The first wave of protests attacked the Stamp Act 1765, and marked the first time Americans from each of the Thirteen Colonies met together and planned a common front against taxes the colonists considered illegal.
President George Washington led an army to crush the rebellion—the rebels dispersed and federal supremacy in taxation was assured.
Anger at the Tariff of 1828 led South Carolina to reject the federal law, until President Andrew Jackson threatened to send in the army to enforce it.
During the Civil War, with Republicans in control, the tariff was raised to produce needed revenue; after the war it was kept high to encourage industrialization, and became a major issue with conservative Bourbon Democrats such as President Grover Cleveland opposing, and Republicans led by William McKinley promoting tariffs as the route to national wealth.
[8] Also in 1973, a disbarred attorney named Jerome Daly lost an appeal on his conviction for willfully failing to file federal income tax returns.
"[9] In a case before the United States Tax Court in 1974, Everett and Dorothy Vernaccini argued that the Internal Revenue Service should allow them certain deductions on the theory that the record keeping requirements of Internal Revenue Code section 274 were unconstitutional under the Thirteenth Amendment (prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude), and under the theory that the record keeping requirements violated 42 U.S.C.
The first two reported federal cases may have been Gilbert v. Miriami[11] and United States v. Scott,[12] coincidentally decided only two days apart.
In Gilbert v. Miriami, the taxpayer (Walter Gilbert) sued the District Director of Internal Revenue (Charles Miriami) asking for injunctive and declaratory relief from enforcement of the internal revenue laws, including a request for a judgment that the statute prohibiting most suits to restrain the assessment or collection of Federal taxes was unconstitutional.
[12] In 1977, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, in the case of Ex parte Tammen, referred to a tax-protester group called the "United Tax Action Patriots" or "UTAP": In the early 1980s, World War II veteran and former Posse Comitatus member Gordon Kahl contributed to the radicalization of tax protester discourse.
These ideas have been put forth, for example, in the broader Christian Patriot, Posse Comitatus and sovereign citizen movements, which generally assert that the Constitution has been usurped by the federal government.
In 1998, the U.S. Congress passed a prohibition on the use of the term "illegal tax protester" by officers and employees of the Internal Revenue Service.
For instance, in Hattman v. Commissioner, a per curiam opinion issued in September 2005 (and joined by future Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito), the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit stated: Ironically, the Congressional Committee Report on the legislation that introduced the prohibition on the use of the term by the IRS used the term "tax protester" in a different section to describe frivolous anti-tax arguments that should be given no weight.
Many tax protesters have taken these setbacks to mean that the courts, the Congress, and the executive branch are conspiring to continue receiving the revenue which pays their salaries and supports their benefits.
Attorney Lowell Harrison "Larry" Becraft Jr, who has spent much of his career defending tax protesters, has recently decried "innocents who today believe certain legal arguments popular years ago, but which were litigated by ill prepared, desperate people and lost.
Such scams have included "the marketing of bogus trusts, 'untax' kits or other devices that would ostensibly allow people to avoid paying income taxes".
[34] A former North Dakota farmer who had lost his farm in a business deal, Elvick originally sold a book, The Redemption Package, that encouraged people to claim refunds from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
In its press release following the sentencing of Meredith, the Department of Justice stated: "The evidence presented during a 13-week trial showed that beginning in 1991 and continuing until April 2002, Meredith conducted seminars at which she sold books and bogus 'pure trusts' to people with the purpose of leading them to believe they could legally shield income and assets from taxation.
In December 2004, Bentson was convicted on charges of conspiracy and willful failure to file his income tax returns.
Tax blogger Walter Olson described his theory as "folk law", arguments that were developed from outside the legal profession.
[57] On February 1, 2008, actor Wesley Snipes was found guilty on three misdemeanor counts of failing to file Federal income tax returns.
The indictment said Snipes used accountants who already had a history of filing false returns to obtain refund payments for their clients.
"[67][68] Robert B. Clarkson was indicted in 1994 for conspiracy to impede, impair, obstruct and defeat the functions of the Internal Revenue Service under 18 U.S.C. § 371.
He served a seven-year sentence for convictions on ten counts of willfully failing to collect and pay over employment taxes under 26 U.S.C.
§ 7202, fifteen counts of knowingly making and presenting false, fictitious or fraudulent claims for refund of employment taxes under 18 U.S.C.
[82] Former and current workers, IRS agents, a bank employee, and a lawyer of a non-profit Christian organization testified in the trial.
Brown believed the IRS and the federal income tax to be "part of a deliberate plot perpetrated by Freemasons to control the American people and eventually the world.
"[86] On January 18, 2007, Edward Lewis Brown, an ex-convict who previously served prison time for assault and armed robbery,[87] was found guilty by a jury in a Federal District Court in Concord, New Hampshire of one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States under 18 U.S.C.
[91] After a long standoff at their New Hampshire residence, the Browns were arrested by Federal law enforcement authorities on October 4, 2007, and began serving their prison sentences.
[94] Sean David Morton, a self-proclaimed psychic, conducted workshops in which he promoted means to "wipe out" tax bills and other financial liabilities.
[98] Winston Shrout, a sovereign citizen "guru", advocated redemption schemes[99] which he marketed under the name "Solutions in Commerce"[100] He did not file tax returns for about 20 years[101] and issued for himself and others hundreds of fake "Bills of exchange" which he sent notably to the IRS.