Interesting fellow:
Irwin A. Schiff, who built a national following by arguing that income taxes are unconstitutional and spent more than 10 years in prison for evading them and for helping thousands of others to do the same, died on Friday at a hospital affiliated with a federal prison in Fort Worth. He was 87.
The cause was lung cancer, his son Andrew said on Monday.
At his death, Mr. Schiff was an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution, where he was serving his third prison term, a 14-year sentence handed down in 2005.
Mr. Schiff sold more than 250,000 copies of six self-published books, including “How Anyone Can Stop Paying Income Taxes” (1980), “The Great Income Tax Hoax” (1985) and “The Federal Mafia: How the Federal Government Illegally Imposes and Unlawfully Collects Federal Income Taxes” (1992).
His writings became widely cited in the literature of the so-called tax-honesty movement (tax deniers, to opponents) and of right-wing organizations challenging the legitimacy of the federal government.
Over the years, Mr. Schiff pressed his cause on national television shows like “Larry King Live” and “The Tomorrow Show” with Tom Snyder. And when he wasn’t barnstorming the country conducting seminars and selling videotapes, he worked out of a storefront office in Las Vegas. There, behind a large sign that read, “Why Pay Income Taxes? When No Law Says You Have To?,” he offered counseling, for fees.
His bottom-line advice: Declare “zero income.”
“You, sir, would be the lawbreaker, not I,” Mr. Schiff told a federal judge in 1980, if he were sentenced for not paying taxes that “are obviously not authorized by the Constitution.” The judge, T. Emmet Clarie, sentenced Mr. Schiff to six months in prison and a fine of $10,000 for deliberately not filing tax returns for 1974 and 1975.
It was his first prison term. His most recent was for personally evading taxes as well as advising more than 3,600 others to follow his example by withholding about $56 million in revenue from the federal government. (One year of the 14-year sentence was for contempt of court.)
In that case a Las Vegas jury convicted him of multiple charges, including conspiracy, tax evasion and tax fraud. He also served three years of a six-year term he received in 1985.
In essence, Mr. Schiff argued that the Constitution had established that the value of the dollar was based on a certain amount of gold or silver, and that after the so-called gold standard was phased out, starting during the Depression, citizens no longer earned dollars, or income.
His second basic argument was that since all information in a tax return can be used against the taxpayer in a criminal proceeding, filling out a return — he called it a “tax confession” — violated the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.
Congress instituted the income tax in 1861 to pay for the Union cause in the Civil War. Widespread resistance led to its repeal in 1872.
After the income tax was reinstituted in 1894, Charles Pollock, a Massachusetts man, sued a loan company in which he held shares to stop it from paying the tax on the ground that it was unconstitutional. He cited the “capitation clause” in Article I, which provides that Congress can impose taxes directly only if they are apportioned according to the population of each state. The Supreme Court ruled in Mr. Pollock’s favor, striking down the 1894 law.
Soon after, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle began calling for a constitutional amendment to overrule the Pollock decision. In 1913, the 16th Amendment — which grants Congress the power to collect income taxes “without apportionment among the several States” — was ratified. Since then, no legal argument against the income tax has been upheld.
Still, when he was indicted in 2004 for the third time, Mr. Schiff declared, “I have filed my tax returns and reported zero income because I have no income in the constitutional sense.”
“I say I am America’s leading expert on the income tax,” he continued. “Everyone knows I believe no law requires me to pay taxes, so there is no willful intent to commit a crime. And if I am wrong, then I am delusional, in which case I am not willful. So they can’t legally convict me of tax evasion or any other crime that requires willful intent.”
To Robert L. Schulz, chairman of the We the People Foundation for Constitutional Education, which scrutinizes the constitutionality of government activity, Mr. Schiff was something of a hero.
“He acted on his beliefs and stood for tax honesty,” Mr. Schulz said in an interview for this obituary in 2012. “In a society where there is so much fear of government, and in particular of the I.R.S., he was probably the most influential educator regarding the illegal and unconstitutional operation and enforcement of the Internal Revenue Code.”
“It’s very hard to speak to power, but he did,” Mr. Schulz added, “and he paid a very heavy price.”
But in the estimation of J J MacNab, a financial consultant and the author of the forthcoming book “The Seditionists: Inside the Explosive World of Anti-Government Extremism in America,” Mr. Schiff caused significant harm.
