IRWIN A. SCHIFF
444 E. Sahara Ave Las Vegas, Nevada  89104

702-385-6920 Fax 702-385-6917
e-mail ischiff@earthlink.com
Web site: paynoincometax.com

To: Mr. Dan Niemi
New York Times 
June 17, 2003

In his article about me that appears in today’s “Times” entitled “Judge Tells Tax Advisor to Stop Selling Book’ David Cay Johnston made two damaging statements about me that he knew were false.  He stated in his article, “At the court hearing, Mr. Schiff fired his lawyer after she said that she could not argue his tax claims because they lacked merit.”  That is not what she said at all.  Her exact words as shown on pages 24 and 25 of the trial transcript were: 

As the court knows, his theories have, in fact, been sanctioned by the courts and I stand in the position of trying to defend a client on his material matters and also running the risk of having the court sanction me for doing so and, at this point, I do not want to incur the many thousands of dollars that the court could put on my head for even arguing his theories, because that’s what the courts are doing.  They are sanctioning people in gross amounts for arguing his theories and therefore I ask the court to allow Irwin Schiff to represent himself with respect to his theories.

          So my attorney never said my “claims…lacked merit,” but that she ran the risk of being sanctioned (even if they had merit), because the courts – whose decisions she is bound to uphold – have sanctioned others for making these arguments.  Naturally, my position is that courts are enforcing the income taxes in violation of the law and the Constitution, which is what my books prove, and is why the government wants to ban them. 

            Further on in the transcript my attorney asks the court: “May he represent himself with respect to his theories?” And the court answers: “Does the government have any objection to—” Mr. Davis, the U.S. attorney, states: “Well, I object to having both an attorney represent someone and having them represent themselves.” So, since the government raised this objection and not wanting to waste any more time, I simply fired my attorney. So the firing of my attorney had nothing to do with the merits of my beliefs.

            Also in his article Mr. Johnston writes “In addition to the many Schiff clients who have lost civil cases after following his tax advise, a California chiropractor was sent to prison in 1999 for filing returns that listed no income.  Mr. Schiff, in interviews earlier this year and last year, said he was not responsible for the conviction of the chiropractor, because Dr. Dentice did not follow his advise precisely.”

This is not what occurred at all nor is it what I told Mr. Johnston.   Dr. Dentice did not file “returns that listed no income” as Mr. Johnston reports.  Dr. Dentice filed traditional returns listing substantial amounts of income and the government was about to (illegally) charge him with tax evasion for a number of years. So to prevent his illegal prosecution, I suggested he immediately amend those returns, since he did not have “income” in the “Constitutional sense” which is what Congress held “income,” in the 1954 Code, to mean. (See footnote 11 of the Supreme Court decision, Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass, 348 U.S. 426).

However Dr. Dentice did not amend those returns until after he was indicted for tax evasion.  And he lost the case because he had ineffective counsel, who did not even notice that the judge in the case declared him innocent just before she sentenced him.

You’ll be able to read all about this unusual occurrence – which Mr. Johnston knew about - in my next book.  In addition Mr. Johnston did not confirm these quotations, or even raise them, when I spoke to him yesterday in connection with his story. And while reporting on the alleged “lost civil cases” he fails to mention the millions of dollars in refund checks people received as a result of using the information in my books.  And if the information in my books were false, why hasn’t the government prosecuted me for tax evasion (or consumer or mail fraud?) since I reported “zero” income in all the tax returns I have filed over the last 14 years?      

The reason that David K Johnston always distorts and misrepresents the facts when he “reports” on the income tax is because he is an unrepentant socialist, who must protect the tax that supports all of those socialistic programs he is in favor of.  In addition, I have, on numerous occasions, offered to pay Mr. Johnston $5,000 if he would merely identify in one of his columns the statute that makes Americans “liable” for income taxes.  There are numerous such statutes in the IR Code in connection with other federal taxes, so why doesn’t he do it?  Apparently Jayson Blair was not or was not the only “Times” reporter who reports fiction as fact. 

            I expect a prominent retraction of these false statements that appeared in Mr. Johnston’s article, which should be prominent enough so they will be picked up in those papers in which his article was syndicated.

Irwin Schiff