On March 24 a federal grand jury in Las Vegas handed down a 33-count indictment against Irwin Schiff and two of his associates, Cindy Neun and Larry Cohen. The indictment alleges an array of income tax crimes including Willful Failure to File, knowingly filing false income tax returns, income tax evasion, advising others to file bogus returns, and conspiring to defraud the Government of income tax revenues.

On April 1, Schiff responded to the indictment with several motions including an offer to plead guilty to all charges if the government will produce at his arraignment the U.S. tax statute that specifically makes Schiff “liable” for payment of “income” taxes. (.pdf format)

The core legal argument of Schiff's motion is that under U.S. law, as currently written, and despite the unambiguous language of virtually all other federal tax statutes which DO specifically impose a legal obligation to pay, NO such statutory language exists that imposes a legal liability to pay federal income taxes. 

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