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Show By BOB GAINES A folk singer Joan Baez sent off a note to her tax col- I few weeks ago, ML WMnrtniannfcft'' tiMW' For the most part, the battlers back one of two solutions to the tax problem. The first is the "25 percent amendment." This would set a limit on the amount of revenue the Internal Revenue Service can take from taxpayers. Since the late 1930s, 32 state legislatures have passed resolutions favoring this amendment. ' Far more controversial is the "liberty amendment" which would completely, abolish personal income taxes. The most active group behind this piece of fiscal legislation is the Liberty Amendment Committee of the U.S.A., which has designated 1965 as the "big year" to advance the amendment. So far, seven states have approved it. They are Texas, Wyoming, Nevada, Louisiana, Georgia, . South Carolina, and Mississippi. The amendment will be up for consideration in 21 state legislatures this year. "Before this amendment can be accepted, the American people need a lot of says Willis Stone, national chairman of the committee. "Once we show them how much money is being wasted, they will understand why the income tax isn't needed." lector in California. She, wrote that she didn't approve of the way the U.S. was spending 60 percent of its national budget on armaments and was therefore withholding 60 percent of her tax bill. A check for the remaining 40 percent was dutifully enclosed. Joan sent the same note to her tax collector last year and shortly thereafter received an equally polite note asking her to come in and discuss the matter. "I went over to the office in Salinas," she recalls. "I told the man there about Gandhi and Thoreau and the right to resist unlawful taxes, but I don't think he understood. He kept saying it was my duty to pay." The government hammered home its argument by placing a lien against her house and car and by fining her $9 a day for every day she didn't pay. Agents also located one of. her New York bank accounts and seized the amount of money owed in taxes plus $2,000 in fines. "I suppose it will all happen again this year," Joan says, "but I don't care; This is an issue I feel deeply about" Resisting the government in its efforts to extract tax money has a. long history in this coun- -, try. It can be traced back to the Whisky Rebellion, when George Washington had to dispatch an army larger than any he commanded during the Revolutionary War to subdue the irate farmers of Pennsylvania. The farmers, he discovered, had been eathering federal agents sent out to collect taxes from the local moonshiners. - . tar-and- -f on whisky A tax income is something can be troublesome ; a tax on that turns many persons purple with rage which is what happened in 1913 when the 16th Amendment was ratified. And, with fluctuating intensity, the battle against the tax has been going on ever since. Currently, Hollywood seems to be the country's hotbed of tax wrath. The city's streets are lined with little offices from which emanates a steady stream of bitter, antitax literature. The authors of this material range from groups such as ORFIT (Organization to Repeal Federal Income Taxes), founded by Hollywood stars like the late Adolph Menjou and Charles Coburn, to individual agitators like redheaded ' ' Cnrinne Griffith. Corinne, a movie star of the 1920s and 1930s, . now travels about the country preaching against , taxes. Her talks, delivered with the venom of someone who might have just received a fiscal' hotfoot from the tax man, are in great demand. palm-garnish- ed ! COVER: 1 tf -- Joan Baez Those Irate Enemies of the Income r Tax Corinne Griffith 3 Vivien Kellems m m ' m. Most Americans iyy have come to accept meeting the April 15 deadline each year, but some haven't-andt- hotbed he. of their movement seems to be in Hollywood WkeUly Family 1 tni Prmident Aprit n, i96s PublMor Saturday afternoon means sandlot action for the Little Leaguers in this Jack Zehrt photograph. They WAITER C DREYFUS AmocM Pvbluher PATRICK I. OtOUtXi Etoentivo Viet Prttident mnd Will! AM V. HUSKY AdwtU Mtmtger MORTON RANK Vie PrmUnL PtbiUker Rolmtiom dream of playing with stars like AoWtblnfl fficM 17f K. Michigan Ar Chicago, lit. 60601 Editorial orflcot 405 Park Ay., Now York. N.V. 10022 tutiiwM oHki 1727 S. Indiana An., Chicago, III. 60616 Dean Chance, profiled on page 6. UONAU) DAVIDOW INS, of the angry tax crusaders is not an The press jeers at them, the courts ignore them, and the government threatens to send them to jail. The experience of Vivien Kellems, the Connecticut industrialist who objected to collecting withholding taxes from her employees, is typical Miss Kellems took the government to court over the matter but never achieved her purpose, which was to have the Supreme Court consider law. the constitutionality of the withholding-ta- x As a tax crusader, she ran for the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and finally the Connecticut governorship but was defeated each time. Finally, in disgust, she sold her company, saying that taxes made it impossible for ' the small manufacturer to survive. Today, Miss Kellems says of her tax battles: "You go so far with people and the government, and then you hit a blank wall of apathy. It's a frustrating, terrible experience." How does the Internal Revenue Service respond to such indignation over taxes? "This is a legislative problem, one Washington tax authority -said recently. "The tax collectors simply enforce the lawspassed by the Congress. Don't fight the Jax guyf or Jbackinga. lawyour ownCongress- ' man supports." added he Then ; "No one likes taxes, but the minority of tax haters just doesn't have an answer to financing government. What choice do we really have?" The lotone. PROCfSSINO ROKRT FITZGIttON Editor-in-Chi- Extcutivt Editor AR0CN EIDELl Managing Editor PHILIIP DYKSTRA Art Dirtctor ME LAN IE Oi PROfT Food Editor loMlyn Abrovava, lob Cain, EN KARTMAN Director Aivrtinng : - Hal London, Jack Ryan, Pawl Singor; Poor J. Oppmholnw, Hollywood. AND ROOKS. INC., Chicago, III. All rights rosorvod. ' |