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Oswald Income Tax Returns


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I searched this Forum and could not find anything on this topic. The returns could provide information on intelligence jobs held by Oswald. If he had no such jobs, it is hard to understand why the appropriate authority hasn't simply released them. What does anyone else know on this topic?

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I searched this Forum and could not find anything on this topic. The returns could provide information on intelligence jobs held by Oswald. If he had no such jobs, it is hard to understand why the appropriate authority hasn't simply released them. What does anyone else know on this topic?

According to John Armstrong:

Jack Ruby's tax returns were published in the Warren Commission volumes

while Marguerite and Lee Oswald's remain classified. When the

Assassination Records Review Board was created in 1992 to facilitate the

release of assassination-related documents, tax returns were specifically

exempted from public disclosure. Why? (125)

"Both Marguerite and Lee Oswald's income tax returns for the years 1956

through 1962 are listed in the National Archives master list of JFK

documents. They are marked 'classified,' and are unavailable to the

public (footnote re: Marina). Curiously, the JFK master list shows that a

John Smith and Minnie Smith also have tax returns for the years 1957

through 1962 listed and marked 'classified.' Certainly, the names of John

and Minnie Smith can be found nowhere else in the entire expansive world

of Kennedy assassination research -- not in the National Archives files,

the Warren Commission documents, the HSCA files, or anywhere else. The

only documents at all indicating the mere existence of John and Minnie

Smith are the 'classified' tax returns listed in the National Archives

master list of JFK documents (126).

"One has to wonder if John and Minnie Smith might be pseudonyms for

another couple, more mysterious than any we know. Could they be for

Harvey Oswald's real mother and father? Or, if not a husband and wife,

could they in fact be for the other Lee and Marguerite? If not, who are

these people, and what possible relevance do they or their tax returns

have to the assassination? (127)

"The release of tax returns could expose Oswald's dual identity created

by an element of the intelligence community, and thereby indict elements

of the government in the assassination and its cover-up. We already know

beyond a shadow of a doubt that government agencies destroyed, withheld,

and manipulated evidence in a criminal case on November 22, 1963, and

shortly thereafter. Is there any reason to believe that some aren't

continuing to employ such tactics today? The full extent of this cover-up

may still remain hidden with classified documents at the National

Archives (128).

http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/03/JA/DR/.dr04.html

Then there's this:

I received the following message:

Hi Mark,

You've made an erroneous assumption that ALL of Oswald's money came from his TSBD employment. In fact, he had saved money from earlier jobs and unemployment compensation. All his tax returns were released except for 1962. Marina has a copy and researchers have examined it and found nothing suspicious or anything that was not already known.

Gary Mack

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Guest Tom Scully

There is much more to this than IRS restrictions. Marina Porter acted as if she would cooperate in the release of Oswald's tax returns at the behest of the ARRB, with Armstrong and Carol Hewett as the influence on that body. Instead, she delegated the La Fontaines as the recipients of the documents and they apparently refused to share the copies of the tax returns they received from the IRS.

It might be best and most efficient to ask Doug Horne to elaborate on these comments he put into the conclusion of his 200 page memo on this saga, which does not seem to be available in its entirety any longer, online.

...Closing Remarks:

No one tasked me to write this memo. When responsibility for IRS and

Social Security Issues was passed to me late in the Review Board's

tenure, in August, 1998, I was told "I could do whatever I wanted with

the project." Since many actions were already in progress, I thought

it prudent to address the long-standing (and, so far, unanswered)

concerns of researchers John Armstrong and Carol Hewett, to the extent

that it was possible.

When I joined the Review Board staff in August, 1995 I was very

intrigued by Mr. Armstrong's hypothesis, and was most interested to

receive research leads from he and Ms. Hewett in 1996. I was the only

staff member at the ARRB who seemed to believe his theory might be

valid. Subsequent events have disabused me of that notion.

Horne e:\wp-docs\IRS/SSA.2 File: 4.6.3 (IRS)

Is Doug Horne saying that he later found more ARRB staff members believed in the merit of Armstrong's theory that the tax records possibly show Oswald to be working in a dental lab while he was also supposed to be on active duty in the USMC, or that Horne over time came to be as disinterested in this line of inquiry as he considered the rest of the ARRB staff to have always been?

