Tax: July 2008 Archives

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the conviction of an individual concluding and affirming the conclusion that documents the individual presented to the Internal Revenue Service were unlawful fictitious financial instruments.

In these economic times as reported and made a reality by our media, there is typically an onslaught of economic crime perpetrated by individuals desperate to escape their personal economic turmoil. Apparently, this taxpayer on two separate occasions submitted a document he titled a “sight draft” and a tax payment voucher for the amount of the draft to the IRS.   A sight draft is a valid instrument used in international trade. The document looks like a check, often requires no signature and is payable upon demand or presentment, hence the “on sight”.

The sight draft fraud is common amongst tax protestors and particularly tax protestor “redemptionists”.  You will like this one.  Redemptionists believe that the national debt is collateralized pro rata by each individual’s birth certificate and that each person has a mirror entity, a straw man, that represents the amount of work you do.  Redemptionists say there is a way to redeem your straw man and stake your claim to the debt.  As it goes, all you need to do is file your birth certificate along with the sight draft and you have redeemed your straw man and, I guess, released your collateralization of the national debt.  Thereafter you control your straw man and you can use the money from the sight draft to pay your mortgage or taxes.  Don’t try this at home.