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7/4/01 Times Union (Albany, NY) Activist wants IRS to save his life Albany-- Bob Schultz is on hunger strike and says he is prepared to die over income tax cause. By JAY JOCHNOWITZ, State editor First published: Wednesday, July 4, 2001
Bob Schulz won't be scarfing down hot dogs this Fourth of July, as one of New York's best known activists is on a hunger strike to demand the U.S. government engage in a debate over whether it can legally tax people. Schulz, who says he began a water-only fast Sunday, insists he will starve himself to death if the Internal Revenue Service doesn't agree to meet in a September forum to publicly debate the government's power to collect income tax and require employers to withhold taxes from workers' pay. "What I'm doing is a measure of my devotion to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the rule of law,'' Schulz told two reporters who showed up for his news conference at the Leo O'Brien Federal Building. It was his first stop on a two-day trip that will include New York City, Trenton, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. The IRS had no immediate response to Schulz's hunger strike but said its power to collect taxes has been upheld by the courts. "For decades the courts have consistently upheld the constitutionality of the tax system,'' said spokesman Laurie Ruffino. Schulz, he said, should take his case to "the people who make and interpret the laws, not the people who enforce them.'' The fast is one of the more dramatic efforts by members of a national "tax honesty'' movement that challenges the income tax system. The cause has been associated with the "patriot'' and sometimes violent anti-government movements, although Schulz said, "I see myself as preventing violence. ... I am doing everything I know how to do, short of breaking things and killing people.'' Adherents of the movement argue that the 16th Amendment, which allowed direct taxation of citizens, was improperly ratified in 1913 because many states listed as approving it either voted against or violated their constitutions in the way they handled ratification. Without the amendment, some argue, the Constitution requires the government to levy states, not individuals, on the basis of the latest census. Some go further, suggesting wages are not legally income, that most U.S. citizens are exempt, and that signing a 1040 violates the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. The IRS disagrees and last week issued a release listing seven recent cases in which courts fined people, from $500 to $25,000, for bringing frivolous lawsuits using such arguments. Schulz says the government fears that if states were directly levied, they would object paying for federal programs that they could handle themselves. Schulz is traveling with several friends sporting jackets with the words "Tyranny Response Team.'' They hand out fliers about his fast with the headline, "This Man Will Die Unless You Act. Now.'' His van pulls a trailer with a billboard on it summarizing his position and bearing this slogan: "One Man Hungers/A Nation Prays/As America Watches.'' As for the Sept. 18 date of his proposed forum, Schulz said it seemed to give both sides time to prepare, but that it's "negotiable'' if the IRS prefers a different day. On the Web: A sampling of "tax honesty'' and other anti-tax sites:
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