“A lot of desperate people latched onto Schiff’s schemes as a quick solution to their problems, and their lives were effectively destroyed.” Ms. MacNab said in an interview in 2012. “When most tax-protest leaders go to prison, it’s like they vanish, but he was such a charismatic figure in the movement that rather than being forgotten he was turned into a martyr.”
Irwin Allen Schiff was born in New Haven on Feb. 23, 1928, the youngest of eight children of Jacob and Anna Schiff. His father, who had emigrated from what is now Poland in the 1890s, was a carpenter. “It was a solidly blue-collar, F.D.R. family,” Andrew Schiff said.
But Mr. Schiff’s views began shifting at the University of Connecticut, where he immersed himself in the thinking of stalwarts of the Austrian school of economics, like Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich A. Hayek and Henry Hazlitt, who essentially argued that government intervention in the economy is at best ineffective.
After graduating with a degree in economics in 1950, Mr. Schiff served in the Army for two years, then became an insurance broker. By the mid-1960s he was administering investments, primarily for doctors.
But his tax-shelter corporation, as well as his personal fortune, suffered in 1968 when a friend selling shares in a gold mine “turned out to be a con man running a Ponzi scheme,” Andrew Schiff said. “He and his clients lost a lot of money.”
Mr. Schiff, who was not implicated in the scheme, turned to writing. His first book, “The Biggest Con: How the Government Is Fleecing You,” was published in 1972.
His marriage to Ellen Wachsman ended in divorce. Besides his son, he is survived by his girlfriend, Cynthia Neun, who also served time in prison for tax evasion; another son, Peter; and four grandchildren.
Peter Schiff, the president of Euro Pacific Capital, a brokerage firm, achieved renown as an author of the recession-related books “Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse” (2006) and “The Real Crash: America’s Coming Bankruptcy” (2012).
By 1980, he had been urging his father “to cease what he saw as futile resistance,” the monthly journal The American Conservative reported in October 2009.
“He admits today that he finds Irwin’s intellectual case compelling,” the journal added, “but is completely disinclined to imitate his father’s radical methods or his idealism.”
It quoted him as saying: “The problem with my father is that he’s not practical. He was always going to lose.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/20/b...onent-of-federal-income-taxes-dies-at-87.html
Irwin A. Schiff, who built a national following by arguing that income taxes are unconstitutional and spent more than 10 years in prison for evading them and for helping thousands of others to do the same, died on Friday at a hospital affiliated with a federal prison in Fort Worth. He was 87.
The cause was lung cancer, his son Andrew said on Monday.
At his death, Mr. Schiff was an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution, where he was serving his third prison term, a 14-year sentence handed down in 2005.
Mr. Schiff sold more than 250,000 copies of six self-published books, including “How Anyone Can Stop Paying Income Taxes” (1980), “The Great Income Tax Hoax” (1985) and “The Federal Mafia: How the Federal Government Illegally Imposes and Unlawfully Collects Federal Income Taxes” (1992).
His writings became widely cited in the literature of the so-called tax-honesty movement (tax deniers, to opponents) and of right-wing organizations challenging the legitimacy of the federal government.
Over the years, Mr. Schiff pressed his cause on national television shows like “Larry King Live” and “The Tomorrow Show” with Tom Snyder. And when he wasn’t barnstorming the country conducting seminars and selling videotapes, he worked out of a storefront office in Las Vegas. There, behind a large sign that read, “Why Pay Income Taxes? When No Law Says You Have To?,” he offered counseling, for fees.
His bottom-line advice: Declare “zero income.”
“You, sir, would be the lawbreaker, not I,” Mr. Schiff told a federal judge in 1980, if he were sentenced for not paying taxes that “are obviously not authorized by the Constitution.” The judge, T. Emmet Clarie, sentenced Mr. Schiff to six months in prison and a fine of $10,000 for deliberately not filing tax returns for 1974 and 1975.
It was his first prison term. His most recent was for personally evading taxes as well as advising more than 3,600 others to follow his example by withholding about $56 million in revenue from the federal government. (One year of the 14-year sentence was for contempt of court.)
In that case a Las Vegas jury convicted him of multiple charges, including conspiracy, tax evasion and tax fraud. He also served three years of a six-year term he received in 1985.
In essence, Mr. Schiff argued that the Constitution had established that the value of the dollar was based on a certain amount of gold or silver, and that after the so-called gold standard was phased out, starting during the Depression, citizens no longer earned dollars, or income.
