Wealthy Hartland Conservative Business Owner Tries to Freeload Off Hard Working Taxpayers!!

First we had news of a Hartland resident harassing recall Walker petition signers with phone calls in the middle of the night...

...now we have a rich former business owner trying to free load off his neighbors and everybody else in the state by not paying his taxes. And boy, did he try too. I couldn't resist posting this, if just for the outrageous lengths this freeloading conservative went to foist his costs onto everyone else.

jsonline: A retired Hartland businessman who appears to have become an ardent tax protester in 2005 faces up to 15 years in prison after a federal jury found him guilty Thursday of three counts of tax evasion.

James Stuart, 68, claimed income of just $631 for 2005, and didn't even file returns for 2006 and 2007 ... Stuart, president and majority owner of New Age Chemical in Delafield, actually earned more than $900,000 those years and owed more than $200,000 in federal income taxes.

Stuart had filed normal tax returns until 2005, when he stopped, and also began filing amended returns from prior years seeking refunds of all taxes paid. About the same time, he began similar tax battles over his state income tax and Waukesha County property taxes.

He tried to change his status at New Age from employee to consultant, retitled an $80,000 1959 Corvette to his daughter, and took other steps to avoid taxes, according to prosecutors.

In a trial brief, his attorney suggested that Stuart didn't have the required intent to be guilty of tax evasion, because he honestly -- if absurdly -- believed the laws were wrong and didn't apply to him. "Equally, criminal tax laws do not exist to punish 'frank difference of opinion' about tax laws," the brief states, quoting case law. "A 'misunderstanding as to his liability for the tax' does not make a man a criminal 'by his mere failure to measure up to the prescribed standard of conduct.'"

Stuart claimed he was a "sovereign citizen," not subject to IRS jurisdiction, that only silver should be recognized for payments, and silmilar claims.

And if that wasn't enough, this freeloading Republican ungrateful zealot denounced his own government:

In fact, Stuart spent a couple weeks in jail when first arrested because he refused to recognize the authority of the federal court. 

Here are a few comment to this outrageous story of conservative freeloading:

Cappy: Lock him up and throw away the key!! I work hard and pay my taxes because I enjoy living in this great country. Folks who make nearly 1 mil and refuse to pay taxes make me want to puke!

packman53: Waukesha what a surprise. NOT!