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 QUEENSBURY---Arguing that Washington County has unlawfully imposed property taxes to repay bonds that were issued in violation of New York's state constitution to fund the Hudson Falls trash burning plant, constitutional activist and tax protestor Bob Schulz has refused to pay his property taxes.
Last week, Washington County officials initiated foreclosure proceedings against Schulz's Ridge Road property, worth more than $550,000 and located near the border of Warren County, stating that it intends to seize and auction off the unencumbered home and property to collect the unpaid taxes it claims Schulz owns.
Instead of paying the taxes to the county, for the past two years, Schulz in exercising his Right-To-Petition, has deposited $12,000 into a trust account, naming the county as beneficiary, pending a decisive legal ruling by a state or federal court.
Schulz contends that the county is legally barred from collecting and using tax money to make bond payments to finance a project that was initiated in patent violation of the law and the state Constitution.
Schulz, founder of We The People http://www.givemeliberty.org has waged a two-decade battle against Washington County to using property taxes to repay the trash plant bonds.
Schulz says that in legal pleadings, the attorney for the county admitted, under oath, that the constitutionally mandated procedures for legally approving the project were not followed, thereby making the project unconstitutional.
In 2004, Schulz's legal fight against the trash plant project moved to the federal courts and has now reached the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan, which is considering the matter of Schulz's First Amendment Right-to-Petition and his right to withhold taxes to secure redress, which is at the heart of Schulz's argument. More information may be obtained by visiting www.givemeliberty.org.
Schulz's case is only one of about a dozen such federal cases the We The People Foundation is currently litigating where the Right-to-Petition is the central issue before the court. Several of these cases are already under, or close to being appealed to their respective federal Circuit Courts. These lawsuits have already resulted in a focusing and clarification of the arguments being advanced in the primary Right-To-Petition lawsuit brought by over 1,700 plaintiffs, and which itself, is currently being appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC.
According to Schulz, the Right-To-Petition lawsuit is the first in the history of the United States for the Constitution's petition clause to be fully defined. He expects the case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The 1,700 plaintiffs have signed a pledge to not pay taxes until their grievances are answered.
More details about the Right-to-Petition related lawsuits and the legal arguments being advanced, will be made available shortly, Schulz said, including electronic copies of the pleadings for review and use, as appropriate, by others who are acting in defense of the Constitution and the law by retaining their money until their grievances are redressed.
In April, Schulz will be leading members of the We The People Congress in a two-week hunger strike in Washington following their annual convention. The group has approximately 64,000 members representing all 50 states and will be demanding answers to their grievances which they formally presented to governmental officials in 2003. Among the complaints which to date government officials have not addressed is that the government went to war with Iraq without a formal congressional declaration of war, that the government has overstepped its taxation authority, is improperly abridging citizens' rights through the Patriot Act and has violated constitutional debt-limiting provisions.
Schulz engaged in a hunger strike in 2002 in Washington to force federal officials to address his concerns that the federal income tax had no basis in law. 1-15-06
© 2005 North
Country Gazette
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