SANDPOINT — Options are narrowing for a Bonner County couple who argue they are not subject to Idaho’s income tax requirements.

Mark and Patricia Perlinger can file their income taxes by Feb. 29 or risk jail, fines or both, according to 1st District Court records.

The couple was ordered to court on Monday to explain their lack of compliance with a peremptory writ of mandate requiring them to file income tax returns for 2011, 2012, 2013. The mandate was issued last October.

Mark Perlinger, 62, declined to pass through the bar — the railing that separates the courtroom gallery from the area occupied by lawyers, judges and juries — for fear of ceding jurisdiction, court records indicate. He made a 13-minute statement in which he ordered the court to vacate or suspend the writ and made references to the Lord’s Prayer, the Constitution and English Common Law.

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