"We are here faced with a case in which the taxpayer did assert his privilege in response to specific questions in the tax return form, but did so on such a wholesale basis as to deny the IRS any useful financial or tax information. Other circuits, faced with similar wholesale assertions of the privilege against self-incrimination, have concluded that a tax return form which contains no information from which tax liability can be calculated does not constitute a tax return within the meaning of the IRS laws. Once these courts determine that the taxpayer has filed no return, simple application of the Sullivan precedent, which states that the Fifth Amendment will never justify a complete failure to file a return, invalidates the Fifth Amendment defense. E. g., United States v. Irwin, 561 F.2d 198, 201 (10th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1012, 98 S.Ct. 725, 54 L.Ed.2d 755 (1978); United States v. Silkman, 543 F.2d 1218, 1219-20 (8th Cir. 1976) (per curiam), cert. denied, 4! 31! U.S. 919, 97 S.Ct. 2185, 53 L.Ed.2d 230 (1977); United States v. Daly, 481 F.2d 28, 30 (8th Cir.) (per curiam), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1064, 94 S.Ct. 571, 38 L.Ed.2d 469 (1973)."
If I follow this, a tax return in which the filer does not disclose financial information specifically on the basis of self-incrimination doctrine has filed a document that does not qualify to be considered a tax return, and since he has not filed a tax return he has invalidated his fifth amendment defense. The difference between this line of reasoning, and the abrogation of the fifth amendment rights in regard to taxation, is difficult to see. It is through such circuitous process, attended by lawyers at toll gates claiming tens of thousands of dollars on every lap through the track, that the Constitution is administrativly eroded. I look forward to the Enron litigation, in which lawyers will show their righteous indignation of accountants who abrogate the rights of investors through circuitous complexity. It should be a genuine pot/kettle show.
