Things are moving in the Lawson world, a trial date is finally set, so it's time to give them another look based on some background material I've found. I recently spent part of an afternoon at the criminal records section of the Supreme Court of British Columbia digging for information on the Lawsons and got a copy of their original indictment. So let's see what's in it.
Count 1
Keith David LAWSON (note, all caps! He tried to use that as an out as explained in the first posting in this discussion), at or near the City of Burnaby in the Province of British Columbia (another note - obviously Burnaby49's home town. Figure out for yourself what the 49 means), and elsewhere, between April 15, 2002 and August 26, 2010, did counsel various persons to commit the indictable offense of fraud in excess of five thousand dollars, contrary to section 380 of the Criminal Code and did thereby commit an offense contrary to section 464(a) of the Criminal Code.
This is the charge dealing with his purported activities as a Poriskyite promoter. Next is this, straight up income tax evasion;
Count 2
Keith David LAWSON, of the City of Burnaby, Province of British Columbia, between December 31, 2003 and May 1, 2009, did wilfully evade or attempt to evade payment of taxes imposed by the Income Tax Act in the amount of $46,176.20 for failing to report his taxable income in the amount of $213,213.13 for the 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, and 2008 taxation years and dif thereby commit an offense contrary to section 239(1)(d) of the said Act.
There are two more charges, one for making false or deceptive statements in his 2008 income tax return and understating his taxable income by $12,759 and a second for failing to remit $12,223 in goods and Services taxes between 2005 and 2009.
Now May's turn;
Count 6
May DANG-LAWSON, of the city of Burnaby, Province of British Columbia, between May 30, 2005 and May 1, 2008 did make, or participate in, assent to or acquiesce in. the making of false or deceptive statement in her T1 Individual Tax Return for the 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 taxation years, filed as a requirement by the Income Tax Act, by falsely claiming spousal amounts of $31,337.00 for her husband as a dependant, and did thereby commit an offense contrary to section 239(1)a of the said act.
There is another charge for her, essentially the same as above with an added $5,932 of evaded payments under section 239(1)(b) of the Income Tax Act.
Their joint charges are a good illustration of how the brilliant Porisky revelations, claimed to be the result of a rigorous legal analysis of Canadian income tax law, were really nothing but a shabby facade for criminal income tax evasion. Unfortunately this means it's time for another explanation of the rationale of the Porisky scheme (I know, well ploughed ground, but bear with me). Porisky said we Canadians don't have to pay income tax because each of us are, in law, two people, the natural man and the legal man. Legal man earns the income and is taxable on it. But instead of doing that he is entitled to pass all the money on to the natural man who isn't taxable and can do what he wants with it since the other guy owes the tax. While the natural man has no income tax obligations he is still entitled to the full benefits of government, pensions, tax credits, free medical care, whatever. Who can argue with the pure logic of that?
But how to take advantage of this knowledge? The options are drastically different depending on whether you are an employee or self employed. Let's assume I'm a Porisky true believer but employed by someone else (as I was when I was a CRA employee) then income tax is taken off my paycheck before I can get my hands on it so I can't just stop paying it. If I want it back my only option is to appeal my assessment and fight it out in Tax Court on the merits of Porisky's analysis of the Income Tax Act. Not a practical solution because I know I'll lose, exactly as the Kions did;
Oh, Canada
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=5828
To quote the court;
Like others of their ilk, though opposed to paying taxes themselves, the Kions had no compunction about wasting the tax dollars of their fellow Canadians by failing to comply with their obligations under the law and prosecuting nonsensical claims at the administrative level and in the judicial system. Nor did their philosophical underpinnings prevent them from pocketing amounts received for the Child Tax Benefit and the GST Tax Credit.
So, not surprisingly, Poriskyites who are not self-employed have been very reluctant to take this path.
