We consider here the claim that religious objections to military activities or spending may form the basis for avoiding the payment of federal taxes. The claim is not new, 1 although it is presented in somewhat unusual garb.
Petitioner Daniel Taylor Jenkins, a religious objector to military spending, appeals a decision of the United States Tax Court granting respondent Commissioner of Internal Revenue’s motion for summary judgment under Rule 121 of the United States Tax Court Rules of Practice and Procedure. 2 The Tax Court dismissed petitioner’s amended petition, in which he claimed that the First and Ninth Amendments of the United States Constitution 3 afford him a right to retain the unpaid portion of his taxes on the basis of religious objections to military spending until such taxes can be directed to nonmilitary expenditures. The Tax Court also imposed a penalty of $5,000 pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 6673(a)(1) based on its conclusion that petitioner’s arguments were frivolous within the meaning of the statute. 4
On appeal, petitioner argues that the Tax Court erred in (1) dismissing his claim
Although we do not doubt the sincerity of petitioner’s religious convictions, we conclude that his legal arguments are without merit. It is well settled that the collection of tax revenues for expenditures that offend the religious beliefs of individual taxpayers does not violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.
See United States v. Lee,
It is similarly well settled that RFRA does not afford a right to avoid payment of taxes for religious reasons.
Browne,
We conclude that petitioner’s Ninth Amendment claim is also without merit. The Ninth Amendment provides that “[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” U.S. Const, amend. IX. The Ninth Amendment is not an independent source of individual rights; rather, it provides a “rule of construction” that we apply in certain cases.
See United States v. Bifield,
Petitioner argues that the Ninth Amendment supports his asserted right to withhold payment of taxes that would be used for military spending. He relies on, inter alia, various eighteenth and nineteenth century provisions in the laws and the Constitution of the State of New York, 6 and several acts of the United States Congress, 7 which accommodated religious observers who objected to military service, or exempted religious objectors from paying taxes that would be used for military expenditures. See Petitioner’s Br. 16-22. Petitioner argues on the basis of these provisions that “the right of conscience not to be compelled to participate in war making” was “an element of religious freedom at the time of the adoption of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.” Id. at 14-15. He therefore argues that the Tax Court erred when it failed to consider whether a right to withhold the portion of his taxes allocable for military spending “could be discerned in the First Amendment’s prohibition of abridging the free exercise of one’s faith as elucidated by the Ninth Amendment’s ‘rule of construction,’ ” id. at 14 (emphasis added).
Petitioner’s Ninth Amendment argument fails because it amounts to a mere recasting of his unsuccessful First Amendment claim. His argument that the right to withhold the payment of taxes was an element of “religious freedom at the time of the adoption of the United States Constitution” is rooted in petitioner’s historical interpretation of the principles embodied by the Free Exercise Clause. The argument is squarely foreclosed, however, by the Supreme Court’s decision in
United States v. Lee.
In
Lee,
the Court considered claims by a member of the Amish faith that the assessment of social security taxes interfered with the right to practice his religion as guaranteed by the Free Exercise Clause.
The sincere religious beliefs of the petitioner in the case before us similarly “afford[] no basis for resisting” payment of his taxes where, as here, the “broad public interest in maintaining a sound tax system” is not meaningfully disputed,
id.,
and where Congress’s constitutional authority to impose the taxes in question is beyond doubt.
See United Public Workers v. Mitchell,
We agree with the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Barton, which held, in a case substantially similar to the one at bar, that the Ninth Amendment did not support an individual’s efforts to avoid payment of taxes based on his genuinely held religious objections to military expenditures. See id. at 823-24 (“If the specific protections of the first amendment do not afford a basis for refusing to pay tax, then neither can the more novel claims raised by appellant under the ninth amendment.”). We hold that petitioner cannot bolster or enhance an unavailing First Amendment argument merely by presenting it in the dress of a Ninth Amendment claim.
Finally, we address petitioner’s argument that the Tax Court abused its discretion by assessing a penalty of $5,000 pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 6673(a)(1),
see
note 4,
ante.
We conclude that no abuse of discretion occurred here. For the reasons stated in our discussion above, any reasonable possibility of petitioner’s success on the merits was squarely foreclosed by long-settled case law. Accordingly, the Tax Court properly concluded that petitioner’s claims were “frivolous” or “groundless” within the meaning of the statute. 26 U.S.C. § 6673(a)(1);
see Burke v. Comm’r,
Even assuming that petitioner’s one arguably novel claim — namely, his Ninth Amendment argument — was not explicitly and unambiguously foreclosed by existing Second Circuit precedent, we nevertheless find that the Tax Court did not abuse its discretion in assessing the penalty. First, we agree with the Tax Court’s conclusion that, despite taking a slightly new form, petitioner’s argument was “representative of a class of arguments that have universally been rejected by [the Tax Court] and other courts.”
Jenkins v. Comm’r,
No. 20217-03L (Tax Ct. March 3, 2005). Second, the Tax Court’s decision to assess a penalty is supported by the fact that petitioner previously raised a similar unsuccessful challenge in Tax Court, in which he argued that the First Amendment afforded him a right to avoid paying taxes allocable for military expenditures. In rejecting his arguments on this previous occasion, the Tax Court explicitly noted that “[i]t is a fundamental principle of tax law that a taxpayer has no right to reduce his Federal tax liability on the ground that governmental policies or expenditures conflict with his religious or moral convictions, no matter how sincerely those convictions may be held.”
Jenkins v. Comm’r,
No. 4251-87S (Tax Ct. Dec. 28, 1987). Petitioner therefore received full and adequate notice during the prior action that any future efforts to resist payment of taxes would almost certainly fail.
Cf. Maduakolam v. Columbia Univ.,
‡ ‡ ‡
For the reasons stated above, the decision of the Tax Court is Affirmed.
Notes
.
See, e.g., United States v. Lee,
. Tax Court Rule 121 provides in pertinent part,
A decision shall ... be rendered [upon motion for summary judgment] if the pleadings, answers to interrogatories, depositions, admissions, and any other acceptable materials ... show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that a decision may be rendered as a matter of law.
Tax Ct. R. 121(b).
. The First Amendment states, in relevant part, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” U.S. Const, amend. I. The Ninth Amendment states that “[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” U.S. Const, amend. IX.
. 26 U.S.C. § 6673(a)(1) provides,
Whenever it appears to the Tax Court that'—
(A) proceeding before it have been instituted or maintained by the taxpayer primarily for delay,
(B) the taxpayer’s position in such proceeding is frivolous or groundless, or
(C) the taxpayer unreasonably failed to pursue available administrative remedies,
the Tax Court, in its decision, may require the taxpayer to pay to the United States a penalty not in excess of $25,000.
. We merely note our disagreement with petitioner's assertion that the Supreme Court’s recent decision in
Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal,
546 U.S.
418, 126
S.Ct.
1211, 163
L.Ed.2d
1017
(2006) breathes new life into his otherwise unsuccessful argument under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. In
O Centi-o Espirita
the Court held that the government had not demonstrated a compelling interest in the uniform application of the Controlled Substances Act to prohibit religious uses of an otherwise illegal drug.
. See, e.g. Act of Apr. 15/ 1814, ch. 200, Art. XXIII, 1814 N.Y. Laws 251, 253 (providing that money received from Quakers would not be used to support the state militia but would instead be allocated for educational and charitable purposes).
. See, e.g., Act of May 8, 1792, ch. 33, § 2, 1 Stat. 271, 272 (requiring enrollment in federal militia but exempting all persons subject to exemptions under state law).