Sooner or later, someone is going to put up a website cataloging the martyrs of the Liberty Movement.

Requiescas in Pace, Irwin Schiff.

This is exactly why most of us, including me, pay our taxes. Fear is an effective motivator.
This was a travesty.

I searched for his books online especially "The federal mafia" which is said to be banned but I saw it on Amazon for $192.00 so I kept looking and found it on his website as a pdf. Looks good so far, but what an incredibly sad story in this the so called land of the free.

I once met with Irwin one-to-one in the 1980s in San Diego. We discussed his views. He was not a “tax protestor” he was an advocate of “the income tax is not fair.” I said he may be right under the law. But, I pointed out, being right does not matter. If the government wants you, the government will get you. All the great defense lawyers in the country will lose if the government wants you. I could not get him to budge from the position in which he believed the U.S. was a nation of laws and under the law he would win. Power, brute power, wins. DiLorenzo explains this well in his various books and articles. The fact he spent the last 13 years of his life in prison should be a lesson to all who oppose the government that they do so at their peril.

Well, how come he was in prison? Just because
of what he wrote? Was he not allowed, under the
Constitution, to write whatever he d---n well pleased? Or did he refuse to pay some tax or other? It is a pitiful, outrageous story. What we
need to do, (but what won't happen soon) is to
repeal Amendment #16.

When I think of all those who should be in prison but aren't, Irwin Schiff's sentence seems over the top. The story of his medical neglect is not his alone, but is common to anyone relying on the government for medical attention including our veterans. Moving him away from where his family has access to him to be nearer better medical facilities and then not giving him access to them reeks of a subtle anti-Semitism.

Hello khalling,
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." Judge Napolitano
The title of one of his books and a great read...
Regards,
O.A.

FWIW, my last 1040 was filed about 25 years ago. At that time my fairly new business earnings were tiny, so negative cashflow resulted in having no money to pay taxes, nor even to pay my accountant for doing the 1040. Having had earlier battles with IRS liens and levies, I knew only too well the consequences of signing a 1040 and thereby waiving my rights under the 4th/5th Amendment, which signing triggered the problems with such. Thus , at that time, not filing was my only rational option. I got letters from the IRS for a year or two, unopened and unanswered, and finally they stopped, just "why" can't be known. but the next year things were little better, so I didn't file then or ever after. Now I am "retired" and living on my SS Surely the IRS knows where I am, but nothing happens.

Without reading the entire history of Irwin Schiff and the case which put him in prison for the rest of his life, my take is that he resorted to filing his 1040's, perhaps including fraudulent information, by which that signature waived his rights. Over a long period Shiff expressed his view with numerous stances regarding the "legality" of the income tax, which were apparently judged as frivolous and irrelevant. Well, maybe, maybe not, but he spent the remainder of his life in prison. The right fight, but fighting the wrong battles.

Many called Schiff a Patriot, as if that is somehow relevant, but to me that matters not one whit. What does matter is not SIGNING and sending in that 1040, thereby "confessing my sins" and allowing them to dig into any records I may have had.

I have written much on the 1040 issue, if you wish. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irwin_S... has a pretty good set of stuff on Irwin Schiff.

Whatever, Rest in Peace, Irwin.

I look at everything through a lens that passes only the light of freedom. I believe that the only value is one's own life and the ability to live it as one wishes. All the striving, the production, the accumulation is only to achieve the freedom to life. Social organization is useful only to the extent that it facilitates the greatest amount of freedom for each individual with minimal restriction on others. Schiff's interpretation of "law" could be flawed or not but no such "law" should exist. In trying to do so many things because they are "good" for us, we are paying too high a price in loss of freedom. This is even before the inevitable corruption that ensues with a concentration of power.

Sad news...

I have no problem with someone who decides, on moral grounds, that he's going to disobey the tax laws and either (1) accept the consequences, (2) flee, or (3) fight. But Schiff did none of those. He published and sold to others a completely bogus, fraudulent theory about what the law is.

I do not regard him as a martyr. I regard him as a bad example from which we should all learn.

Obey, if you think you should. Resist, if you feel you must. But don't lie to the public. It will only help our enemies destroy the liberty movement by providing them with examples of cheats and liars among us.