The buried lede is that Ronald Conner is a sovereign citizen. He believes that the government is a corporate sham, that it has no authority to collect taxes and that he is entitled to refuse to do so. How much does he believe this? Enough to sit in a cell for the past 16 months.
Ronald Conner hasn’t been charged with a crime.
He hasn’t been indicted.
He isn’t even accused of breaking the law.
But he is in prison. He has been for 16 months — and he could be there for a lot longer.
This isn’t quite accurate, of course. He’s in a cell because he’s been held in civil contempt for his refusal to respond to an IRS summons and provide required tax information. But since he’s certain that he doesn’t have to, and similarly certain that there is some heroism in “speaking truth to power,” he sits.
Conner is a so-called sovereign citizen and tax protester who owes taxes dating to 2002, court and IRS records show. The Arkansas native learned about the movement online about two years ago and has been receiving legal help from individuals, some of whom have accepted money for their services, his sister said.
Sovereign citizens say that paying taxes is voluntary and that the government is fraudulently trying to hide that from the people. Such arguments do not end well for those who espouse them. But don’t tell Conner that.
People believe all sorts of crazy things, and the allure here is that it allows them to do what they want while wrapping it up in an ideology that justifies their desires, no matter how wrong they may be. Conner owes taxes as far back as 2002, but only discovered sovereign citizenship two years ago. That leaves 16 years of failing to pay taxes unexplained by anything other than he didn’t want to pay, and now seized upon a belief that justifies it. Convenient, right? But now he’s a true believer.
“He’s willing to fight it,” said his sister, Paula Conner, who also has joined the movement. “He said, ‘I won’t give them nothing now that I know the truth.’
“He said, ‘I’ve got nothing to lose.’”
He has plenty to lose, however, as might be apparent from his sitting in a cell tonight as opposed to, well, anywhere else. But for how long? Can this go on forever if he persists in his refusal?
Federal law sets an 18-month limit for civil contempt. Some courts have freed people earlier than that, ruling that confinement must end after it has lost its coercive effect, which is the legal standard. But other courts have made exceptions and allowed people to remain in jail for as many as seven years.
It falls to U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor to decide when Conner might go free. He’s heard legal arguments from both sides and is considering his ruling.
The purpose of civil contempt is coercive: if you refuse to comply with an order of the court, what’s a court to do? The options are limited and the expectation is that a few nights in the pokey will be sufficient to make any reasonable person see that compliance is better than noncompliance. But what happens when it doesn’t work? Whether because the price of jail is worth it, or someone’s belief system is so off that he believes himself a martyr for refusing to comply, the coercive effect doesn’t work.
And if jail isn’t going to attain the outcome of compliance, then the legitimacy of civil contempt ends. But that doesn’t solve the problem, either for the court or society.
Chris Curtis, another public defender, told the judge that any continued confinement would be considered punishment. Curtis said his client “believes very passionately in his position.”
As Conner approaches eighteen months, and remains obstinate, it’s becoming clear that the coercive pressure has failed to get him to cooperate. But as Curtis argues, continued incarceration is then punishment for his failure to comply once there is no expectation that one more night in jail will do the trick. And if it’s punitive rather than coercive, then it can only be justified after he’s been charged with an offense and convicted.
[AUSA Tami] Parker says the U.S. attorney’s office is not contemplating criminal charges against Conner and just wants him to cooperate. She said the civil contempt law would lose its teeth if someone is allowed to ignore a court order.
“No one wants to pay taxes. But they were legally assessed,” Parker said.
If the government isn’t prepared to charge and prosecute Conner for a tax offense, but “just wants him to cooperate,” and civil contempt isn’t doing the trick, then it appears the government has made its choice much like Conner has. While Conner could get out whenever he pleases, simply by complying, the government can keep him in if it obtains a conviction for an offense.
None of this solves the problem that a guy who believes in some wacky crap gets to skate on paying taxes. As Parker says, “no one wants to pay taxes,” but most of us do nonetheless. And when some people who are obliged to pay taxes don’t, like Conner, it means that the rest of us make up the shortfall.
