In the news: U.S. Supreme Court grants certiorari for "tax protester" claim.

I believe that a writ of certiorari has not been issued. This case is "docketed". SCOTUS must still meet to discuss it and either grant or deny certiorari.

Status update on this waste of the Court's time:

"Oct 29 2012 The motion of petitioner for leave to proceed in forma pauperis is denied. Petitioner is allowed until November 19, 2012, within which to pay the docketing fee required by Rule 38(a) and to submit a petition in compliance with Rule 33.1 of the Rules of this Court." [Source:

In other words, this twit hasn't paid the fee for filing a petition. The twit also failed to comply with Rule 33.1 which deals with formatting/style requirements of the petition.

On the one hand, I'd like to see the Court rule on the issues and put this matter to bed. On the other hand, I've never met a protestor who would accept or abide by a decision he/she didn't agree with.

There are appropriate situations in which a criminal defendant, particularly if he's sitting in jail at the time, can't afford the filing fee or comply with the formatting requirements normally imposed when someone is represented by a lawyer. In some cases the Supreme Court has taken up cases in spite of these kind of deficiencies.

Perhaps they thought they'd said everything they needed to in 1991:

___ Stu

But Cheek was a criminal case. Maehr contends the Court has never settled the wages/income issue in civil matters such as his.

Can you provide a link where Maehr makes this contention?

When Willie and the Supremes agreed to hear Cheek, at issue was a jury instruction. After Cheek was convicted a second time, the court denied certiorari to consider the tax issues.

Dick

I found the text of Maehr's petition at this link:

In his conclusion, Maehr says, "The gravity of these fundamental law questions have never been properly adjudicated,...."

Cheek appears to give a criminal defendant the right to have a jury consider his belief that wages are not income when determining willfulness, but does nothing to settle the wages/income question. Justice Blackmun, in his dissent, said, "This Court's opinion today, I fear, will encourage taxpayers to cling to frivolous views of the law...."

The above is must reading for anyone who is in need of a good laugh!

Au contraire! In the words of the eloquent Judge Frank Easterbrook in Coleman v. Commissioner, 791 F.2d 68 (7th Cir. 1986): Some people believe with great fervor preposterous things that just happen to coincide with their self-interest. "Tax protestors" have convinced themselves that wages are not income, that only gold is money, that the Sixteenth Amendment is unconstitutional, and so on. These beliefs all lead -- so tax protesters think -- to the elimination of their obligation to pay taxes. The government may not prohibit the holding of these beliefs, but it may penalize people who act on them. It is amazing that Dr. Maehr missed Judge Easterbrook's case analysis! Maybe he should sue the people who taught him how to do research. ;)

Nothing could be further from the truth. Cheek was tried and convicted twice. Willie and the Supremes reversed the first conviction due to a prejudicial jury instruction. After Cheek was retried and conviction, Willie and the Supremes denied certiorari to consider the tax issues because those issues were settled long ago.

Sometimes I wonder about the tax protestor types. After 100 years of the

16th Amendment, after advancing the same invalid arguments based on misreadings, misunderstandings, misinterpretations and flat-out fabrications for what seems nearly as long, after so many different courts have considered and rejected these "arguments" consistently, how can each protestor continue to think that this, this will be the day, this will be the case, when the scales fall from the eyes of SCOTUS and five justices will vote their way? Is it a matter of hope springing eternal, or simply untreated mental illness?

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results."

Although in this case, there is the fact that the membership and political leanings of the SCOTUS changes over time, and as a result they may rule differently than an earlier court did.

However, this is probably only likely in the case of close decisions. Citizens United and the Obamacare decisions were 5-4, so they could easily have gone a different way with a slightly different makeup of the court. Were any of the rulings on tax protest close?

I can't recall a single case where any of the classic tax protestor arguments survived any court.

It is interesting that there are a few Congress-critters (I can name two) who have actually sided with lunatic tax fringe. However, in spite of my political biases, I can't name a single Supreme who has ever sided with them.

Dick