Detax Canada

[JLord]

I work as a lawyer in Canada and my area of practice is basically what you call poverty law. So helping people out who are getting evicted, wrongful dismissal, human rights stuff, debts and collections, criminal stuff, government benefits, wills and estates, etc. Bascially I deal with any sort of legal trouble that poor people get into and try to help them out in ways that don't require them having a lot of money.

This area of practice involves dealing with a lot of people who are of low intelligence. (Probably a higher proportion than when dealing with the wealthy.) And these are the people most likely to buy into the claims of the "Freeman Movement" or in this case the closely related "detaxer" movement. For some reason these people are convinced that through verbal or grammatical gymnastics they can "outsmart" the system to avoid paying taxes, paying their mortgage, paying speeding tickets, paying child support, avoid shoing up for court, etc.

These people generally fall into two categories. The first are people who see this sort of material, believe it, and decide not to pay taxes or not pay their mortgage and then wind up with a big debt. The second are people who find themselves in some desperate financial situation and are looking for anything to help. The detaxers seem to have a magic solution to all their problems so they buy in to the nonsense in the hopes it will get them out of a jam. I have a bit more sympathy for the second group because they are acting out of desparation to solve some problem in their life, as opposed to the first group who cause the problem themselves by buying in and are really the authors of their own misforture.

A lot of people would say that these people are idiots and deserve what is coming to them and it is their fault for buying in to such retarded ideas. Other might look at those promoting these ideas and blame them for tricking people into these situations. (The same sort of debate occurs about who should be blamed when someone wastes a lot of money on a psychic) But regardless of where you stand, it is clear that these type of groups are not helping anyone.

The courts in my city (and I assume accross Canada) are well aware of the detax crowd and have procedures in place to deal with them. Judges of course have never had a problem shooting down their ridiculous arguments and there are many reported cases in which this happens (they can often be entertaining reading). But the detaxers will pull the same sort of arguments with court clerks and other employees. Like for instance, imagine that you are a clerk, you send notice to someone that they are to appear in court and you get this response (from the detax Canada website):

There are no records available for the fictional entity,
Kevin E. Jones, AKA: KEVIN E JONES, at the address
noted on you demand. For any such records, you will
need contact the owner of KEVIN E JONES, the
fictional entity, which I believe to be the CROWN
in right of (your birth province).
The terms of the private contract of agency between
the free will man commonly called Kevin of the Jones
family, the principal, and the fictional entity/person
whose legal identity is KEVIN E JONES, the agent in
commerce for the principal, is not subject to the
scrutiny of a third party, and therefore, any
business dealings between the principal and agent
will not be released to CRA. The principal is not
a 'person', and therefore, not subject to provisions
of the Income Tax Act of Canada, to the Minister
of National Revenue or to Canada Revenue Agency.

I, commonly called Kevin of the Jones family, in own right,
for KEVIN E JONES for Her Majesty in right of Canada
[Hand write: KEVIN E JONES. The remainder may be typed]

What a mess.

Anyways, the detax Canada website (which I find to be quite comical) is located at:

http://www.detaxcanada.org


This thread is inspired by a similar one calling for stories of failures of US freeman movement people. I thought I would start one for the Canadian equivalent and post some of my stories here. This is a long post already but I will post some stories here in the near future. Meanwhile, if anyone has any comments or stories feel free.

 

[D'rok]

Thanks for this. I also find this stuff fascinating/amusing/enraging. IANAL, but I do have a law degree. (No desire to practice. Prefer to do policy work). I hadn't heard of detax Canada before. Not nearly as slick as the sales pitch by Robert Menard and co., but still amusing based on a first glance.

It's amazing how similar all of the legal woo is, whether it manifests as "sovereign citizens", FOTL, or whatever. Menard, for example, actively translates American redemption scams into Canadian terms and sells DVDs and study packages. But it's all the same crap.

Thanks for the new excuse to procrastinate!

 

[D'rok]

Yowza. This Warman chap is a real piece of work:

"In the early ’80s, Warman – a Canadian by birth – was living in the San Francisco suburb of Benicia. While working as a pilot for American Airlines, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service audited him and determined he owed a substantial amount of unreported tax dollars. Things went downhill fast.

Allegedly, Warman threatened the IRS agents with violence if they tried to collect. This was an imprudent action – around the same time, Gordon Kahl, a member of the Posse, made headlines for getting in a deadly shootout with U.S. federal marshals when they tried to arrest him for violating his parole. Kahl did time for not paying his taxes. Suffice to say, the authorities may have been a bit touchy. Warman was arrested, lost his pilot’s licence, was fired from his job and found his wife had committed suicide (Warman maintains IRS agents murdered her). The trauma and legal problems caused him to hightail it back to Canada."


http://www.ffwdweekly.com/Issues/2003/0807/cover.htm

Typically, he's also a raging anti-semite.

