INDIANAPOLIS -- The Court of Appeals of Indiana ruled Friday that an Indianapolis man cannot use the state's religious freedom law as a defense for evading taxes.
Rodney Tyms-Bey faces three counts of tax evasion. Prosecutors say Tyms-Bey fraudulently used tax credits and owes more than $1000.
Tyms-Bey argued that he is a "sovereign citizen" and that paying taxes is a burden of his free exercise of religion.
At a hearing on the appeal last week, the court noted that Tyms-Bey "refused to identify what religious practice or belief was burdened by the State’s actions and stated that he believed he was entitled to present his defense to a jury and would provide all evidence at trial."
The Court of Appeals ultimately disagreed, ruling that the state has a compelling interest in enforcing its tax code that would meet the statutory exceptions included in the RFRA law.
In his dissent, Judge Edward W. Najam, Jr., argued that the majority of the court had "denied Tyms-Bey his constitutional right to present evidence of his RFRA affirmative defense to a jury."
Najam argued that the state conceded that Indiana's RFRA law "may be raised as a defense to any criminal prosecution, which includes the State's prosecution of Tyms-Bey for tax evasion." In that respect, he said, "Indiana's RFRA is broader than several other states' RFRA laws, which have numerous, various exemptions from coverage" and also "more broadly available than the federal RFRA."
The Court of Appeals' ruling will send Tyms-Bey's case back to a lower court to decide the underlying tax evasion case.
