| Cheek v. United States |
Supreme Court of the United States Official seal of the Supreme Court of the United States File links The following pages link to this file: Marbury v. ...
| Argued October 3, 1990
Decided January 8, 1991 | | Full case name: | Cheek v. United States | | Citations: | 498 U.S. 192 | | Prior history: | appeal from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals | | Subsequent history: | --- | | | Holding | | --- | | Court membership | | Chief Justice William Rehnquist | | Associate Justices Byron R. White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, David Souter | | | Case opinions | | Majority by: White | | Joined by: Rehnquist, Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy | | Concurrence in the judgment by: Scalia | | Dissent by: Blackmun | | Joined by: Marshall | | Not participating: Souter | | | Laws applied | | --- | Cheek v. United States, 498 U.S. 192 (1991)[1], was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that a tax protester had to be shown to have known that he was violating the obligation to pay taxes on his wages before he could be subject to a criminal penalty for failing to pay. Court citation is a standard system used in common law countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters. ...
1991 (MCMXCI) is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., (large image) The Supreme Court of the United States, located in Washington, D.C., is the highest court (see supreme court) in the United States; that is, it has ultimate judicial authority within the United States...
In United States tax law enforcement, a tax protester (or tax protestor) is an individual who resists or refuses payment of a tax for which the government has determined that person is liable. ...
Facts
The defendant, John L. Cheek, was an airline pilot who for six years had failed to file the tax returns he was required to file. He was tried for tax evasion (Internal Revenue Code section 7201) and willful failure to file a return or pay tax (Internal Revenue Code section 7203). While admitting that he had not filed his returns, he argued that his conduct was not willful. He testified that he did not believe that his wages were taxable income; and that he believed that the income tax was unconstitutional. He was convicted, and appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court based on these defenses. A defendant is any party who is required to answer the complaint of a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit before a court, or any party who has been formally charged or accused of violating a criminal statute. ...
This article contrasts tax evasion, tax avoidance, tax resistance and tax mitigation. ...
A wage is the amount of money paid for some specified quantity of labour. ...
This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...
Issue The Supreme Court was presented with the same question raised individually by each of these defenses: - Is it a defense to fail to obey a law based on the honest belief that said law is unconstitutional?
- Is it a defense to fail to obey a law based on the honest belief that the law was not intended to reach the activities in which the individual was engaged?
Result The Court, in an opinion by Justice White, found that the defendant's belief that the tax laws were unconstitutional was an unreasonable mistake of governing law – not a defense, no matter how honestly held. To the contrary, Cheek's acknowledgement that his failure to file tax returns was based on such a belief was evidence of the willfulness of his crime. However, believing that his wages were not income was an unreasonable mistake of non-governing law – which may be a defense, because the statute required that the violation of the statute must be done willfully in order to be punished. The Court interpreted "willfully" as meaning that the person had knowledge of the law and the purpose to violate the law. Byron Raymond White (June 8, 1917 - April 15, 2002) won fame both as a bruising running back and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ...
The Court then concluded that, because the tax code is so complicated, the defendant could have been in error about what income was taxable, and remanded the case to the trial court to re-try on that issue.
Later developments Some tax protesters have errantly cited this case as "proof" that it is possible to get away with not paying taxes by raising the kind of defense raised by Cheek. This belief fails to appreciate the fact that Cheek was the subject of a criminal prosecution. He was required to repay all of the taxes that he had failed to pay up to that point. Further, the case was remanded and Mr. Cheek was again convicted and sentenced to jail time. The second conviction was upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Cheek, 3 F.3d 1057 (7th Cir. 1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1112 (1994)). The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the following United States district courts: Central, Northern, and Southern Districts of Illinois Northern and Southern Districts of Indiana Eastern and Western Districts of Wisconsin The court is based at the Dirksen...
External link - 498 U.S. 192 (Text of the opinion on Findlaw.com)
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