 

[D'rok]

Curses! Foiled again!

"So-called 'employees' are having CRA re-assess their returns based upon the T-4 slip sent to CRA by the 'employer'. That is the document the employer sends to you sometime during January or February stating 'employee 'income'.

In my filing instructions, I suggest that you amend the copy of the T-4, which shows 'income' and wages withheld and sent to CRA by the 'employer'. The amendment is to cross out the term 'employee', and print in beside it, 'agent', and initial the change.
However, CRA is disregarding this amendment, and using the T-4 slip sent to them directly by the 'employer' showing that the 'legal identity' strawman name 'is the employee earning the money', and using that income number to issue their re-assessment.

Conclusion: I don't currently have a solution to this problem (peaceful, anyway), so if someone out there can come up with an idea how to deal with it - that is, for those who are trapped into being an 'employee' , please let me know."

http://www.detaxcanada.org/filing%20problems.rtf

 

[ktesibios]

Umm... something I found on Wiki:

Canadian content (abbreviated CanCon, cancon or can-con) refers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission requirements that radio and television broadcasters (including cable and satellite specialty channels) must air a certain percentage of content that was at least partly written, produced, presented, or otherwise contributed to by persons from Canada. It also refers to that content itself, and, more generally, to cultural and creative content that is Canadian in nature.

Perhaps you guys could do something similar for CTs being marketed in Canada instead of relying on recycled content from the USA- or at least get Alex Jones to put on a toque and start doing a regular "Great White Conspiracy" show?

As for the "freeman" who is unhappy about being an employee, I might suggest that he simply quit his job and let some poor bugger who's spent a few months trying desperately to get "trapped into being an employee" have it. He can check back in a year or so and let everybody know how that worked out.

 

[D'rok]

Umm... something I found on Wiki:



Perhaps you guys could do something similar for CTs being marketed in Canada instead of relying on recycled content from the USA.

Yeah, dammit! Where's the Rush of CTists? Hell, I'd settle for the Guess Who of FOTL CTists. They could use this as their theme song:

 

[Corsair 115]

I'd be interested to know if any of these Canadian 'detaxers' (I honestly didn't know there was a Canadian version of this American phenomenon) have used the public health care system at any point.

 

[D'rok]

I'd be interested to know if any of these Canadian 'detaxers' (I honestly didn't know there was a Canadian version of this American phenomenon) have used the public health care system at any point.

Well, he (the detax guy) did avail himself of the prison system after being convicted of assault. That's confirmation that my tax dollars are being well spent.

 

[Horatius]

Umm... something I found on Wiki:



Perhaps you guys could do something similar for CTs being marketed in Canada instead of relying on recycled content from the USA- or at least get Alex Jones to put on a toque and start doing a regular "Great White Conspiracy" show?

As for the "freeman" who is unhappy about being an employee, I might suggest that he simply quit his job and let some poor bugger who's spent a few months trying desperately to get "trapped into being an employee" have it. He can check back in a year or so and let everybody know how that worked out.

The problem is, most of the conspiracies involving Canadians are actually true.

Teh Evidences:




It's from the CBC, it's True!

 

[JLord]

Here are some nice snippets of what some Canadian judges have had to say about detaxers:

LINK

Like many of the bankrupt’s ilk he is prone to write nonsensical letters to the Minister’s representatives invoking the Magna Carta, the Canadian Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the reason for non-payment of income taxes. After carefully observing a number of these individuals over the last few years I can safely say that the “detax” movement attracts either the naive or opportunists searching for a faint thread of justification for their stand on the non-payment of taxes. I have no doubt that the bankrupt belongs to the latter group. He is too intelligent to considered naive. He willingly latched onto this excuse to enforce his predisposition toward non-payment of his tax obligations. I wish to reiterate that it is an excuse and not a rational reason.

LINK

Briefly stated, their contention was that each human creature comprises both a physical being (i.e., the ‘natural person’) and some sort of other legal entity created upon the government’s issuance to the human creature of a social insurance number. Conveniently, any income earned by the human creature is attributed to the natural person while the obligation to pay tax rests exclusively with its legal doppelganger

The Kions are not the first to hang their hats on the ‘natural person’ argument and, regrettably, are unlikely to be the last. Like others of their ilk, though opposed to paying taxes themselves, the Kions had no compunction about wasting the tax dollars of their fellow Canadians by failing to comply with their obligations under the law and prosecuting nonsensical claims at the administrative level and in the judicial system. Nor did their philosophical underpinnings prevent them from pocketing amounts received for the Child Tax Benefit and the GST Tax Credit.

