Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 15, 1993 TAG: 9304150147
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`OUTLAW AGENCY' WON'T GET HIS TAX RETURN
Loren D. Kempa will stick to his annual routine today as the midnight deadline for filing tax returns approaches.He will do nothing.
Kempa, a self-employed building contractor from Bent Mountain, has gone a decade without filing a return with the Internal Revenue Service.
In his view, the IRS is an outlaw government agency with no legal basis to extract taxes from him or anyone else in the United States.
Kempa, 49, is part of a loose network of tax protesters who concoct elaborate arguments to justify not paying their federal income taxes.
Some tax-protest organizations around the nation sell kits for $1,500 purporting to show people a "legal" way to remove themselves from the tax system.
IRS officials say the how-to kits are bogus and warn that tax protesters are opening themselves up to possible penalties, fines and - in some cases - prison. Last month, the IRS froze the bank accounts of more than 150 protesters in the San Francisco area.
The San Francisco Chronicle quoted an IRS spokesman in California as saying there were 9,000 tax evaders nationwide aligned with illegal protest groups.
Judy Bartel, an IRS public affairs specialist in Richmond, could not confirm that estimate. But Bartel said the IRS would deal with known tax protesters in Virginia.
"We're not going to treat this lightly," she said. "We will vigorously investigate each and every tax protester."
Bartel declined to comment on Kempa's failure to file tax returns, but court records indicate the government finally is catching up with the Roanoke County resident.
Kempa was reluctant to be interviewed, saying he did not want to "wave a red flag" at IRS investigators.
"I'm not a tax protester," he said. "My point is that I'm not doing it because I'm trying to get out of paying taxes. I'm all for paying my fair share."
His refusal to file tax returns is based on his belief that many of the judicial opinions and government laws of the last 200 years are invalid because they deviate from "pure common law" imported from England.
Kempa claims he is a "sovereign" individual who never surrendered to the authority of the federal government or the IRS, which he considers a "foreign government entity."
As a result, Kempa contends that no one can compel him to file a tax return or submit to an IRS audit.
His claim of sovereignty has not deterred the IRS. In January, federal agents seeking Kempa's bank records filed summonses to Central Fidelity Bank and the Bank of Floyd.
Kempa responded with two lawsuits in Roanoke County Circuit Court that accuse the IRS of committing "treason" against his individual sovereign authority.
Acting as his own attorney, Kempa asked the court to recognize his individual sovereign rights and protect him from the "totalitarian" actions of the IRS.
The lawsuits baffled Circuit Court clerks because Kempa wanted to file them in the "Constitutional Common Law Judicial Tribunal of the Virginia Republic."
Circuit Judge Kenneth Trabue decided that the clerk could not refuse a lawsuit, however unorthodox it may be.
Kempa said a key part of his strategy is to refuse to accept mail from the IRS. To do so, he said, would be to put himself under the federal government's control because the IRS uses mailing codes to determine the boundaries of its jurisdictions.
As a result, Kempa lists his address as: "Bent Mountain, Virginia Republic (Zip Exempt)."
Kempa said he would discuss his philosophy in more detail after the conclusion of the court case, which he believes he will win.
"I think I have them a little on the defensive right now," he said in a brief telephone interview.