n May 12,
2006 in Peoria, Illinois, the attorney for the U.S. Department of
Justice (DOJ) begged the court to dismiss all charges against IRS
victim Robert Lawrence in federal District Court.
The motion
for dismissal came on the heels of a surprise tactic by Lawrence’s
defense attorney Oscar Stilley.
The tactic
threatened exposure of IRS’s on-going efforts to defraud the
public. The move put DOJ attorneys in a state of panic that left
them with only one alternative: beg for
dismissal, with prejudice.
Attorney Oscar Stilley |
Stilley’s
tactic paid off. Sixty days earlier, the DOJ had indicted Lawrence
on three counts of willful failure to file a 1040 form, and three
felony counts of income tax evasion. The federal Judge dismissed all
charges with prejudice, meaning the DOJ cannot charge
Lawrence with those crimes again.
The trial was to have started on Monday morning, May 15th.
On
Wednesday, May 10, Stilley mailed a set of documents to the DOJ in
response to DOJ’s discovery demands. The documents revealed to DOJ
for the first time that Lawrence was basing his entire defense on an
act of Congress, 44 U.S.C. 3500 – 3520, also known as the "Paperwork
Reduction Act" (PRA).
In Section
3512 of the Act, titled "Public Protection," it says that no person
shall be subject to any penalty for failing to comply with an
agency’s collection of information request (such as a 1040 form), if
the request does not display a valid control number assigned by the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in accordance with the
requirements of the Act, or if the agency fails to inform the
person who is to respond to the collection of information that he is
not required to respond to the collection of information request
unless it displays a valid control number.
In Section
3512 Congress went on to authorize that the protection provided by
Section 3512 may be raised in the form of a complete defense at any
time during an agency’s administrative process (such as an
IRS Tax Court or Collection and Due Process Hearing) or during a
judicial proceeding (such as Lawrence’s criminal trial).
In sum, the PRA requires that all government agencies display valid
OMB control numbers and certain disclosures directly on all
information collection forms that the public is requested to file.
Lawrence's sole defense was he was not required to file an IRS Form
1040 because it displays an invalid OMB control number.
Government
officials knew that if the case went to trial, it would expose the
fraudulent, counterfeit 1040. They also must have known that a trial
would expose the ongoing conspiracy between OMB and IRS to publish
1040 forms each year that those agencies knew were in violation of
the PRA. That would raise the issue that the Form 1040, with its
invalid control number, is being used by the Government to cover up
the underlying constitutional tort -- that is, the enforcement of a
direct, unapportioned tax on the labor of every working man,
women and child in America.
Any information collection form, such as IRS Form 1040, which lacks
bona fide statutory authority or which conflicts with the
Constitution, cannot be issued an OMB control number. If a
control number were issued for such a form, the form would be
invalid and of no force and effect.
Under the
facts and circumstances of the last 24 years, it is safe to say that
IRS Form 1040 is a fraudulent, counterfeit, bootleg form. Government
officials responsible for this fraud should be investigated and face
indictment for willfully making and sponsoring false instruments.
Caught
between a rock and a hard place, the DOJ and IRS decided not to let
the Lawrence case proceed because it would reveal one critical and
damning fact:
The
PRA law protects those that fail to file IRS bootleg Form 1040