Hartland man sentenced to 33 months for tax evasion

MILWAUKEE --  A 69-year-old Hartland man has been sentenced in federal court for tax evasion. James Stuart will spend 33 months in prison and was fined $6,000. The sentencing judge also ordered that Stuart be taken immediately into custody to begin serving this sentence.

Stuart was formerly the president and majority owner of New Age Chemical in Delafield. He was convicted of attempting to evade federal income taxes he owed for the years 2005 - 2007.

According to evidence introduced at trial, Stuart filed a 2005 tax return in which he claimed income of only $631 and that he owed no taxes. He did not file tax returns for 2006 or 2007. During these years, however, Stuart actually received more than $900,000 in income and owed more than $220,000 in federal income taxes. 

Instead of filing tax returns and paying his taxes, Stuart sent numerous letters to the IRS and other government officials in which he made a variety of claims, including that his earnings were not taxable wages, that he had no Social Security number, that he had loaned his consciousness to a trust entity, that the IRS had no jurisdiction, and that he was not a U.S. citizen.

Ths case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation. The
prosecution was handled by Assistant United States Attorney Matthew L. Jacobs.