See Michael Bowman explain his legal defense for not paying income taxes:
A case brought by the IRS against an Oregon man who has not filed his taxes since 1999 because of his Christian beliefs about abortion ended with a mistrial.
After deliberating for 11 hours, a federal jury was unable to come to a verdict on Friday in the case of Michael Bowman of Columbia City, Oregon, KGW-TV in Portland reported.
Bowman's attorney, Matthew Schindler, argued that the IRS took no action against his client for nearly 20 years, leading him to believe the agency made an exception for his religious beliefs.
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"The problem is, is when you don’t enforce the law then someone who takes that kind of principle position starts to believe, I’m right, I’m right, I’m doing this the right way, and what I’ve said is correct, and otherwise the IRS would do something," Schindler said.
Bowman faced misdemeanor charges for willful failure to file a return. The initial charge of felony tax evasion was thrown out for lack of evidence.
The self-employed computer software developer argued the law is "unfair to Christians that actually care about their fellow human beings."
"It's unfair when it impacts their conscience," he said, according to KGW. "We don't force people to do what we think and the very definition of freedom is, we all should be free to do what we want to do, as long as it's not attacking other people, and they're definitely attacking us."
Bowman, who owes at least $800,000 in back taxes, could be fined an additional $25,000 and face jail time if convicted.
Because of the mistrial, however, the government must refile charges against him.
Schindler said the government wants "to make sure that everyone knows you can’t object to abortion and not pay your taxes, and it concerns me as a taxpayer because at the end of the day who cares if Mr. Bowman doesn’t file a form if the government’s out doing its job, which is to clean out his bank account, take his car, and collect taxes."
Bowman has explained that in addition to his Christian convictions, he's motivated by the fact that in his youth, his girlfriend was forced by her parents to abort their unborn baby.
He said he doesn't believe that taxes are illegal.
"I believe they are and I think that if the government would just sit down and accommodate me under the law, like I’ve asked for, this problem would’ve been solved a long time ago, a long time ago. They just are very stubborn, they don’t want to do it," he said.