"It's So Simple, It's Ridiculous"

Taxing times for 16th Amendment rebels.

Brian Doherty from the May 2004 issue

(Page 3 of 10)

He’s led marches around IRS headquarters in D.C., and he went on a brief hunger strike in 2001. In July of that year his persistence prompted representatives of the IRS and DOJ to promise to show up at a public meeting Schulz was organizing. They promised to lay forth their official arguments as to why we do indeed have a legal  obligation to pay income tax. That meeting was scheduled for September 25-26, 2001. The 9/11 attacks made Schulz reschedule, and the feds owed out of appearing at the rescheduled event. Schulz feels he has pursued every proper step to find an answer to his questions. Now, he says, it’s time to fight.

 

When The New York Times asked IRS spokesman Terry Lemons why the Schulz petition was being ignored, Lemons "said that courts had upheld the validity of the tax laws and that the agency did not want to waste time and resources dealing with well-settled issues. Mr. Lemons added that the recent spate of enforcement actions taken by the IRS against promoters of abusive tax schemes...show other ways that government is answering the petition."

 

Not the answer the movement wants, obviously. But it’s one they should have expected. Never has any court anywhere -- much less the IRS -- accepted as valid any of the many arguments the movement offers for how and why there is no legal obligation for individuals to pay federal income tax. In fact, courts will fine you up to $25,000 for even raising them, insisting such arguments have been rejected so often by so many courts at so many levels that they are patently frivolous and time-wasting.

 

Despite this, the dominant vibe at this conference, even among those whose pursuit of these curious doctrines has led them to conflicts with government or employers, is hopeful in a religious sense. They clasp valiantly to belief in their own righteousness and the certainty that through that righteousness they one day will be delivered.

 

I eavesdrop on one smiling lady with a shock of short white hair telling a fellow attendee of her long fight over garnishment of her wages from a tax lien. It sounds like plenty of trouble came her way, and in the end the courts were taking her money anyway. But she was still cheerful, evincing no regret for the path she’d taken. Wrapping up her tale, she confided, with a smile and an only slightly wistful sigh, "I used to be normal, but...."

 

No one at the conference -- from the man who tries to pay for his Au Bon Pain lunch with a privately minted silver coin to the airline employee whose union is getting tired of his fights over tax withholding -- strikes me as merely fumbling for some scam to avoid paying taxes. Their concerns are higher than that. The Constitution and a properly limited government are their guiding lights. Indeed, the conference isn’t only about the income tax: Panels about the Second Amendment, jury nullification, and the questionable pedigree of the Federal Reserve are also offered, and also well attended. Mel Gibson’s controversial father, Hutton Gibson, gives a rousing speech on the need to fight the New World Order to defend our traditional liberties and is cheered heartily. Most everyone here seems aware there’s a good chance they will pay a price far higher than the mere cash of taxes for pursuing the movement’s difficult truth. When a speaker announces that his listeners need to be prepared to go to jail, almost all clap.

 

In one question-and-answer session, a woman airs her concerns about all the practical difficulties that accompany the tax honesty path. How, for example, can one get a mortgage loan without tax returns to show’ She seems to be begging for some loophole in the loopholes -- some reason she doesn’t have to refrain from paying income taxes. But the crowd and Schulz are pitiless. After she offers up too many what-ifs and how-do-yous, Schulz acknowledges that this path of truth might not be for everyone -- only, by implication, for the bravest and staunchest of patriots.

 

Reality does, however, toss the tax honesty movement the occasional sweet crumb of hope. A couple of the crumbs that materialized in the last year seemed substantial and nourishing at first nibble.