One otherwise sunny day he was at his place of employment taking a break and sitting in the restroom.  His fellow workers used to joke with him a lot about his tax protester beliefs, so he thought it was a prank when he heard a knock claiming to be a “Federal agent.” He answered roughly to the “pranksters’ and calmly finished his project.

All that changed when he walked out of the men’s room!

In his own words he described it to me as all the sudden he was ‘lit up like a Christmas tree’.  The reference was to all the red laser dots lighting up his body. The Federal Agents that were hiding behind desks and file cabinets were pointing guns with laser sights right at him.

They had taken his “rough talk” quite seriously and he was arrested. These were IRS agents.  These are the circumstances in which I met him, and he confessed to me that he and his business partner were the ones sending tax protest materials.

Believe it or not, this case had a happy ending

We worked closely with a criminal attorney. We represented him before the IRS on the civil side while the criminal attorney dealt with the criminal aspects of non-filing.  We voluntarily prepared corrected tax returns that did not show those tax protester positions. Due to his cooperation in the case, the IRS dropped the criminal charges and was content with having him back in the system as a regular tax payer.

His business partner wasn’t so lucky.  He continued to hold on to the arguments that the tax system wasn’t for him.  Last I heard he was still in jail. It’s been awhile, so I don’t know if he’s still there.  I admire people whose beliefs are so strong that they are willing to go to jail for it! I just can’t help them!

The very best part of this is that our client (who became a friend) was ultimately allowed to file for an Offer in Compromise due to the fact that it would have been impossible for him to ever pay off the debt he had after not filing for years.  He ended up with a settlement that once and for all put this whole thing behind him.  He actually did a commercial for us explaining all the insanity of the situation.  Great guy, he just made a mistake.  Fortunately we were able to correct it!

On Oct. 1, a New York Timesreport found that Trump had declared a loss so large on his taxes in 1995 that he may have been able to avoid paying taxes for 18 years. But Trump still refused to release his full tax returns, leading critics to wonder if he was as rich as he claimed to be or if he had something to hide.

In January, after assuming the presidency, the Trump team announced he would not release his tax returns because "people didn't care."But an ABC News/Washington Post poll showed 74% of Americans, including more than half of Republicans, wanted to see Trump's tax returns — something the Tax March organizers are hoping to show the administration.

"On April 15, we're marching on Washington, D.C., and in communities across the country to show that we do care," the organizers wrote on their website. "And that we're not going away."

The fight for voting rights is far from over. Voting restrictions and voter suppression still exist today, under a different name. In many states, it has become more difficult for elderly and low-income people to vote, through strict voter ID laws and low number of polling places. Six million Americans cannot vote because of a previous felony conviction, and the mass incarceration of Black and brown people means that one out of every 13 Black voters is excluded. The difficulty and even inability to vote is one of many ways that the federal government fails to accommodate and protect the rights and identities of trans and non-binary people. Voter disenfranchisement also looks like gerrymandering, long polling lines, and the inability to take off work on Election Day. We are committed to asking ourselves who we may still be leaving behind in our voter enfranchisement efforts today. When we say “hear our vote,” we mean ALL votes. We march forward together or not at all.