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A tax protester is someone who refuses to pay a tax on constitutional or legal grounds, typically because he or she claims that the tax laws are unconstitutional or otherwise invalid. Tax protesters are different from tax resisters, who refuse to pay taxes as a protest against the government or its policies, not out of a belief that the tax law itself is invalid. Tax protester claims have most prominently been made in the United States, which has a large and organized culture of people who espouse such theories, but have also been observed in some other countries. Legal commentator Daniel B. Evans has defined tax protesters as people who "refuse to pay taxes or file tax returns out of a mistaken belief that the federal income tax is unconstitutional, invalid, voluntary, or otherwise does not apply to them under one of a number of bizarre arguments."〔Daniel B. Evans, "The Tax Protester FAQ", at (). See also Robert L. Sommers, Testimony Before The Senate Finance Committee, "Taxpayer Beware: Schemes, Scams and Cons: Trust Scams on the Web", April 5, 2001, U.S. Senate web site, at (). See also David Cay Johnston, "White Hats Take to the Web to Dispel Anti-Tax Schemes," ''New York Times'', March 25, 2004, at (). Evans is also cited by tax law professor James Edward Maule; see James Edward Maule, "For Would-Be Travelers on the Noncompliant Federal Income Tax Protester Path," Villanova University School of Law, at (); see also Joseph A. Gambardello, "Street's position on taxes rejected often by courts," ''Philadelphia Inquirer'', Feb. 16, 2008; see also Allen D. Madison, "The Futility of Tax Protester Arguments," 36 ''Thomas Jefferson Law Review'' 253, at 256, footnote 15 (Vol. 36, No. 2, Spring 2014).〕 Law Professor Allen D. Madison has described tax protesters as "those who refuse to pay income tax on the basis of some nonsensical legal argument that he or she does not owe tax."〔Allen D. Madison, "The Futility of Tax Protester Arguments," 36 ''Thomas Jefferson Law Review'' 253, at 256 (Vol. 36, No. 2, Spring 2014).〕 An illegal tax-protest scheme has been defined as "any scheme, without basis in law or fact, designed to express dissatisfaction with the tax laws by interfering with their administration or attempting to illegally avoid or reduce tax liabilities."〔Jennifer E. Ihlo, Senior Trial Attorney, Special Counsel for Tax Protest Matters (Criminal), Tax Division, United States Department of Justice, "The Gold Fringed Flag: Prosecution of the Illegal Tax Protester," ''United States Attorneys' Bulletin'', Vol. 46, No. 3, p. 15 (U.S. Dep't of Justice, April 1998).〕 The United States Tax Court has stated that "tax protester" is a designation "often given to persons who make frivolous antitax arguments".〔Footnote 5 in ''Aldrich v. Commissioner'', T.C. Memo. 2013-201 (2013).〕 Tax protesters raise a number of different kinds of arguments. In the United States, these typically include constitutional arguments, such as claims that the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution was not properly ratified or that it is unconstitutional generally, or that being forced to file an income tax return violates the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Others are statutory arguments suggesting that the income tax is constitutional but the statutes enacting the income tax are ineffective, or that Federal Reserve Notes or other relevant currencies do not constitute cash or income. Yet another collection of arguments centers on general conspiracies involving numerous government agencies. Some tax protesters refuse to file a tax return or file returns with no income or tax data supplied.〔Bruce I. Hochman, Michael Popoff, Dennis L. Perez, Charles P. Rettig & Steven R. Toscher, "Tax Crimes," p. A-4, ''Tax Management Portfolios, Vol. 636'', Tax Management, Inc., a subsid. of The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (1993).〕 ==Origin of term== In the United States, the term "protest" as applied to a tax generally means "a declaration by a payer, esp. of a tax, that he does not concede the legality of a claim he is paying".〔Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, p. 1142 (World Publishing Company, 2d Coll. Ed. 1970).〕 Similarly, ''Black's Law Dictionary'' defines a tax protest as: At common law, and under some earlier tax statutes, the filing of a protest at the time of payment of an erroneous tax was a requirement in order for the payor to recover a refund of the tax at a later time. In the case of U.S. federal taxes, the rule was abolished by Congress in 1924.〔See generally ''George Moore Ice Cream Co. v. Rose, Collector of Internal Revenue'', 289 U.S. 373 (1933); and section 1014(a) of the Revenue Act of 1924, Ch. 234, 43 Stat. 253, 343 (June 2, 1924) (amending section 3226 of the U.S. Revised Statutes).〕 Under the current Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, the taxpayer's failure to protest does not deprive the taxpayer of the right to file an administrative claim with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for a refund and, if the claim is not allowed by the IRS, to sue for a tax refund in Federal district court.〔See generally ; ; subsection (b) of .〕 The term "protest" is also used to describe a taxpayer's formal written request for review, by the Appeals Division of the IRS, after the IRS issues a "Thirty-Day Letter" proposing an increased tax liability following an IRS examination of a tax return.〔Donald C. Alexander & Brian S. Gleicher, "IRS Procedures: Examination and Appeals," p. A-46 & A-47, ''Tax Management Portfolios, Vol. 623'', Tax Management, Inc., a subsid. of The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (2d ed. 2004). The late Donald C. Alexander was a former Commissioner of Internal Revenue.〕 In 1972, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania used the term tax "protestor" (protester) in ''United States v. Malinowski''. This case, however, involved a taxpayer who was a member of the Philadelphia War Tax Resistance League who was protesting the use of tax money in the Vietnam War. The taxpayer was not making arguments that the tax law itself was invalid; he was essentially protesting the war, not the tax. The taxpayer had filed a false Form W-4, and admitted he knew that he was not legally entitled to claim the exemptions (allowances) he claimed on the W-4. Thus, Malinowski might be termed a tax resister rather than a tax protester. He was convicted, and his motion for a new trial or acquittal was denied.〔See generally ''United States v. Malinowski'', 347 F. Supp. 347, 73-1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 9355 (E.D. Pa. 1972), ''aff'd'', 472 F.2d 850, 73-1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 9199 (3d Cir. 1973), ''cert. denied'', 411 U.S. 970 (1973).〕 A person could be both a tax protester ''and'' a tax resister if he or she believes that tax laws do not apply to him or her and ''also'' believes that taxes should not be paid based on the use to which the taxes are put. Some tax resisters have put forth legal arguments for their position—for instance that they cannot pay taxes for nuclear weapons development because this would put them in violation of the Nuremberg Principles—that could be considered varieties of tax-protester theories. Beginning in the mid-1970s, U.S. Federal courts began using the term “tax protester” in still another, more narrow sense—to describe persons who raised frivolous arguments about the legality of Federal taxes, particularly income taxes. This particular technical sense of the term is the sense described in the remainder of this article. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tax protester」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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