Originally published on Forbes.com.
Here is a little tax tip. If you owe money to the IRS, do not send your check to Department of the Treasury – Internal Revenue Service, 3338 Gypsum Rd, Reno, NV. That particular entity is a registered domestic corporation in the state of Nevada. Its president is Peter Tolotti. Brant Honkanen is the Treasurer and AR Salman is the Secretary. The all “live at” PO Box 10351 Reno NV.
To be fair, I did not find any indication that the principals of DT-IRS were trying to persuade people to send money to them in Reno rather than to the Internal Revenue Service PO Box 7704 San Francisco, CA. As a matter of fact, it is not at all clear what they are up to. Whatever it is the government wants them to stop and the United States District Court of Nevada issued a decision last week that might put an end to it.
Why It Is Bad To Use The Department Of Treasury Name
There is actually a statute that forbids people from using the names and symbols of the Department of the Treasury.
…. no person may use “the words ‘Department of the Treasury,’ or the name of any service, bureau, office, or other subdivision of the Department of the Treasury” in connection with “any advertisement, solicitation, business activity, or product” in a manner which could be reasonably construed as conveying “the false impression that such advertisement, solicitation, business activity, or product is in any manner approved, endorsed, sponsored, or authorized by, or associated with” the Department of the Treasury.Id . Here, Tolotti registered a business entity by the name of “Department of the Treasury – Internal Revenue Service.”
And there is a reason for that.
As the United States has noted, a law firm has already mistakenly assumed that service of its pleadings on Tolotti was proper notice to the Internal Revenue Service, and a pro se plaintiff has used Tolotti’s entity filing as support for her allegation that the Internal Revenue Service is not a United States governmental entity.
I find the one about the law firm considering that they had served the IRS kind of hilarious. I suspect the lawyers and their client were less amused.
Court Goes With IRS – The Real One
The Court, as you would expect went with the IRS.
Emil Peter Tolotti is permanently enjoined from using, listing, or posting, in connection with or as part of any advertisement, solicitation,business activity, or product, the words “Department of the Treasury” or “Internal Revenue Service,” including, but not limited to, permanently enjoining Defendant Tolotti and his agents or others from using or listing said names in reference to, or in connection with, his Domestic Corporation, Entity Number C 15802-1994 or any other entity granted or created by him, including under Tolotti’s Nevada Business ID: NV 19941107841 and including Tolotti listing or holding himself out as Noncommercial Registered Agent, or Registered Agent, for said names at issue in this case.
So that’s that, which brings us to the interesting part. How long was there a Nevada corporation called – Department of Treasury – Internal Revenue Service? Over 20 years. DT-IRS was formed in 1994. As far as I can tell, it has not been wreaking havoc during that time. Early on AR Salman sued the actual IRS for using its name, which thanks to the registration he owned. He was looking for $900,000. What he got instead was a ruling that he was a “vexatious litigant”. That particular case was not Salman’s first tax protester rodeo.
Still Don’t Know What They Were Up To
Dan Evans follows the tax protester community and has prepared a really good FAQ on tax protester arguments. In 1998 somebody who noticed the existence of DT-IRS asked what the point of it was. Dan’s response was:
Probably nothing. One of the “officers,” A.R. Salman is a well-known tax protester who has claimed several times in various legal actions that the IRS is not an agency of the federal government, and has lost every time (of course). He was finally enjoined against filing any additional actions against the IRS without advance approval of the courts (an extraordinary order, which only happens when the courts get really, really, really tired of someone wasting their time with nonsense).
The corporation was probably set up for the same reason people sometimes put T-shirts or funny hats on statues in the park, just as a joke, a kind of mild legal vandalism, with no useful purpose.
The last trace I can find of AR Salman is a 2005 decision in which he made arguments that remind me of Kent Hovind’s sometime trustee and sometime codefendant Paul John Hansen.
…Mr. Salman alleged that those officials had violated his rights under the Nevada Constitution, Nevada statutes and the United States Constitution. Specifically, Mr. Salman asserted that the United States does not have exclusive control over the property on which the federal district courthouse sits…..
Check Before You Mail
The moral here is probably that if you need to mail something to the IRS, you probably should get the particular address you need from irs.gov. Also, somebody having a registered corporation should not be viewed as enhancing their credibility.