A Westminster man has been barred by a federal judge from running a scheme in which he promised to help members avoid paying federal taxes, the U.S. Department of Justice announced today. The "Save-A-Patriot Fellowship" run by John Baptist Kotmair Jr. falsely advised that clients didn't have to pay taxes and could legally withdraw from the Social Security system, U.S. District Judge William Nickerson said in his ruling. Despite legal action by the U.S. Justice Department, Kotmair's organization continued to file frivolous protest letters with the Internal Revenue Service on behalf of more than 800 clients and showed "no inclination ... to cease their activities," Nickerson noted.
Nickerson's order, issued last week, permanently bars Kotmair and his organization from representing or assisting anyone in corresponding with the IRS, or preparing court filings relating to income taxes. Kotmair and his organization must also notify all individuals involved in the scheme of the injunction and provide the Justice Department with the names of the customers, their e-mail addresses and telephone and Social Security numbers.
The injunction also must be posted prominently on the organization's Web sites for a year, and fraudulent promotional materials must be removed from the sites.
Poster Comment:
Kotmair's defense and taxation arguments were inane to put it charitably. His website (where he's to post the injunction) is at http://save-a-patriot.org/
Stupid tax-protestors and their schemes just muddy the water for legitimate tax-protest arguments. Kotmair, Schiff, Schultz, Rose all will become boilerplate examples of tax schemes which will be used unfairly to broad-brush and defeat otherwise legitimate arguments, rasing the cost and complexity to properly take on the IRS.
I cite Joe Banister as an example of how to do it right, intelligently, and the above tax schemes just make it difficult if not impossible for people like Banister to prevail honestly on the merits.