However a self-employed individual can take either of two directions, one legal, one not. Assume I'm self-employed making say $50,000 a year and want to take the legal route. I tell the CRA about my gross income in my income tax return but don't declare any taxable income or pay any tax. All reported fair and square. If the CRA starts pestering me about the tax I just have to tell them "The legal person earned it, go pester him about the tax. And keep away from that bank account where the money was deposited; it belongs to me, the natural person." Unfortunately the CRA, not being versed in the deeper truths of income tax laws as revealed by Porisky, isn't going to accept that. They are going to come after the natural man and his assets; suddenly the natural man Burnaby49 finds himself facing CRA collection action for the taxes owed by that deadbeat legal man Burnaby49 who is refusing to pay his fair share of taxes. The only way that natural man Burnaby49 can stop this is to do what any employee can do, appeal the assessment and take my Porisky arguments to the Tax Court of Canada.
The other direction that I can take as a self-employed person is the criminal one, just don't tell the CRA about my income. Since I sincerely believe I'm not taxable why bother with all the bookkeeping and hassle of the CRA coming after me? So it is no coincidence that all of the Poriskyites charged with tax evasion have been self employed. Being a cold unfeeling ex CRA auditor I'm cynical about their motives for hiding their income. In my opinion their non-payment of income tax wasn't because of a misguided but sincere belief that Porisky was right; they didn't pay because they were actively and deliberately evading their income tax obligations and they just using Porisky's bullshit as a superficial gloss to justify their criminal behavior if the CRA ever went after them.
Which brings us to the Lawsons. Keith has been charged with being a promoter and evading tax on the money he made from that activity. All of this everyday standard tax evasion of not reporting income, just like the guy that put in your kitchen cabinets or drywalled your basement. But his wife isn't in a situation where she can do this. While she has a good job (discussed below) she's an employee so taxes are taken off at source. If she wanted them back she had to reveal herself as a Poriskyite and fight her beliefs in Tax Court.
Rather than take this route the indictment claims she worked with what she had, a purportedly deadbeat husband she had to support since he wasn't making any income. So while Keith made (so the CRA says) an undeclared quarter of a million over a seven year period, his wife claimed him as a dependant who earned nothing. The taxes she's accused of stealing by these deductions were pocket change in the overall scheme of things, just shabby small-time grifting, but enough to have her hit with criminal tax evasion charges. Keep in mind that these are all just unproven charges but, if she's convicted, think of the greed and risk involved. It wasn't enough that Keith was counseling tax evasion and avoiding tax on a pile of money he got by doing this; May had to have her share too and evaded, maybe, fifteen thousand or so in tax by her false deductions.
So what does May Dang-Lawson do for a living? She's a microbiologist who, for almost twenty years, has been managing a lab at the University of British Columbia!
https://www.microbiology.ubc.ca/researc ... ld/members
and helping produce things like this;
Tse, K.W.K., K.B.L. Lin, M. Dang-Lawson, A. Guzman-Perez, G.E. Aspnes, L. Buckbinder, and M.R. Gold, Small molecule inhibitors of the Pyk2 and FAK kinases modulate chemoattractant-induced migration, adhesion and Akt activation in follicular and marginal zone B cells (2012) Cell. Immunol. 275: 47-54.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22507871
Tse KW, Dang-Lawson M, Lee RL, Vong D, Bulic A, Buckbinder L, Gold MR.(2009) B cell receptor-induced phosphorylation of Pyk2 and focal adhesion kinase involves integrins and the Rap GTPases and is required for B cell spreading. J Biol Chem. 2009 Aug 21;284(34):22865-77.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19561089
Lin, K.B.L., S.A. Freeman, S. Zabetian, H. Brugger, M. Weber, V. Lei, M. Dang-Lawson, K.W.K. Tse, R. Santamaria, F.D. Batista, and M.R. Gold (2008) The Rap GTPases regulate B cell morphology, immune synapse formation, and signaling by particulate B cell ligands, Immunity 28: 75-87. Cover photo. Reviewed in Nature Rev. Immunol. 8: 168, 2008
Pub Med
And here's a blurb on her employer;
Welcome to the Gold Lab in the LSC
Where we are:
The Gold lab is a member of the Immunology and Microbiology Department at the University of British Columbia located in the Life Sciences Centre, Vancouver BC.
