Posted on 10/19/2015 6:00:17 PM PDT by OddLane
Irwin Schiff died on Friday while in federal custody over charges connected with his refusal to pay taxes and his advising others to do so.
His public career began as a popularizer of small-government, Austrian-economics-influenced thought with a popular book mostly about the various ways he thought government actions of various sorts harmed citizens called The Biggest Con. He then shifted to become the most famous popularizer, over many books over decades, of the idea that no one legally owes income tax.
According to an obituary notice from his son Peter Schiff, who runs the firm Euro Pacific Capital and is a public advocate for Austrian-influenced economic ideas himself, his father's end was unnecessarily ignominious and cruel.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
Wow. After reading this and other ridiculous Schiff threads, you have my sympathy.
For putting up with miscellaneous idiots and those incapable of understanding simple facts. This board is chock full of morons who don’t get it. At all. Just like Irwin never did.
One can think that a federal income tax is a bad idea. A terrible idea. I agree with that. So did Irwin.
Problem is that it’s current law, period. And has been for 100 years.
No federal judge has ever said otherwise. Until the law is changed, no federal judge ever will.
Either you follow current law or potentially go to prison.
Irwin filed returns based on his idiocy and went to prison not once, not twice, but three times because of it. And it was idiocy, there’s not a scintilla of legal justification behind his junk.
In his final trial he represented himself. The usual big mistake. His pitiful last-ditch attempt to save himself in that trial was to claim that he was mentally ill and his rantings about federal taxes were all due to that.
He probably was mentally ill, but he didn’t convince the judge. So, he got locked up for what turned out to be a well-deserved life sentence. And now he’s come out of prison feet-first.
Irwin made a lot of money from the garbage books and other totally useless junk that he sold to his marks. Sorry, no refunds for the suckers.
He had nothing but contempt for the many people who took his useless advice and also went to prison. Some for years. Ask Steven Swan and many others.
He wrecked quite a few lives other than his own, including those of some of his true-believer employees and thought nothing of it.
Good riddance to a useless scam artist.
That pretty much addresses it for me. I agree.
Thank you for the tip.
You’re welcome.
= :^)
People get worked up over some very legitimate issues. Sadly, some of them think this gives them license to come up with a hair-brained idea and run with it.
It doesn’t. As you mentioned, Schiff misled many people. They paid for listening to him and utilizing his tactics.
That’s just unfortunate IMO. Like to government or not, the law is the law, and the federal government is not going to bend over backwards to destroy itself, just for tax evaders.
Thanks for your comments. I agree with you.
Is that you Lois Lerner?
Recent U. S. economic problems (2008, 09) led to severe problems across Europe. When our consumers cut back, China experiences problems.
If we defaulted on a $19 trillion dollar debt, it would create economic havoc around the world.
I don’t have to be a Leftist nut-job to understand that.
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