On edit, comments I've bolded below of Debra Conway indicate that Horne became less enthusiastic about Armstrong's tax document falsifications arguments.

If you read Debra Conway's page linked below, you will find this link to the index of Doug Horne's memo near the bottom.:

http://www.redacted.com/jfk_sub_tax_ix.htm

The redacted.com website is now inactive and is not available on archive.org "wayback machine".

http://www.jfklancer.com/LHOtax.html

All,

Please refer to Horne Memo D131 on the Oswald Tax Records. The memo is over 200 pages of notes, correspondence, and documents concerning the ARRB's search for records to include in the JFK collection under the JFK Act given to JFK Lancer by the author Doug Horne....

...Because of the vital information on both the tax records and Armstrong's claim of falsification disproved by Horne and included in the memo, I have decided to place some of the referenced material below.

I have taken considerable time and web space to put these documents online but they are only representative of the whole picture. I suggest that persons interested purchase the Horne Memo for an accurate chronicle of the Oswald tax records.

Sincerely,

Debra

I found this, but it does not include a source to order the Horne memo from....

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6653222/KENNEDY-ASSASSINATION-CHRONICLES

....Wrapping up ARRB efforts to "clarify the record" Re the medical evidence D131. approx. 246 pages $25.00 Questions raised by John Armstrong and Carol Hewett about LHO tax and earnings records....

Edited by Tom Scully
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  • 3 years later...

I probably wont win any popularity contest for posting this, but hopefully we all agree that when there is a discrepancy

in this case, John R & Minnie Smith as John Armstrong's ersatz other Oswald ID, will not shoot the messenger

but deal with the information presented.

Some of what John Armstrong wrote about John R. & Minnie Smith is not exactly accurate. For instance he wrote,

in Harvey and Lee that the Warren Commission did not have a single document about the two, which is not correct.

http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/03/JA/DR/.dr04.html

The connection that I discovered is in two WC documents, and it is very easy not to notice.

The clue that the topic is a little more complicated than just a oblique name to file Lee Harvey Oswald's real tax returns

in is in CD 7 page 700 and the entire CD 425, 8 pages

Commission Document 425 - IRS Summary of Tax Returns dated 17 Feb 1964 8 pages WASHINGTON, D.C.
179-40001-10399
1957-1962 JOHN R & MINNIE SMITH 6731 Norway, Dallas, Texas
1961-1962 OSCAR A. & RAE RUBENSTEIN* 5638 N. Bernard, Chicago, Ill
FY 8-62 Time-In Lounge

However, in the 1964 Dallas Residential White Pages
on page 725 in black and white there is a
listing for
Smith John R 6731 Norway exactly as is mentioned in CD 425

Then there are the MINNIE SMITH listings
on page 727 of the Dallas Residential White Pages
Smith Minnie 3603 Kenilworth HA1-3376
Smith Minnie 2200 Stovall Dr. FR6-6272
Smith Minnie Mrs 5019 Victor TA6-2620*
Smith Minnie A. 2626 Munger RI8-3965
Smith Minnie E. Mrs 3023 Fordham FR4-2645
Smith Minnie Fay 419 Av A WH3-7213
Smith Minnie Kate 3704 Colonial HA1-9554
Smith Minnie Lee 4428 University Blvd LA6-3506
* In 1945-46 Marguerite and Lee Oswald lived at
4801 Victor, Dallas, Texas see CD 107
https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10507&relPageId=15
only other connection
SMITH, JOHN R.
Sources: CD 7, pp. 699-700
Mary's Comments: A Mrs. Smith called Mrs. Roberts, Bernard Weissman's landlady, and left the above number for Weissman to call. Later, Mrs. Roberts called the number and was told it did belong to the Smith family but they did not know Weissman. A "Bernie Smith" had picked up Weissman's belongings.

