Someone explain what sovereign means, when it comes to income tax

Factual Questions
1

There is this crazy family here, the Rosenbergs. They have become famous in the past year by falling behind almost half a million in income tax. They lost all of their belongings at auction, including their mansion-like home (this was a well-to-do family). Anyway their argument is that they don’t have to pay taxes because they are “sovereign”. What the heck does that mean? I’m assuming this could be strictly a Canadian question, eh.

2

>> What the heck does that mean?

If they lost their assets it obviously means they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.

3

There is a (mistaken) school of thought that you can declare yourself a sovereign nation and escape the income tax laws. This is very popular among the anti-government, conspiracy-theorist crowd, especially those who aren’t deterred by being wrong.

Supposedly you can go through some legal process and you are no longer a “citizen”, subject to federal (and other laws) but an independent, “sovereign” entity. The one case where this is vaguely true is if you happen to be an Indian reservation – Native Americans lost much of their land, but have never actually ceded their sovereignty. A lot of activities (notably gaming and fireworks) that are illegal here in Washington state are legal on Indian reservations because they are, in some ways, not subject to state law.

Inspired by their Native American brethren, various people have tried to devise methods to do the same for an individual. As is typical, their rationale is rooted in obscure texts and twisted interpretations. Then they try to convince the U.S. Government, specifically the I.R.S. that they have a valid point. The I.R.S., with full support of the courts, have declared unequivocally that no such dodge is possible. You can call yourself whatever you want – but you still have to pay your taxes.

4

Ah, a fellow Manitoban…

I think they meant that they didn’t USE any public services, so why should they pay for them.

It was pretty funny how they were the “good guys” on the news the first 2 days (the kid got a medal stolen or something by repo-men), then the whole story came out and everyone hated them.

5

This dodge is originally from the U.S., but it’s been creeping northward the past year or so.

Here’s a couple of links from RevCan about it:

Court rules against tax protester.

The CCRA warns clients against tax-filing “myths”.