Winston Shrout is a former resident of Hillsboro, Oregon, which is a suburb of Portland. I say “former” because in April, 2017 Shrout was convicted in federal court on nearly 20 counts — six of willful failure to file tax returns between 2009 and 2014, and the rest of issuing fake financial documents. Shrout’s annual income was frequently as high as $100,000, much of it from providing “financial seminars” about why it wasn’t necessary to pay federal income taxes.

Tax tip: if someone who gives you tax advice is convicted of violating the tax laws of the United States, you might want to get financial advice somewhere else.

Shrout somehow managed to delay his sentencing for more than a year (during which time he apparently ran around the country giving . . . more of his bogus “financial seminars”). The basis for a lot of Shrout’s “legal arguments” arose from another of his questionable legal assertions, namely that he was a “sovereign citizen” who could “secede” from the U.S. and thereby not have to abide by any of its laws. Especially tax laws.

The whole “sovereign citizen” movement is essentially a group of folks who pass around absurd arguments about how and why the laws work, including the notion that all you have to do is sign some kind of declaration and (this is a big sovereign citizen thing) record it with the local county recorder’s office and — Abracadabra! — they no longer have to abide by any laws they disagree with. Of course, they still get to drive on public streets, have street lighting in front of their houses, use public water and sewer, and expect the fire department to respond when they’re having heart attacks or their houses catch fire.

A lot of this legal mumbo-jumbo that they spout is apparently based on a semi-understanding about how legal proceedings work. After all, attorneys say incomprehensible things all the time, and they sometimes use Latin phrases — so all that you apparently need to do to become a “sovereign citizen” is mimic this with your own incomprehensible phrases and a little Latin. It’s like someone whose only experience with dentistry saying, “Well, I used a drill to build a birdhouse, and dentists use drills, so I guess I can be a dentist, too.”

Warning! Do NOT get your dental work done by someone whose only experience in dentistry is building birdhouses.

But about tax evasion. This part of the “sovereign citizen” movement is especially convenient, because by not paying your taxes (and depending on the state where you live) you can instantly boost your income about 25 percent. These notions have become so widespread (thank you, Internet!) that the IRS actually has devoted part of its website to several pages called, “The Truth About Frivolous Tax Arguments.”

There are, in fact, so many such bogus arguments that the IRS has had to break them down by topic, going patiently through some of the more common claims of people like Shrout and his followers. Those arguments range from, “Filing a Federal Tax Return is Voluntary” and “Payment of federal income tax is voluntary,” to “Wages, tips, and other compensation received for personal services are not income,” and a number of constitutional arguments, such as “The federal income tax laws are unconstitutional because the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was not properly ratified.” The IRS patiently rebuts each one, with citations to Supreme Court cases to back up its position.

People once paid Shrout good money to hear him make such claims, but when he ended up before a federal judge and jury, he was convicted of every count against him. Then, following his sentencing (when the judge gave the 70 year-old Shrout 10 years in federal custody), Shrout failed to surrender when he was supposed to. He’s been a fugitive for nearly a year.

In the meantime, Shrout’s attorney (or, rather, appointed assistant attorney — Shrout insisted on representing himself, but to avoid making a complete mockery of the proceedings, the judge appointed someone from the federal defender’s office to “assist” him) filed an appeal to the Ninth Circuit. Once Shrout became a fugitive, however, the Ninth Circuit dismissed his appeal. Running away is kind of an admission that perhaps your arguments weren’t that great to begin with.

But even though you can’t attend Shrout’s seminars any more, you can get the functional equivalent by going to the IRS’ website and checking out all of his greatest hits.

Just remember that if like Mr. Shrout, you too decide not to pay or not to file returns, all of those arguments are guaranteed to fail.

Frank Zotter, Jr. is a Ukiah attorney.