Recently, one of my neighbors was acquitted in a federal criminal trial. The jury considered four charges: one count of conspiracy to defraud the government by impairing the calculation or collection of tax, and three counts of wilfully aiding the filing of amended income tax returns which were false with respect to a material matter.
My neighbor - Joe Banister, a former special agent for the IRS, is also licensed as a CPA. (”Special Agents” at IRS are considered federal law enforcement officers, who carry firearms, have the power to make arrests, and investigate criminal tax law violations; as opposed to “Revenue Agents” who conduct examinations (”audits”) or “Revenue Officers” who collect tax debts.
Apparently, at some point during Mr. Banister’s employment with IRS, he got sucked into one of the “tax protestor” movements, leading to his resignation from IRS. He has since published materials describing his there-is-no-income-tax theory, and apparently talked the owner of a Sacramento-area business into filing “zero returns”, which show that no tax is due, and hence all amounts withheld should be returned to the taxpayer (though that doesn’t seem like the right term for a zero return filer.)
It’s unfortunate that tax protestors are trying to use the acquittal to prove more than it does - it’s the jury’s decision that, in this case, the prosecutors didn’t prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Joe Banister committed the crimes he was charged with. Acquitting Joe Banister for conspiracy and filing a false return doesn’t prove that it’s legal to file a zero return any more than Michael Jackson’s acquittal proves that child molestation is legal - nor did the acquittals of Robert Blake and OJ Simpson prove that murder is legal.
I did find these notes sent by Banister’s jury to be interesting, though it’s tough to figure out exactly what the jury was thinking -
So while it’s obviously a good result for Joe Banister, it’s not a good foundation for any sort of argument about whether or not it’s a good idea - or legally required - that US citizens and residents pay income tax.
In particular, it’s worth remembering that while Joe Banister managed to escape conviction, his client - the person who actually filed the zero returns at issue - is currently sitting in a federal prison after being convicted for tax fraud, as a result of filing the returns.
I haven’t read the trial transcripts, but my understanding is that Joe Banister’s argument was that, essentially, his role was that of a CPA preparing tax returns based on the legal and factual arguments of his client, and that it wasn’t reasonable to hold him - as a paid preparer - liable for the position that his client chose to take on the tax return.
Banister has also been disbarred from practice before the IRS, and disciplinary charges are apparently pending before the California Board of Accountancy.