If the government won’t prosecute him, and he won’t pay, and jailing him won’t work, then what becomes of this situation? Does Conner get released, because he can’t be held forever when its punishment without a conviction, and never have to pay taxes again? After all, if he didn’t pay since 2002, and they’re not going to prosecute him, why pay in the future? And if you’re a fellow sovereign citizen, this story proves that you’re right and refusing to acquiesce means victory.
In similar cases, sovereigns who have refused to pay federal taxes have been prosecuted and sent to prison. The maximum penalty for tax evasion is five years. Offenders can also be charged with fraud and making false claims.
Blaming Conner for believing in a ridiculous and crazy ideology may be satisfying, because the whole movement is completely bonkers, but society doesn’t function based on whatever sincerely held false beliefs are held by its craziest members. If the government wants to keep Conner incarcerated, it has the weapons to do so. It’s the United States Attorney’s job to enforce the laws, the actual laws, rather than Conner’s to not be crazy and willingly comply. If the government doesn’t want to do its job, then the time has come to stop taking it out on Conner. It’s not his fault he’s nuts.
“because the whole movement is completely bonkers”
Hard to tell without any arguments put forward with some evidence both ways.
The Govt can always hold you, they have the guns, and they break their own laws often enough now.
From what I’ve read the Govt (meaning the Courts) refuse to rule on the most interesting parts of the tax arguments put up by the Sovereign movement. Maybe they are right and the rest of the population are just fools happy to believe in a collective delusion.
Whenever I write a post that mentions “sovereign citizens,” I ponder two questions:
1. Who will be the first regular commenter to step forward to suggest there is any legitimacy to this absolutely insanely wrong and baseless load of crap and reveal himself to be a closet nutjob?
2. How long before word gets out to the lunatic asylum and they show up to argue their ideology, meaning that I have to trash every comment that’s completely batshit crazy and utterly wrong because there is no argument whatsoever as to any legitimacy to their beliefs?
It’s not as much fun as one might think to realize just how crazy people have internet access.
The government has ruled, repeatedly, on virtually every tax protester opinion. Most up to the Supreme Court (at least to deny cert). The IRS even publishes an annually updated guidance on these arguments called “The Truth About Frivolous Tax Arguments.”
Guys like this are why I’m glad Enrolled Agents don’t have to represent tax clients in Court.
As a further FYI – the court has a lot of mechanisms other than jail to get money out of the guy – the IRS is just lazy when it has to do all the work of determining the amounts.
Who doesn’t love a jeopardy assessment, amirite? But we’re talking here about incarceration, not collections.
Robert Heinlein.
“Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.”
Maybe you should add a fringe to your website.
Or change the pink button on the sidebar to take people to a UCC 1-308.
It didn’t work when Wesley Snipes tried it, and it won’t work for this guy.
As far as the legitimacy of the arguments of the various sovereign citizen movements goes, KP, if our host permits, I’ll leave a link to Meads v. Meads, a 2012 opinion from an appellate court in Alberta, Canada goes into exhaustive detail on the various movements, their typical pseudolegal arguments, and why they are not worthy of consideration. With appendices, it tips the scales at around 200 pages (if he doesn’t permit, there should be enough info here to find it your own self).
https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012/2012abqb571/2012abqb571.html
Beyond the rule violation by your including a link (from Canada, no less), you might have considered using the reply button. I’m disinclined to promote the idea that any of this should be taken seriously enough to even waste a byte on refuting. But then, who cares what I think if you feel it’s worthwhile to link to a 200 page decision, because doesn’t your notion of what should appear here matter far, far more than mine?
Another day older, and deeper in debt.
That was quick.
I loved Ernie as a kid. And that song factored into my decision to play clarinet. That sound. Oh, lordy, that sound.
I always thought the guys who played clarinet did it for the chicks.
Q: Why is a bassoon better than a clarinet?
A: It burns longer.
Eh, I grew up on the Foggy River Boys version.
And the Federal Reserve Bank is not a real bank. It’s a federal government Ponzi scheme of the highest order. They manufacture dollars out of thin air, which causes inflation of real assets. Think “real estate”, which is not real if you don’t have title. If you do have title, they raise your property taxes beyond your (fixed income) ability to pay. That forces you into foreclosure, bankruptcy and ultimately homelessness.
