Hitler's tax evasion

[Number Six]

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europ ... itler.tax/

Hitler's tax evasion in Germany deserves some attention. Is anyone knowledgeable on this knowing how he was able to avoid government actions trying to collect?

[notorial dissent]

It's real simple, when you make the rules, run, or terrify, the gov't you do whatever you please. I will admit he started early, but I think the then Bavarian authorities weren't too well organized to begin and later were terrified of him, and when he came to national power who was going to complain. A lot of it early on was garnered "legally" if you count political party and contributions, and he did have some VERY rich sponsors, later he didn't much bother. If some of the things I've seen are true, he would have been quite wealthy, no idea how so since the records weren't that good, but quite wealthy, providing Germany had an economy at the time. The mechanics of where some of his money came from is quite interesting if you look at the surviving documentation. He was getting rather hefty royalties off of a number of things.

[NYGman]

A great early example of a tax protester. I am guessing he may have also held similar beliefs as some of our Guru's and Promoters of today.

[The Observer]

Hitler was certainly a tax evader, but not a tax protester in any sense of the term as we currently understand it. We have discussed his evasion many years ago on this site, so it is not an untouched topic. But it does indicate that there is tendency to conflate tax evaders and tax protesters.

In today 's world, there are many who evade taxes, but only a few rise to the level of being idiots who pursue fantasy theories of why they don't owe tax. From the linked article, it only points out that Hitler challenged the tax liabilities as a common citizen and then asked to pay in installments. When was the last time you heard of Irwin Schiff asking the government if he could pay his taxes in installments?

Moving this to the Tax Policy thread.