Anti-Tax Litigation

For a little entertainment, read this guy's webpage and the links thereon. He filed a lawsuit in federal district court asking for a refund of his income taxes from 2000 and 2001 on the grounds that he wasn't obligated to pay taxes because his job (a pharmaceutical sales rep) was not "interstate commerce." (See the transcript of the hearing.) He also apparently argued -- his writing isn't quite clear -- that Congress does not have the constitutional authority to define the word "income" as used in the 16th Amendment.

Needless to say, the judge didn't buy his arguments, and issued an order to that effect on Oct. 3. Whereupon the frustrated litigant issued a press release, in which he describes the hearing:

“The hearing was very interesting,” said Evans, “it seemed to me that the judge wasn’t very familiar with the specifics of the case. Every time I brought up the issue of the proper application of Section 861 and Subchapter N (which contains Section 861), the judge would change the subject by asking me what appeared to be argumentative questions. It was if the judge was more of my opponent than was the Department of Justice. Plus, there were two law clerks observing the hearing. They were giggling like school children, not paying much attention while the statements were being given. It wouldn’t surprise me if the opinion was actually written by the law clerks, as is sometimes the case.”

I'll bet.