Senate To Hold Hearing On Our USA TODAY Ads
But Does Not Want To Hear From Us.

We Will Hold a Press Conference Outside The Hearing Room.

A New York Times reporter, David Cay Johnston, telephoned us after 5 p.m. on Friday, March 30, 2001, to inform us of the fact that the Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a formal hearing for 10 a.m. on Thursday, April 5, 2001. Mr. Johnston said the subject of the hearing would be the full-page ads we have published in USA TODAY and that the Committee intended to have the ads on display during the hearing. Johnston said that our side of the story needs to be told, that we should try to get on the witness list and that all the major media outlets would attend any press conference we were to hold in the hallway outside the hearing room, if we were not allowed to testify before the Committee.

Early Monday morning, April 2, 2001, we telephoned the Senate Finance Committee to request that we be added to the witness list. We were told that the witness list was closed before the Committee scheduled and publicly announced the hearing, but that we could fax a letter to the Committee Chairman to request that we be added to the list.

On Monday morning we faxed our letter to Senator Grassley, requesting to be added to the witness list.

Late Monday afternoon we received by fax a letter from Senator Grassley which reads: "Dear Mr. Schulz: Thank you for your letter requesting to be added to the witness list for the Senate Finance Committee Hearing on April 5, 2001. We will be unable to add you to our witness list. However, should your organization chose to submit a written statement regarding our hearing, 'Taxpayer Beware: Schemes, Scams and Fraud,' we will consider including it in the hearing record. Sincerely, Charles E. Grassley, Chairman Senate Finance Committee."

It seems incongruous that the Senate would hold a hearing featuring our full-page ads and not invite us to testify. They apparently have a message that they want to convey, which is inapposite to our message. They apparently want to divert attention away from questions of whether the IRS is collecting taxes without legal authority by trying to portray those who raise such questions as scammers. In fact, those in the tax honesty movement see the IRS as the scammers! The question is not who is putting their money in an offshore trust, or who is not filing their tax return or which employers have stopped withholding from the paychecks of their employees. The primary question is: "What legal authority requires most Americans to file an income tax return and pay the income tax? There ought to be a moratorium on the IRS' enforcement activities, and all those people who are sitting in prison for not paying the income tax should be released, pending the determination of this fundamental question.

Our government leaders apparently want to label anyone and everyone, including this Foundation, who are questioning the legal authority of the IRS to collect the individual income tax as schemers, scammers and frauds, while they continue to conduct their tax enforcement activities as usual, without addressing the compelling allegations of fraud and the illegal operations of the income tax system and without justifying their behavior.

We have decided that we will hold a press conference in the hallway outside the Senate hearing room at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday. We will have press kits available which will include copies of letters inviting Commissioner Rossotti and the leaders of the executive and legislative branches of the government to identify their most knowledgeable people and have them participate with the experts in the tax honesty movement in the four symposiums and conferences we sponsored at the National Press Club to debate and discuss the issues. We will highlight the major allegations regarding the fraudulent ratification of the 16th Amendment, the demonstrable lack of evidence of any law that requires most citizens to file or pay the income tax, and the problems relating to routine violations by the IRS of the People's rights under the 4th, 5th, 6th and 13th Amendments in their day-to-day administrative procedures. We will point out that the government chose to evade the public forums and chose not to even acknowledge receipt of the invitations! We will also include a copy of the video tape of the April 13, 2000 meetings in the White House and in the Capitol with President Clinton's economic advisor Jason Furman, Speaker Hastert's policy advisor, Dr. William Koetzle and the Senate Majority Leader's policy director, Keith Hennessey. The tape shows these gentlemen meeting with Joe Banister and Bob Schulz and accepting a REMONSTRANCE for Clinton, Hastert and Lott. The tapes also show these men promising to have their experts review the research reports authored by Bill Benson, Joe Banister and William Conklin and to participate in our fourth attempt to get the two sides to meet on June 29, 2000, in a public forum, to debate the allegations of the fraudulent and illegal operations of the income tax system -- promises which were broken on June 2, 2000, when Jason Furman told Schulz; "The legality of the income tax is not a high priority matter for the White House and we will not be participating in any conference on the subject." The press kits will also include a copy of each ad we decided to publish in the wake of the government's reversal of its decision to review and then meet to discuss the research reports by Benson, Banister and Conklin.

Our message will be a simple one: We want the government to answer the serious questions that have been raised by numerous tax researchers who say that the IRS is collecting the individual income tax without legal authority and that the IRS operates illegally when it tries to force citizens to pay taxes they do not owe. Instead of the Senate and House encouraging the IRS to increase enforcement of laws that apparently do not exist, wouldn't it be easier and better for them to have their experts meet with the tax researchers in a public forum, show them where they are wrong, embarrass them, and put it all to rest? Why is the government so averse to doing so? Are they worried that they can't show the researchers to be in error? When does evasion become admission?

The government's dual actions of evading the public discussion of the issues while strengthening its steel-fisted, heavy-handed enforcement campaign of fear and terror only serves to strengthen the resolve and determination of a People who see themselves as free and sovereign, and who see all of government limited by a written constitution.