Note the JOHN R Smith referenced in CD 7 page 699
was the same JOHN R SMITH who lived at 6731 Norway
see
https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10408&relPageId=722

Where it gets a little odd, is the complete lack of documentation, I was able to find about John R and Minnie Smith

The blurb below was about all I found which was just an oil and gas listing, which could even be a coincidence

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, page 14
February 24, 1953
Stanolind Oil & Gas Company
No 1 Minnie Smith, et al Section 45

CD 425, in my opinion raises many more questions than it answers, for instance who are Oscar and Rae Rubenstein, among others; and I would even concede that John Armstrong

might even be onto something, because my experience is that these types of situations, are generally a lot more complicated than some plain vanilla explanation. Where I suppose I differ from Armstrong's view is John R. and Minnie Smith could have been anything from

1) used by the persons who prepared the documents as part of an attempt to confuse the reader, to

2) fellow elusive sources of "information" such as Earlene Roberts, whose connection to Bertha Cheek was

very suspect even to Warren Commission attorneys, to

3) some type of false suspects, I sure do not pretend to know.

Edited by Robert Howard
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Man, following this important thread is difficult. I am working through Armstrong's book now, so the answers to questions about tax returns for Marguerite Oswald and the Smiths goes to the heart of Armstrong's arguments. Would someone here try to simply answer the question which tax returns are still classified? Robert, in particular it doesn't seem pertinent that there are real John and Minnie Smiths in the phone books of the time. The question is are there several years of tax returns from someone named John and Minnie Smith that are still classified?

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https://harveyandlee.net/~harveyan/Unraveling/Unravels.htm

This will give you some of the basics...

John goes much farther than that lost soul Larry Dunkel.... the key remains the manner in which the DPD and FBI organzied the evidence... the W-2's that were returned by the FBI was never sent to the FBI or in the possession of the DPD

"Among the additional items inventoried and photographed were W-2 forms from Dolly Shoe (1955), Tujague's (1955/56), JR Michaels (1956) and the Pfisterer Dental Lab (1956). But not one of these W-2 forms has the initials of a Dallas Police officer. None of these W-2 forms are on the DPD handwritten lists. None of these W-2 forms are on the lists typed at DPD headquarters (Stovall A & B, Turner 1). And none of these W-2 forms appear in photographs of Oswald's possessions spread out on the floor of the Dallas Police Department on November 23. But all of these W-2 forms have the initials of FBI Lab Technician Robert Frazier (FBI headquarters, Washington, DC). The evidence clearly suggests that these W-2 forms were created, initialed by Frazier, and added to Oswald's possessions while in FBI custody between November 23-26. In fact over 200 items of evidence were added to Oswald's possessions while in FBI custody. The W-2 forms were not found by the Dallas Police. They were created in Washington, DC for the purpose of altering the dates of Oswald's employment in the mid-1950s. It is pretty hard to imagine that a 16 or 17 year old teenager would keep 1955 and 1956 W-2 forms during his 3 years in the Marine Corps, 2-1/2 years in the Soviet Union, and year and a half moving from Dallas to New Orleans and back to Dallas. Why would Oswald keep 8-year-old W-2 forms and yet not keep W-2 forms, copies of tax returns, or any employment information from his work in 1962 and 1963?"

Other than 61-62 LHO had earnings in 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959 (he earns Marine Pay until Sep), 1960-June 1962...(Russia) July 1962-Nov 1963 (Reilly, Jaggars, Welding, TSBD)

MarinaOswaldSSAwardcalcs_zps0d6af856.jpg

Yet the earnings for Marina's SS benefit stops at his return from USSR... only the earning of HARVEY OSWALD are ever used...

John asks:

"The amount shown under the heading "Total Earnings" is, according to the Social Security Administration, Oswald's total earnings from 1951 (First Base Yr. or Starting Date) through 1963 (Last Base Yr. or Closing Date). Oswald's SSA records were safely tucked away in their files for up to eight years prior to November 22, 1963. Yet within two months following the assassination the SSA failed to include any of Oswald's pre-1962 earnings from his employment at Dolly Shoe (1955), Tujague's (1955-56), J.R. Michaels (1956) and the Pfisterer Dental Lab (1957-58) in the Determination of Award given to Marina Oswald in 1964. Why?"

Here I do not agree as much - Logic tells me that only the wages OSWALD EARNED while he was married to Marina would count toward her award, not earnings prior.... for HIS award I can see using ALL his earnings.

So if that be the case, the SSA ignoring anything pre Marina makes sense. Not sure why 1951 is the base year, an 11-12 year old wouldn't earn too much.... yet the real problem remains regarding the earlier W-2's and the lack of a Chain of possession until it hits the FBI Lab and RF... just like CE399.

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