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Last I heard (but my information may not be up to date) in 49 48 of the 50 states in the U.S., persons serving a sentence for a felony are not allowed to vote.

Suppose a person is convicted of a felonious failure to pay a tax. Under the 24th Amendment, their right to vote cannot be denied for that particular offense. (If it were tax evasion, i.e. concealing facts in order to avoid paying, that would be different matter, if I'm not mistaken.)

My question is whether that has ever happened, i.e. a person convicted of a felonious failure to pay a tax has been allowed to vote while serving a sentence because of the 24th Amendment?

Michael Hardy
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    Interesting question. Such a person arguably is not denied the right to vote ‘by reason of failure to pay ... tax,’ but by reason of having committed a felony. Is there actually a felony which is committed solely by failing to pay tax, without some additional element of wrongdoing such as deception? Seems like a harsh criminal consequence for what would normally be a civil wrong. – sjy Mar 14 '18 at 03:33
  • @sjy : What I had in mind is that if there is a felony that consists ONLY of failure to pay a tax, has there ever been an instance where such a convict was allowed to vote? – Michael Hardy Mar 14 '18 at 04:33
  • @sjy : I've heard of people filing complete and truthful tax returns and refusing to send in the money, because they objected to its use to pay of wars or abortions or something else they considered evil. I don't know if those were treated only as civil matters. – Michael Hardy Mar 14 '18 at 04:39
  • @sjy: It is a crime to willfully fail to pay taxes (26 USC 7203) but it's a misdemeanor. – Nate Eldredge Mar 14 '18 at 04:42
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    @NateEldredge, but §7201 is a felony. – user6726 Mar 14 '18 at 05:15
  • @user6726: Could you tell us what 7201 is specifically regarding or link us to it? – hszmv Mar 14 '18 at 15:28
  • "Any person who willfully attempts in any manner to evade or defeat any tax imposed by this title or the payment thereof shall, in addition to other penalties provided by law, be guilty of a felony" – user6726 Mar 14 '18 at 16:59
  • @user6726 : Would refusal to pay, without any evasion, constitute an attempt to "defeat" a tax? – Michael Hardy Mar 14 '18 at 17:30
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    I dunno: I will see what I can dig up about that section. For federal felonies, the key would is what meaning is attached to "by reason of failure to pay" – user6726 Mar 14 '18 at 17:47
  • "I've heard of people filing complete and truthful tax returns and refusing to send in the money, because they objected to its use to pay of wars or abortions or something else they considered evil" This is not a crime. There is a Q&A at Law.SE on that point. – ohwilleke Mar 14 '18 at 17:56
  • An example of a state law is MGL Chapter 62C, Section 73, which makes some forms of tax evasion a felony. – user6726 Mar 14 '18 at 18:20
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    @ohwilleke: Can you find the question you have in mind? As I mentioned above, 26 USC 7203 certainly appears, on its face, to criminalize exactly this behavior. "Any person required under this title to pay any estimated tax or tax [...] who willfully fails to pay such estimated tax or tax [...] shall, in addition to other penalties provided by law, be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $25,000 ($100,000 in the case of a corporation), or imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both, together with the costs of prosecution." – Nate Eldredge Mar 15 '18 at 01:58
  • I was thinking about https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-lafa/20133303f.pdf but even so, first of all, a misdemeanor offense doesn't impair your right to vote even while in jail and second, "willfulness" implies an ability to pay and an understanding that you owe the tax, and the fact that the misdemeanor charge is so rarely brought even when so many cases seemingly qualify suggest an internal belief in its possible infirmity if pushed too far. – ohwilleke Mar 15 '18 at 02:24
  • It's worth noting that serving a prison sentence in Maine and Vermont does not disqualify you from voting. https://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/votingrights/votingwhileincarc_20051123.pdf – A.fm. Mar 15 '18 at 13:28
  • @A.fm. : What about Massachusetts? Have they changed that? That's what I had in mind as the exception when I mentioned 49 of the 50 states. – Michael Hardy Mar 15 '18 at 16:19
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    @A.fm. : I see: Massachusetts changed that law in 2000. – Michael Hardy Mar 15 '18 at 17:37
  • @A.fm. : Interesting that Vermont is one of the exceptions. The constitution of the state of Vermont says "Every person of the full age of eighteen years who is a citizen of the United States, having resided in this State for the period established by the General Assembly and who is of a quiet and peaceable behavior, and will take the following oath or affirmation, shall be entitled to all the privileges of a voter of this state:" What does "quiet and peaceable behavior" mean if it doesn't exclude felons? – Michael Hardy Mar 27 '18 at 06:28
  • That's probably like a lot of constitutional language: gobbledegook that would have sounded right and proper to the learned men of the 1700s. Then again, your dot connection from not being quiet and peaceable to being a felon has a plethora of gaps in it. Nobody ever accused Bernie Madoff, for example, of being loud nor of disturbing the peace. – A.fm. Mar 27 '18 at 15:54
  • @A.fm. : well, I wonder if the 18th-century authors of that language would have considered Madoff's frauds to be "quiet and peaceable". Actually as written in the 18th century it says "Every man of the full age of twenty-one years who is a citizen of Vermont, having resided in this State for the period established by the General Assembly and who is of a quiet and peaceable behavior, and will take the following oath or affirmation, shall be entitled to all the privileges of a voter of this state:" They changed it in 2002 without altering the words "quiet and peaceable behavior". – Michael Hardy Mar 27 '18 at 20:34
  • If Madoff was not loud and obnoxious and disturbing the peace, then surely they would have said, "That right there is a quiet and peaceable man. Corrupt as they come, but unquestionably quiet and peaceable." Regardless of the precise phrasing from the 18th Century or after 2002, the wording clearly poses no hindrance to felons filling out absentee ballots and mailing them in while serving a prison sentence. – A.fm. Mar 27 '18 at 20:38

1 Answers1

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The 24th Amendment states:

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

But, no one in incarcerated in prison (and hence loses the right to vote) merely for failing to pay taxes. Usually, one is incarcerated in prison on tax charges for fraud in connection with one's tax obligation which is different from failure to pay. (A misdemeanor conviction does not result in the loss of an ability to vote, even while in jail.)

Refusal to pay, on grounds other than lacking the money (inability to pay isn't a criminal offense), when done without full compliance with other tax return filing obligations, is tantamount to tax litigation abuse and abuse of process, not mere failure to pay a debt.

ohwilleke
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  • I think you didn't answer the bit about not paying but doing all the other paperwork? Or did you mean "with" instead of "without"? – Stackstuck Mar 15 '18 at 23:07
  • @Stackstuck The authority I was referring to is linked in a comment to the original question, and isn't quite on point as it pertains to civil tax penalties. – ohwilleke Mar 16 '18 at 00:27
  • The problem with this answer is that it says "without full compliance". But the question was: What if it's with full compliance? I.e. what if the ONLY offense is failure to pay? – Michael Hardy Aug 30 '18 at 22:21
  • @MichaelHardy: Then how did he end up in jail? I'd expect rather they just seize the money out of his bank account or garnish his wages and be done with the problem. – Joshua Jun 18 '23 at 22:14
  • @MichaelHardy Felonious failure to pay taxes by definition is not full compliance. It includes an element of willful failure to pay taxes despite being able to do so. – ohwilleke Jun 19 '23 at 03:04
  • @Joshua : But what if the money, maybe a few billion dollars, is stashed in a pillowcase in cash, and the defendant admist its existence but its location is known only to the defendant? – Michael Hardy Jun 19 '23 at 05:11