The Internet has always been a hotbed of wacky but harmless ideas. That’s not the case with the anti-tax movement: These money-saving schemes can cost you everything.

Each April, we remember Benjamin Franklin’s theory on the inevitability of death and taxes. But for those who believe that they can avoid paying income tax through clever loopholes, Franklin’s quote becomes just another government conspiracy.

Paul and Myrna Schuck once tried to convince an Alberta court that the postage stamps they had stuck to their clothes made them equivalent to royalty, and therefore not subject to taxation. Kent Hovind, an evangelist in a Creationist ministry, tried to avoid paying taxes by revoking his American citizenship, claiming to be “a natural sojourner” whose income belonged to God. In August, Royal LaMarr Hardy of Honolulu was sentenced to 13 years in jail for tax fraud and conspiracy. Since 1985, his so-called tax research foundation had convinced thousands of gullible people that filing taxes is
a voluntary decision.

Source

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