Tue, Mar 09, 2004
Another Black Eye For Aviation?
As if the aviation biz
didn't have enough embarrassment to deal with... The owner of an
aviation equipment supplier that has been waging something of a war
with the IRS has become the subject of an arrest warrant. Cencal
Aviation Products, of Shasta Lake, CA President Al Thompson failed
to appear for a hearing in which he was allegedly supposed to
explain why he has failed to pay $500,000 in back taxes from that
business. When he failed to appear on Friday, Federal Judge Frank
C. Damrell Jr. of the United States District Court issued the
warrant for Thompson's arrest.
Thompson has been in trouble with the government for quite a
while. He has been an outspoken critic of the IRS and other
government agencies, engaging in some pretty harsh rhetoric that
seems to assert that the government doesn't have the right to levy
the taxes he contests. According to published reports and some of
Thompson's own statements, the government's documentation is
rendered unusable by virtue of the fact that most names on Federal
documents are printed in all capital letters. Thompson alleges that
"any warrant, court document or order" must capitalize only the
first letter in such words and that the government's putting his
name all in capitals makes any court order "null and void."
Using this argument,
and others, that he and a small group of tax protesters have
promoted; Al Thompson (57), has reportedly not withheld employee
income taxes for nearly four years and has not paid personal income
taxes for nearly five years, according to published reports from
Federal officials.
ANN spoke with Cencal's Tim Thompson, who confirmed that Al
Thompson was still the President of Cencal, and that the company
was still not withholding taxes from its employees. "They're all
independent contractors," explained Tim Thompson, but when pressed
for more details, he responded that we'd "have to talk to Al about
that."
Thompson's fight is not going well. He served a short time in
jail in 2002 for failure to produce employee records. Last
September, Judge Damrell ordered Thompson to start withholding
taxes again and gave him only 30 days to repay the income taxes,
FICA and unemployment taxes he still owes. Two months later,
Damrell fined Thompson $2,000 while also ordering him to cease
filing legal motions that were "devoid of merit and utterly
frivolous." Thompson (and his wife) were again fined by the
government to the tune of $2000 last month.
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