A group that says the 16th Amendment — which ushered in the federal income tax — was never properly ratified is planning a “walkaround” protest at the Internal Revenue Service building in Washington, D.C., to draw attention to the issue and to “educate Americans” about the origins of the 16th Amendment.
The group, called We The People, is hoping for at least 1,040 participants. Organization officials say 1,400 people are needed to fully encircle the IRS building with protest marchers, but — perhaps not ironically — “1040” is the number of the IRS form used by most Americans for filing their taxes.
The group is already accepting registrants for the event, which is scheduled for April 9 at 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
“We The People Foundation has, for two years now, been seeking the truth about the income and employment tax laws of the United States,” says the group’s website. “Tax researchers have been making a number of astonishing claims, including assertions that the law does not require most citizens to pay income or employment taxes and that the 16th amendment was not legally ratified.”
The group says that through advertisements in major newspapers and other methods of communication, it has attempted to engage the federal government and the IRS in a debate about the merits of its assertions.
So far, however, the government is not taking the challenge.
“They did not respond to a Remonstrance hand-delivered to them last April by a delegation representing all 50 states. We have published full-page messages in newspapers of national circulation to publicly extend our invitations, not only to government officials, but also to any other experts who could express or represent the views or position of the government,” the group says.
“We have held five conferences in Washington over the past 20 months, four of them at the National Press Club (two blocks from IRS headquarters) and the most recent one in Arlington — all in the government’s own back yard to make it convenient for them to attend,” says the website. “As you know, no one has accepted the challenge. We have had to ask: ‘At what point does evasion amount to admission that the researchers are right?'”
The group claims that confirmed attendees are well known within the tax-reform movement: Bill Benson, Joe Banister, Sherry Jackson, John Turner, John Kotmair, Irwin Schiff, Larry Becraft, Larken Rose, Devvy Kidd, Ed Rivera, Otto Skinner, Dave Bosset, Dick Simkanin, Nick Jesson, Al Thompson and Leonard Roberto.
Registrants are being asked to purchase a “Tyranny Response Team” windbreaker for the event at a cost of $25.
Editor’s note: The chairman of We The People, Bob Schulz, will be the guest on Geoff Metcalf’s online radio talk show today.
