The Naked Anti-Tax Activists

Brian Doherty | December 17, 2002

Upset over recent tax hikes in Germany, an Internet marketing consultant began promoting a campaign to have fed-up taxpayers mail the shirts off their backs to Chancellor Gerhard Schroder -- the implication being that that's all the overtaxed citizens have left to give. And the plan is working. A government spokesperson admits to having received 11,320 shirts, most of which will be donated to charity. Christian Stein, the organizer of the protest, thinks the real amount is closer to 30,000. Germany's high taxes and stifling labor market regulations have made output per resident 30 percent higher in the U.S. than in struggling Deutschland.