“The income tax law is a lot of bunk,” Al Capone once said. “The government can’t collect legal taxes from illegal money.” Al Capone clearly could have used better tax attorneys. Four years before his arrest, the FBI arrested a small-time South Carolina dealer named Manny Sullivan on a tax evasion charge — Sullivan neglected to pay taxes on his ill-gotten gains. But Sullivan was no pushover either: he sued the government, invoking his fifth amendment right to not self-incriminate.

On this day, May 16, in 1927, in United States v. Sullivan, a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court, the justices decided in favor of the government: Manny Sullivan and others who earned income from illicit activities must pay taxes on that income, and doing so does not violate the fifth amendment.

The court’s decision’s was based on three findings. First, income from the illegal sale of liquor was taxable by law. Second “the Fifth Amendment does not protect the recipient of such income from prosecution for willful refusal to make any return under the income tax law” — meaning that the Fifth does not protect tax dodgers. And lastly, the court said “If disclosures called for by the return are privileged by the Amendment, the privilege should be claimed in the return” — meaning that if anything further about the nature of the illegal business is asked for, the defendant could invoke his right. But as to tax dodging, both Sullivan and soon Capone were out of luck.