Compelled to show books and records?

[chazersize]

My understanding is that an IRS audit (individual) is to have an IRS agent ascertain the validity of your income and deductions used to determine your tax liability. If the possibility exists that an IRS agent could find something of a criminal nature in your books and records, and is therefore legally bound to turn over your books and records to the appropriate authority for criminal prosecution, can you be compelled to turn over your books and records, and thereby testify against yourself, giving up your 4th and 5th Constitutional Amendment rights?

While we may have the 'burden of proof' concerning our tax liability (and since we 'assess' ourselves), according to the 4th and 5th amendments, we cannot be compelled to testify against ourselves and therefore do not HAVE to give up our books and records. What can the IRS do if we refuse to give up our books and records?

 

[crager34]

From a previous post.

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In Reisman v. Caplin, 375 U.S. 440, 84 S.Ct. 508 (1964), the Supreme Court held that a witness or taxpayer could challenge an I.R.S. summons on any appropriate grounds and may assert as a defense to the proceedings the fact that the materials sought by the I.R.S. relate solely for use as evidence in a criminal prosecution. One of the most appropriate statements concerning the Fifth Amendment and its operation was made by U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall in the case of United States v. Aaron Burr. Chief Justice Marshall, quoted in Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U.S. 547, 565, 12 S.Ct. 195 (1892), maintained that a witness could plead the Fifth Amendment not only in situations where his answer to a question would directly implicate him in a crime, but also in response to questions the answer to which would provide a link in the chain of evidence needed to convict the witness of a crime. Protection from compulsory testimony designed to implicate a witness in a crime has been secured through the Fifth Amendment and has been one of the most sacred principles known to American jurisprudence. This principle of the Fifth Amendment protection from compulsory testimony, absent a grant of immunity,[2] has seen no erosion in its application since first expounded and requires but few citations to support it

in Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 6 S.Ct. 524 (1886), where the Supreme Court expanded Fifth Amendment protection against compulsory testimony to books and records of the witness. In granting such protection, the Court held:

"And any compulsory discovery by extorting the party's oath, or compelling the production of his private books and papers, to convict him of crime, or to forfeit his property, is contrary to the principles of a free government. It is abhorrent to the instincts of an Englishman; it is abhorrent to the instincts of an American. It may suit the purposes of despotic power, but it cannot abide the pure atmosphere of political liberty and personal freedom," 116 U.S., at 631-32.
"And we are further of opinion that a compulsory production of the private books and papers of the owner of goods sought to be forfeited in such a suit is compelling him to be a witness against himself, within the meaning of the fifth amendment to the Constitution, and is the equivalent of a search and seizure -- and an unreasonable search and seizure -- within the meaning of the fourth amendment," 116 U.S., at 634-35.