Australians are increasingly being exposed to misleading claims that encourage tax evasion and faulty legal arguments on social media, spread by people who believe the Australian government and taxation are illegitimate.

It has prompted the Australian Taxation Office to warn against  listening to debunked claims about taxation being voluntary in Australia.

The claims are being spread through social media by people who believe the government in Australia and the ATO are illegitimate, according to the ABC.

Dr Joe McIntyre, an associate professor of law at the University of South Australia, said it shouldn’t be surprising that pseudo-legal arguments are used against the ATO.

“This is increasingly a significant problem that is consuming a lot of public resources in a range of different domains,” McIntyre told The New Daily.

“The tax situation is doubly problematic: Every dollar that is spent chasing these people up is a dollar that can’t be spent on public resources.”

The ABC reported the ATO is taking action against a self-described ‘spiritual accountant’, who is under investigation for selling financial advice that encouraged illegal activity, including tax evasion.

McIntyre said it’s important that the issue isn’t just laughed at as “a few kooks doing crazy things at Bunnings”.

“Anywhere where citizens interact with government, you’re likely to see it popping up,” he said.

“Most people have poor legal literacy and they really struggle to tell the difference between genuine legal positions and pseudo-legal arguments.”

Old movement, new audience

Most Australians have seen videos of sovereign citizens refusing to adhere to road rules or arguing that the law has no power to constrain them because they are royalty.

This is because, as the Australian Federal Police said, they are “generally open about their belief and plans” and “tend not to conceal identity or use discrete methods”.

They are, however, considered to be a domestic terrorism threat in the United States by the FBI because they believe themselves to be immune to the consequences of breaking the law and engaging in illegal activity like harassment of public officials, tax evasion, violence and murder.

Australian police forces and spy agencies have also flagged the risk of violence associated with ideology, particularly after a deadly mix of religion and sovereign citizen philosophy inspired the Wieambilla shooting.

‘Financial sovereignty’ is an example of how the movement has shifted and changed in response to increased attention and technology in recent years.

Many of the people within this loosely affiliated movement eschew the term sovereign citizen because of the negative connotation it carries, instead believing that not only is their movement against the legitimacy of government, the courts or the taxman legally sound, but righteous too.

“How can you be both a sovereign and a citizen?” one remarked.

“That’s a bit of an oxymoron isn’t it?”

Rabbit holes

David Heilpern, a former magistrate judge, previously told The New Daily that many people’s first exposure to pseudo-legal arguments is when seeking ways to get out of paying for traffic and parking tickets.

McIntyre said that the internet and social media have become a fertile ground for recruitment and more can be done to clamp down on people not only leading people astray but promoting a dangerous ideology.

“The tax issue is one where we have good international precedent for regulators going after the ring leaders and having a big impact,” he said.

“The regulators went after these people and threw the ring leaders in jail and very effectively shut down their entire argument.”