X-Message-Number: 9207 Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 03:46:08 -0500 (EST) From: Charles Platt <> Subject: Re: CryoNet #9199 - #9202 On Wed, 25 Feb 1998, L Hardy wrote: > Then tell me about the many hundreds of thousands of (over 400,000 in the USA alone) > churches that don't pay taxes at all and have assets tied up perpetually. Does the > government laws affect these? Only if they are corporations... To qualify as a church for tax purposes, you must meet very specific IRS guidelines (for example, you must hold regular services). The IRS has a natural interest in preventing tax evasion by amateurs, as should be obvious. Why do you imagine you can circumvent the IRS so easily? > he doesn't write it after, but writes an instrument or contract before. We are not > talking about mans law here, mans laws don't apply... when you invoke Gods law. Please suggest precisely how "God's law" should be written into trust documents. Do I simply state "I hereby demand that this money should be held in a perpetual trust and should be tax exempt, under God's law," and that takes care of it? Can I avoid paying income taxes this way, too? Do *you* avoid paying taxes in this way? Will the Prometheus Project (for which you serve as a lay attorney, as I understand it) also avoid paying taxes using this cunning technique? Should the people who have pledged money to the Prometheus Project feel confident that your legal advice is based on actual experience and case law? Or are you just making stuff up as you go along? > Is there any way you can insure that your money will still be there? I think not. Two states in the USA allow perpetual trusts. Such documents have been written, and satisfy statutes, which I tend to have more faith in than the supposed Law of God, which is presumably open to some interpretation and debate. Also, of course, Liechtenstein will set up a perpetual trust that is free from most forms of US taxation. How do you know that Liechtenstein's bankers won't seize the money and spend it? Because the country depends largely on the reputation of its banking system, for its survival. Again, I would rather rely on this than the invocation of a deity. > And, you should know that a trust agreement can be written by any two parties > without an attorney, that is completly lawful, and they can use any avaliable law > they choose in its formation, so long as the law that is being used is described in > its corpus. At present, and until proven otherwise, Gods law is the highest law of > our land, the higher courts have up held this to date. Cites, please? --CP Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=9207