Protest or evasion?

Great news today from the Legal realm of Canada, too bad the corporate media whores aren't reporting on it. Thankfully CBC must cover the Supreme Court,but they didn't do a good job this time. CBC Failed to go into detail on the final verdict. On the plus side it did make it into Main Stream Media for a day and I bet that it will disappear tomorrow.I went to the Supreme Court of Canada website and others to get more information on the case and found some legalese....

Jack Klundert

v. (30578)

Her Majesty the Queen (Ont.)

NATURE OF THE CASE

Taxation - Statutes - Assessment - Interpretation - Whether the Court of Appeal erred in law by removing the burden of proof of intent from the Crown in s. 239 of the Income Tax Act, R.S.C. 1985, c.1 (5th Supp.) - Whether the law on the level of mens rea in regard to section 239 under the Income Tax Act is sufficiently settled since R. v. Paveley (1976), 30 C.C.C. (2d) 483 (Sask. CA.) - Whether an honest, but mistaken, belief about invalidity should have a different effect than a mistaken belief about applicability of the Income Tax Act - Whether a belief of invalidity or applicability, if honestly held and proven so to the satisfaction of a jury, should have the same effect on state of mind no matter how arrived at - Whether the Court of Appeal confused reasonableness of the belief of the accused and availability of alternate legal remedies with the necessary intent, thereby setting-up a reasonableness test of a belief imposing a burden of proof upon the accused, which at criminal law can never be imposed in a complex statute like the Income Tax Act where the issue is knowing by making a false statement.

I'm a little rusty when it comes to translating legalese into common English, the basic idea is that some guy didn't want to give his hard earned money to a bunch of thieves in Ottawa and got charged with tax evasion then appeal it, which cause it to go in front the supreme court . In the appeal this man states that he doesn't believe the federal government has the constitutional right to collect income tax. Some people agree and other cases have been in the courts but never made it to the supreme court.


Just in case the CBC report gets removed from cbc.ca I'm going to copy/paste it to this site

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/06/27/taxes27062006.html

Jack Klundert of Windsor, Ont., has won a court case in which he was charged with refusing to pay about $350,000 in taxes.

Klundert, who says he doesn't believe the federal government has the constitutional right to collect income tax, was found not guilty of tax evasion.

Klundert accumulated a $350,000 tax bill between 1993 and 1998. When it came time to file his taxes he wrote "zero income" on his tax forms, when he in fact he earned about $1.5 million.

Klundert argued that disclosing his earnings to the government would be like "sitting down with thieves" and telling them where his valuables were.

Klundert said his actions did not constitute tax evasion, but were instead an honest protest.

His lawyer said the jury apparently agreed there was no criminal intent.

Hope it creates a precedent.Giving the people of Canada another way to protest against government abuses . Which could allow the citizens of Canada to have more of a say in where their money is spent. It would wise for people to become independent contractors and avoid the greedy hands of the government.

The words of the day "under-the-table"