His second basic argument was that since all information in a tax return can be used against the taxpayer in a criminal proceeding, filling out a return — he called it a “tax confession” — violated the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.
Congress instituted the income tax in 1861 to pay for the Union cause in the Civil War. Widespread resistance led to its repeal in 1872.
After the income tax was reinstituted in 1894, Charles Pollock, a Massachusetts man, sued a loan company in which he held shares to stop it from paying the tax on the ground that it was unconstitutional. He cited the “capitation clause” in Article I, which provides that Congress can impose taxes directly only if they are apportioned according to the population of each state. The Supreme Court ruled in Mr. Pollock’s favor, striking down the 1894 law.
Soon after, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle began calling for a constitutional amendment to overrule the Pollock decision. In 1913, the 16th Amendment — which grants Congress the power to collect income taxes “without apportionment among the several States” — was ratified. Since then, no legal argument against the income tax has been upheld.
Still, when he was indicted in 2004 for the third time, Mr. Schiff declared, “I have filed my tax returns and reported zero income because I have no income in the constitutional sense.”
“I say I am America’s leading expert on the income tax,” he continued. “Everyone knows I believe no law requires me to pay taxes, so there is no willful intent to commit a crime. And if I am wrong, then I am delusional, in which case I am not willful. So they can’t legally convict me of tax evasion or any other crime that requires willful intent.”
To Robert L. Schulz, chairman of the We the People Foundation for Constitutional Education, which scrutinizes the constitutionality of government activity, Mr. Schiff was something of a hero.
“He acted on his beliefs and stood for tax honesty,” Mr. Schulz said in an interview for this obituary in 2012. “In a society where there is so much fear of government, and in particular of the I.R.S., he was probably the most influential educator regarding the illegal and unconstitutional operation and enforcement of the Internal Revenue Code.”
“It’s very hard to speak to power, but he did,” Mr. Schulz added, “and he paid a very heavy price.”
But in the estimation of J J MacNab, a financial consultant and the author of the forthcoming book “The Seditionists: Inside the Explosive World of Anti-Government Extremism in America,” Mr. Schiff caused significant harm.
“A lot of desperate people latched onto Schiff’s schemes as a quick solution to their problems, and their lives were effectively destroyed.” Ms. MacNab said in an interview in 2012. “When most tax-protest leaders go to prison, it’s like they vanish, but he was such a charismatic figure in the movement that rather than being forgotten he was turned into a martyr.”
Irwin Allen Schiff was born in New Haven on Feb. 23, 1928, the youngest of eight children of Jacob and Anna Schiff. His father, who had emigrated from what is now Poland in the 1890s, was a carpenter. “It was a solidly blue-collar, F.D.R. family,” Andrew Schiff said.
But Mr. Schiff’s views began shifting at the University of Connecticut, where he immersed himself in the thinking of stalwarts of the Austrian school of economics, like Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich A. Hayek and Henry Hazlitt, who essentially argued that government intervention in the economy is at best ineffective.
After graduating with a degree in economics in 1950, Mr. Schiff served in the Army for two years, then became an insurance broker. By the mid-1960s he was administering investments, primarily for doctors.
But his tax-shelter corporation, as well as his personal fortune, suffered in 1968 when a friend selling shares in a gold mine “turned out to be a con man running a Ponzi scheme,” Andrew Schiff said. “He and his clients lost a lot of money.”
Mr. Schiff, who was not implicated in the scheme, turned to writing. His first book, “The Biggest Con: How the Government Is Fleecing You,” was published in 1972.
His marriage to Ellen Wachsman ended in divorce. Besides his son, he is survived by his girlfriend, Cynthia Neun, who also served time in prison for tax evasion; another son, Peter; and four grandchildren.
Peter Schiff, the president of Euro Pacific Capital, a brokerage firm, achieved renown as an author of the recession-related books “Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse” (2006) and “The Real Crash: America’s Coming Bankruptcy” (2012).
By 1980, he had been urging his father “to cease what he saw as futile resistance,” the monthly journal The American Conservative reported in October 2009.
“He admits today that he finds Irwin’s intellectual case compelling,” the journal added, “but is completely disinclined to imitate his father’s radical methods or his idealism.”
It quoted him as saying: “The problem with my father is that he’s not practical. He was always going to lose.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/20/b...onent-of-federal-income-taxes-dies-at-87.html