Yea, Amerika would be a great country if we had not lost our bearings in the real world of macroeconomics and high finance. Did I hear someone say 9 trillion dollar account deficit? Oh hi, George Soros. Have you paid ALL your taxes?
We think Conners is a brave man, and you are the one who is batshit crazy for your inability to see his arguments. You dismiss them outright and then call him names. You are sounding a lot like the Prez. The country’s independence was based on resistance to taxation without representation by the Paul Revered so-called revolotionaries of your. (Or so we were taught in school.)
Conners is expressing his right not to pay taxes, an honored tradition practiced by many, whether they confess or not. How many millions did Trump and family beat the IRS out of? Just because he corralled an army of accountants and lawyers, does not make it right.
But look who’s in prison? Not the Prez.
Finally, “only the little people pay taxes,… And go to prison if they don’t. Leona “The Lioness” Helmsley lives! (She did go to prison, for the record. The anomaly which proves the rule is mindboggling.)
We don’t think the IRS needs Conner’s paltry taxes. It’s nothing but busywork for flunky functionaries who would never make it in the private sector no way, no how.
Free Conners now: Incarceration without representation, or compensation. Case closed. The only fair tax is a voluntary one indeed. The Rule of Palmer applies: We try to cheat; you try to catch us. Not liking the IRS is no reason to put a man in prison. Trust it.
Have you considered starting a change.org petition, Bill? I’m sure it would be huge.
Yeah, that’s not actually a right he has.
Sure he does, I don’t believe people in prison pay much in the way of taxes. Not the tax strategy I would prefer or recommend, but it is available if you choose.
On the contrary, LY, if he has assets, they can and will be seized to pay his assessments. While his prison earnings may fall short, never make the mistake of thinking that the IRS lacks the power to squeeze every bit of blood out of any rock they can find.
As a former federal agent, my question is what the heck is wrong with the local IRS office that they haven’t completed a criminal investigation on this guy? You’d think it would be a slam dunk–the kind of case my old office would assign to a “baby agent” to get them some experience. Whenever I see stories of federal law enforcement offices not doing their jobs, it always makes me wonder what the problem is.
I apologize for the rule violation, and for not directly replying to KP.
I agree that none of it should be taken seriously. The idea that legal and pseudolegal arguments can be used to essentially exempt oneself from the legal system altogether is ridiculous on its face.
The Meads opinion, though it is from America’s hat, details the common language and approaches taken by the various sovereign citizen type movements in their various pleadings, in both the US and Canada.
I represent debtors (almost exclusively) in Arkansas, and don’t have any specific knowledge about this case. But I have seen several sovereign citizens and members of other similar movements cause serious problems for themselves in the course of their bankruptcy cases due to their unshakable belief in their own righteousness. I have also, in the course of reviewing potential-client provided documents and documents in the public record, been able to recognize from the language used by the clients in preparing those documents that they are members of those movements and have declined to represent them.
Had I not known the hallmarks of sovereign citizen-type pleadings, I likely would have thought it was just some random pro se filing and the potential client had tried to gussy up the language to make it sound lawyerly, and I would have become entangled in an attorney-client relationship that would not have gone well at all.
And now I’ll apologize again, this time for rambling on about my own topic and bankruptcy instead of sticking to the topic at hand.
Thanks, WFG. Appreciate your understanding about everything other than the reply button. 😉
Perhaps someone said leave him in jail for 18 months, then we’ll charge him. Which brings up the notion (notion?) of prosecution misconduct?
Would that be misconduct?
Perhaps someone said that, except that the AUSA has said they don’t intend to charge him.
So, he’ll get out, and with no criminal case, they’ll simply go after him through the administrative tax system. He’ll get an estimated assessment for every year he didn’t pay, and it will be his burden to prove any error. Once the assessments become final (i.e., survive challenge, or are not timely challenged), he will be passed off to the collection system. Whatever he owns or earns, they will seize, and they will make his life a living Hell to the extent that his non-confinement will become irrelevant.