The Man Who Hasn’t Paid Federal Income Tax Since 1993

There are easier ways to keep a low profile than founding a school devoted to teaching Americans why you believe they don’t owe federal income tax.

Peymon Mottahedeh chose the other route.

He founded Freedom Law School in 1996. The organization says he has not filed or paid federal income tax since 1993. It publishes his name, photograph, telephone number, teachings and disputes with the Internal Revenue Service for anyone, including the federal government, to see.

And today, after more than three decades of challenging the Federal Income Tax system, he is still doing it.

That doesn’t prove Peymon is right. But it certainly makes him worth investigating.

Peymon’s story begins far from Washington. According to Freedom Law School’s biography, he was born in Iran in 1962, immigrated to the United States at 14, became an American citizen in 1989 and eventually worked in mortgages and financial planning. The organization says that by the early 1990s he had become convinced that Americans were being deceived about the federal income-tax system.

His conclusion was radical.

Freedom Law School teaches that most ordinary Americans are not legally required to file Form 1040 or pay federal income tax. It calls the 1040 a “confession” form and organizes its program around seven steps designed to persuade Americans to challenge conventional assumptions about the tax system.

Peymon isn’t merely arguing tax rates are too high. He is arguing that millions of Americans misunderstand the law itself. And Freedom Law School has put money behind that proposition.

Its website currently advertises a $50,000 challenge to anyone who can identify what Freedom Law School (FLS) considers satisfactory statutory proof that the average American is liable for federal income tax on ordinary wages, salaries or labor. FLS says versions of the challenge have existed since 1999.

That sounds explosive. Then comes the other side of the story.

The IRS says this interpretation isn’t merely incorrect. It categorizes claims that filing and payment are generally voluntary as frivolous tax arguments.

And the statutory language the government relies upon isn’t difficult to find.

Section 1 of the Internal Revenue Code imposes income tax on taxable income. Section 61 says gross income includes “all income from whatever source derived,” specifically including compensation for services. Section 6012 identifies individuals required to file income-tax returns. Section 6151 requires payment when a return is required.

Federal courts have repeatedly rejected arguments that ordinary income-tax filing or payment is optional. The IRS has compiled many of those decisions in its own lengthy response to what it calls frivolous tax arguments.

However, according to Peymon  Federal Tax code section 7701 and the regulation 1.1-1 of the Code of Federal Regulations, this applies to only citizens and residents of Washington DC not the people of the 50 United States.

That is an important correction to one impression a visitor could take from Freedom Law School’s promotional material.

Peymon and his then-wife litigated federal income-tax deficiencies for tax years 2001 through 2006. In 2014, the Tax Court determined deficiencies and additions to tax. In April 2023, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the Tax Court’s decision.

Now the battle has moved to Florida.

In July 2025, the United States sued Peymon and April Mottahedeh in the Middle District of Florida seeking to reduce the alleged unpaid liabilities to judgment. The case remained active in 2026, with Peymon defending himself without an attorney.

That complicates the Freedom Law School story enormously.

It also makes it more interesting.

Because FLS doesn’t merely rely upon Peymon’s experience. Its website displays what it calls victories involving liens, levies, assessments, summonses and other IRS actions involving its students. One prominently advertised example involves a claimed $4.6 million IRS matter that FLS says was ultimately zeroed out after administrative and Tax Court proceedings.

Those claims deserve independent examination too. Not dismissal or blind acceptance. Examination. That’s what this series will do. I’ll examine Freedom Law School’s cases. I’ll examine the statutes. I’ll examine Peymon’s litigation. I’ll examine the IRS’s cases against the theories he teaches.

Because something strange has happened in America.

We have created a society in which asking a basic question about one of government’s greatest powers can itself become taboo. The government says the question has been answered repeatedly.

Peymon says Americans have been asking the wrong question.

Fine.

Then let’s put both arguments on the table. The government has lawyers, courts, statutes and nearly unlimited resources. Peymon has had more than 30 years to refine his argument.

I don’t need either side to tell me what to think.

I want them to show me.

And I suspect millions of Americans do too.