia editors who don't know who Hansen is, check this out from the U.S. Department of Justice web site, which shows a Federal court order identifying SEDM as one of Hansen's "tax-fraud schemes" (that's the court's wording, not mine): [1]. See also [2] I have seen some talk in another forum questioning why Hansen apparently has not yet complied with the court order shutting down his activity, but that's another story.

At any rate, one of the basic tenets of Wikipedia is that we must use reliable sources. A web site that has been ruled in a court of law to be part of a "tax-fraud scheme" probably does not fit the bill. Yours, Famspear 03:55, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Later development: Christopher M. Hansen appealed his loss. On May 6, 2008, the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (submitted April 22, 2008) was filed and docketed. The Court of Appeals rejected Hansen's arguments, and affirmed the U.S. District Court's judgment in favor of the government against Hansen. See United States v. Christopher M. Hansen, Case no. 06-56011, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, p. 1, memorandum submitted April 22, 2008, filed May 6, 2008. The judgment was that Hansen is prohibited by court order under 26 U.S.C. § 7402 and 26 U.S.C. § 7408 from promoting, selling, and otherwise furthering tax avoidance schemes. The Court of Appeals also ruled that the summary judgment against Hansen was proper "because Hansen failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the tax avoidance plans that he sold on two websites constituted conduct subject to penalty" under 26 U.S.C. § 6700 or 26 U.S.C. § 6701. Memorandum, p. 2. The Court of Appeals further upheld the District Court's action in striking an affidavit that Hansen had presented; Hansen had refused to testify about the subject matter of the affidavit, and had failed to appear at the time and place scheduled for a deposition after having been "warned that his continued refusal to testify would result in sanctions [ . . . .]" Id.

The Court of Appeals imposed an $8,000 penalty against Hansen, under 28 U.S.C. § 1912 and Rule 38 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, for filing a frivolous appeal. See Memorandum, p. 3. Famspear (talk) 22:00, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Springer case related to Flint case

The Civil War income tax was a tax on people connected with the federal government. It fell upon railroads, steamboats, and ferries (Section 80), railroad bonds (Section 81), banks, trust companies, savings institutions, and insurance companies (Section 82), and salaries of officers, and payments to persons in the civil, military, naval, or other employment or service of the United States, including senators and representatives and delegates in Congress (Section 86). Springer was an attorney - a civil officer of the court, who was subject to the tax. All the people subject to the tax were employees of the government, or received some sort of privilege from the federal government, such as the right to represent others in court (as it applied to Springer).

The Civil War income tax did not apply to any individual, but only to those people enumerated in the legislation. Mpublius (talk) 15:09, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Mpublius, your post is blatantly false - a tax protester urban myth. Indeed, we have already corrected your mis-postings on this subject in the article on the Springer case. The Springer case was not about a tax only on people "connected with the federal government" or "people who received a privilege from the government. The Springer case was about the 1864 tax statute, which taxed all income of citizens or residents of the United States. The sections you are quoting are not even from the 1864 Act (I think they're from the 1862 Act). See the article and the talk page for Springer v. United States. The 1864 Act was not limited in any way to people "connected with the government," etc. For heaven's sake, read the actual text of the Springer case -- and read the actual text of the statute. Famspear (talk) 15:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Dear readers: For those who don't have the text, section 116 of the 1864 Act (the tax law covered by the Springer case) imposed the Federal income tax on "the gains, profits, and income of every person residing in the United States, or of any citizen of the United States residing abroad, whether derived from any kind of property, rents, interest, dividends, or salaries, or from any profession, trade, employment, or vocation, carried on in the United States or elsewhere, or from any other source whatever [ . . . ]". See Revenue Act of 1864, 13 Stat. 223, sec. 116 (June 30, 1864) (bolding added by Famspear). Again, Mr. Springer was indeed an attorney engaged in the profession of the private practice of law -- but Mr. Springer's profession itself (and the fact that an attorney, as an officer of the court system, is not an employee of the court system) was not only not material to the Springer court's decision, it wasn't even mentioned by the Court in the Springer decision. Famspear (talk) 17:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

A "to do" list

This article in present form seems to be a hodgepodge of quotations and tangential material. The article needs a re-write, to focus primarily on the Flint case itself, with a view to the facts of the case, who the parties were, and specifically what interpretations of which laws the parties were fighting about, the procedural history (who won and lost at the trial court, etc.), the issues presented to the Supreme Court, the specific decisions rendered by the Supreme Court, and a description of the Court's rationale for its decisions. Some of the material already in the article might be retained. Famspear (talk) 18:37, 13 December 2007 (UTC)