A Dollar is a Dollar, Metal or Paper

A Nevada jury acquits or hangs in a multi-defendant trial pivoting largely around whether you owe taxes based on the market value or merely face value of gold and silver money actually coined by the U.S. of A.

See details at this Las Vegas Review Journal article or this We the People Foundation press release. An excerpt from the article:

The Internal Revenue Service had never before provided guidance on how to handle gold and silver coins that circulate, only on noncirculating collectible coins, according to [defense attorney Michael] Kennedy, who is a federal public defender. "If that's the case, we're not going to take someone's liberty from them, on something that a (certified public accountant) with a master's degree doesn't even know. That's a scary country, and I don't live in that country."

The DOJ's press release on the original indictment. Some of the defendants may be tried again.

The case does not represent any major long-term victory for those who argue that we don't owe no income tax nohow, though some in that movement think so, even though some of the charges relate to failure to collect or pay income taxes on the part of employers and employees. It's just a particular decision a particular jury came to. See my 2004 reason feature on such income-tax theorists and activists.