SEC Charges Eleven in Stock Manipulation Ring

[DownWithPumpers]

This means that persons who earn income by illegal means are required to report unlawful gains as income when filing tax returns, but they are entitled to invoke the Fifth Amendment if any more details are required concerning their illegal income.

http://taxwar.net/capone-illegal-income-tax.html

I think that the law is pretty clear. How could the courts possibly make it okay for people to say, "sorry I don't have to play income taxes because I broke the law"?

This article explains, in scholarly terms, why the defendants needed to claim these transactions as income. The basic reason is that stock trading isn't illegal in and of itself. So, just because you broke the law doing it doesn't mean you don't have to claim the transactions as income.

Reporting income from stock transactions, isn't against the law, so the fifth amendment wouldn't apply.

http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2602&context=wmlr&sei-redir=1#search=%22tax+return+illegal+evidence+%22self-incrimination%22%22