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Schulz
to fast in anti-tax campaign FORT ANN -- Government watchdog Robert Schulz says he won't eat until federal tax officials agree to debate the premise on which income tax laws are based. Schulz, known for his many lawsuits against the state and local governments and as the 1994 Libertarian candidate for governor, started fasting Sunday and said he won't eat again until Internal Revenue Service officials agree to meet with his tax-reform group, the We The People Foundation For Constitutional Education Inc. The group's Web site says Schulz will continue his fast until the IRS provides a list of government experts willing to debate the federal income tax -- or "until he dies." "Something has to be done to get their attention, and, frankly, I don't know if this will," Schulz said of IRS officials. "If the government is willing to let someone waste away rather than answer questions, then people need to know that." Schulz wants the IRS to debate the legal underpinning of the federal income tax at a Sept. 18 forum at the National Press Club in Washington. Until then, he said, his last meal will be the "leftovers" he ate Saturday night. "It was nothing spectacular," Schulz said of the meal. Schulz's group has claimed on its Web site that there is no law requiring most Americans to file a federal income tax return; that people who file IRS Form 1040 voluntarily waive their Fifth Amendment right not to bear witness against themselves; and that the 16th Amendment, which created the income tax, was fraudulently and illegally ratified by "a lame-duck Secretary of State just days before leaving office." Schulz has previously requested in letters that IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti address the allegations made by We The People at a National Press Club forum. We The People has met at the press club four times in the past two years, and Schulz said IRS officials were invited to those forums but did not attend. Now Schulz said he will be starting a series of public rallies to get his message out, starting with a rally at 9 a.m. Tuesday outside The Post-Star office at the corner of Lawrence and Cooper streets in Glens Falls. Other rallies, he said, will be held in Albany, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. And then, Schulz said, he will remain in a trailer parked on the 17th block of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington until he gets a response from the IRS or perishes. "What we want people to do is contact the government and demand that their representatives see to it that the government agrees to answer the petition for a redress of these three specific grievances," Schulz said. Schulz, and at least one other member of We The People, will hand out flyers at Tuesday's rally telling people how to get in touch with their government representatives, he said. They also plan to distribute copies of full-page advertisements that appeared in USA Today earlier this year, for which the group paid $252,000 each. Schulz said the newspaper's advertising department informed the group in April that USA Today would no longer run the advertisements because they contained misleading information. Schulz contends the information in the ads is accurate. Schulz said he was prompted to fast by the lack of a medium for the "tax honesty" message, outside of an Internet site maintained by We The People and an electronic mailing list of about 40,000 people nationwide. Schulz said he's thought about the possibility he may die, and said, "I'm prepared." |
