Cindy Sheehan Visits the I.R.S.

Cindy Sheehan met with the IRS the other day to hear their questions for her about her finances, but she didn’t much feel like giving answers. She shares what happened on her blog. An excerpt:

There was no ruling from the Magistrate at my hearing on whether I could use a “blanket 5th” for the IRS form 433-A, but we agreed to meet with the IRS on … to do a “line by line” answer for my “assets.” Basically, every answer was “No” or “Zero,” but I do receive contributions for my books and speaking that pay the expenses for Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox and which allow me to be a full-time activist… so I did take the 5th on my bank account records. Confirming my suspicion that the feds either want me to perjure or incriminate myself, after I answered “no” to the automobile question, the Revenue Officer pulled up my DMV record showing that I owned a Toyota Camry — which I transferred to my son last year after his only form of transportation died on him. It was barely my car anyway as I also try very hard not to purchase fuel. I had the feeling that I was asked many questions that the feds already have the answer to.


A tax resistance note from yesteryear in Spain:

Taxes Are Disliked

Spaniards Refuse to Pay Government Assessments.

Rioting Occurs in Various Parts of Spain and Several Citizens and Soldiers Are Wounded — Streets Barricaded.

,  —  passed off peacefully practically everywhere throughout Spain, despite the universal character of the anti-taxation measure. The only noteworthy disturbance took place at Valencia, where barricades were erected in streets and a mob stoned the gendarmes and received them with rifle shots. Two policemen were injured. The gendarmes replied with a fusillade, before which the mob fled.

,  — Despatches just received here show that disorders due to anti-taxation agitation similar to those which took place in Valencia occurred last night at Barcelona, where a crowd threw up a barricade in the streets and exchanged musketry fire with a body of gendarmes. Shots were also fired from verandas and balconies of a number of houses. Several gendarmes were hit. A number of rioters were arrested. At Seville a mob threw stones at the building of the military club, shattering windows and gas lamps. The gendarmes only succeeded in dispersing the rioters after a hard fight, during which several citizens, two gendarmes, a police inspector, and two members of the municipal guard were wounded. Infantry and cavalry finally cleared the streets.

This anti-tax agitation concerned, I believe, the introduction of the income tax in Spain, partially in order to pay of debts from the Spanish-American War in which Spain was trying to hold on to its distant Western Hemisphere colonies (the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam) that the U.S. preferred to wrest for itself.

Some day the bill for the wars that the U.S. has been putting on credit is going to come due. Today’s Occupiers and TEA Partiers are just tuning up their paving-stone aim for when the real battles come.