What we do:
The lab focuses on understanding cell signaling, morphology, trafficking, and effector function of immune cells and tumour cells. We focus on the small GTPase Rap1 which has been shown to regulate many of these biological processes. Our latest work focuses on the the interplay between receptor signaling and cytoskeletal dynamics. For more detailed information about our research projects, click here.
Not, on the face of it, a person who would be involved in nickel and dime tax evasion but that is what the Crown has charged her with.
She has also had a little problem with constructing buildings without getting a building permit.
https://tnrd.civicweb.net/document/5226 ... 671FA2D862
So, with that as a background, on to the jurisprudence to date. Mostly already covered but this properly sequences it In order of the hearing dates;
Lawson v. Canada (National Revenue), 2011 FC 529
R. v. Lawson, 2012 BCSC 356
Lawson v. Canada (National Revenue), 2012 FCA 77
Lawson v. Canada (National Revenue), 2011 FC 529
In this one our hero is identified as "KEITH DAVID LAWSON, A NATURAL PERSON", not that it gains him any traction. He wanted to file an amended notice of application to use it for a collateral attack but he was denied. so this is his first appeal from that denial;
REASONS FOR ORDER AND ORDER
[1] The applicant’s appeal, pursuant to Rule 51 of the Federal Courts Rules, of the order of Prothonotary Lafrenière dated March 29, 2011, denying his motion to amend his notice of application is dismissed, as upon either a de novo review or a more deferential review of the Prothonotary’s discretion, the order is obviously correct.
[2] First, the sought amendments constitute a collateral attack on the applicant’s potential tax liabilities and search warrants issued by the BC Provincial Court which fall outside this Court’s jurisdiction.
[3] Second, the applicant challenges primarily administrative and investigatory steps of government officials that are not capable of being judicially reviewed.
[4] Third, the applicant’s allegations respecting the Minister’s application for a search warrant under the Criminal Code versus the Income Tax Act (or the Excise Tax Act) have no chance of success (see R v Multiform Manufacturing Co, 1990 CanLII 79 (SCC), [1990] 2 SCR 624; and R v Grant, reflex, [1993] 3 SCR 233 at paras. 40-43).
[5] Fourth, it is clear, therefore, that the proposed amendments would not facilitate the determination of the real questions in controversy between the parties, and would not serve the interests of justice.
[6] Consequently, the applicant’s motion will be dismissed with costs in an amount fixed at $750
R. v. Lawson, 2012 BCSC 356
This decision is thoroughly reviewed in the first posting in this discussion. They tried to get the charges quashed because of the wording in the indictment isn't in accord with a style manual and their position that Burnaby doesn't really exist. One point of interest I didn't specifically note was that Keith was representing both himself and his wife in this hearing. So he's going into serious criminal charges self-represented and his wife seemed to have faith in his legal abilities.
Also, like Sigglekow's failed defense;
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=9894
He claimed that his, and his wife's purported fraudulent acts shouldn't be subject to criminal fraud charges. Just a minor issue of income tax interpretation that is best decided at the Tax Court of Canada, a civil court. Well they had that option and chose instead to go the fraud route so, tough.
Lawson v. Canada (National Revenue), 2012 FCA 77
I covered this in my March 16, 2012 posting. Larson, now back to be a "Natural Man" in the decision, was still trying to get that darned amended notice of application approved. Denied.
His wife wasn't included in this one so maybe she's getting independent legal advice. She needs it. Keith is coming up with nothing but stale shopworn doomed arguments that aren't going to get him an acquittal at trial. Speaking of which the Lawsons are currently slated for trial in Vancouver from March 9 to April 10, 2015. I'm not going to sit through that entire marathon but I'll check it out and report back.