This judge wasn't the first to point out the obvious contradiction with not paying taxes, but using services and in this case collecting tax benefits and credits. The people in this case (the Kions) were also hit with additional penalties for gross negligence.

And if you want a longer read, here is Warman's assault conviction.

LINK

He of course appealed the decision and lost, but this is a pretty good decision in my opinion because the judge gives Warman every benefit of the doubt and deals with his issues rather than dismissing them as often happens. Often if a judge dismisses a ridiculous argument out of hand, this is cited as further proof that they all know they are wrong but are just afraid to enforce the detaxer's position because of pressure and what have you.

For further reading if you are interested:

A case dissecting the "natural person" argument: LINK

Another "natural person" case where the guy tried to build on the above case with more ridiculous arguments: LINK

Here a guy tried to pay his taxes in Columbian Pesos based on the difference between the one stroke dollar sign ($) and the two stroke dollar sign. Not a classic detaxer argument but along the same lines in terms of logic: LINK

Another pretty comical one: LINK

 

[D'rok]

And if you want a longer read, here is Warman's assault conviction.

LINK

He of course appealed the decision and lost, but this is a pretty good decision in my opinion because the judge gives Warman every benefit of the doubt and deals with his issues rather than dismissing them as often happens. Often if a judge dismisses a ridiculous argument out of hand, this is cited as further proof that they all know they are wrong but are just afraid to enforce the detaxer's position because of pressure and what have you.

I agree. The obiter in that decision is really quite inspiring. He could have just brushed all the freemanism aside and dealt with the main issue (the assault), but he wrote a passionate, yet respectful affirmation of the justness of Canadian society and of our legal system.

 

[D'rok]

Here a guy tried to pay his taxes in Columbian Pesos based on the difference between the one stroke dollar sign ($) and the two stroke dollar sign.

Best. Argument. Ever.

 

[LightinDarkness]

Thanks for posting your experience with this, OP. I think what this shows is that there is a real cost to us all for the Freeman/Anti-Tax woos. Its not only the people who believe in this stuff that end up paying far more in the end than if they simply embraced reality, but there is a cost to deal with all this that all tax payers end up paying for. It, again, reminds me that Freeman on the Land mythology is the perfect answer for the "But what harm could it cause to let them believe?" line of thinking.

As always, I am astounded that anyone could think this would work. Everyone has been at points in their life when they needed money and wanted simple answers...but even at those low points, I just do not understand how Freeman woo becomes attractive. The entire thing is based on the idea that there is a massive, global cabal so evil and so powerful that they can trick us all into believing that we have to obey the law when we really don't...but the vast cabal simply lays down and gives up if we utter the words "strawman" and "I do not consent." If this were true, this vast legal conspiracy cabal is both so powerful and so utterly stupid that we have nothing to worry about from them to begin with.

 

[EldonG]

It is sad that even on a public forum such as this that lawyers resort to the use of the Aristotleian 'Fallacies of Philosophy' to present their opinion, rather than putting up an honest debate on the issues presented on such websites as 'detaxcanada.org'.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

It is sad that even on a public forum such as this that lawyers resort to the use of the Aristotleian 'Fallacies of Philosophy' to present their opinion, rather than putting up an honest debate on the issues presented on such websites as 'detaxcanada.org'.

 

[lionking]

It is sad that even on a public forum such as this that lawyers resort to the use of the Aristotleian 'Fallacies of Philosophy' to present their opinion, rather than putting up an honest debate on the issues presented on such websites as 'detaxcanada.org'.

Go ahead and put your case here. Laughs are always good.

 

[LightinDarkness]

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2010/fall

A look at the "Sovereign Citizen" killers in the US.

 

[D'rok]

It is sad that even on a public forum such as this that lawyers resort to the use of the Aristotleian 'Fallacies of Philosophy' to present their opinion, rather than putting up an honest debate on the issues presented on such websites as 'detaxcanada.org'.

Stick around. Should be fun.

 

[EldonG]

I'd be interested to know if any of these Canadian 'detaxers' (I honestly didn't know there was a Canadian version of this American phenomenon) have used the public health care system at any point.

Go to the detaxcanada website linked by OP, and use the search feature. Search: fairshare, and from there, follow the link to Ruml. You might find this extremely interesting.

 

[KDLarsen]

Here a guy tried to pay his taxes in Columbian Pesos based on the difference between the one stroke dollar sign ($) and the two stroke dollar sign. Not a classic detaxer argument but along the same lines in terms of logic: LINK

I dunno.

In my opinion, it doesn't top the guy who tried to pay a mortgage with Italian Lira (I think it was), based on his interpretation of the mortgage contract