# Is this for real (death fast over taxes?)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-for-real-death-fast-over-taxes/176316>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 20, 2003, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-for-real-death-fast-over-taxes/176316 "2003-05-20T08:05:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mort\_Furd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mort\_Furd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mort_Furd)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2003, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-for-real-death-fast-over-taxes/176316/1 "2003-05-20T08:05:27Z")

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[Link](http://www.in-austin.com/death-fast/)

I don’t doubt that the person doing this exists or that he is really fasting. What I’m interested in is what makes him think there is no basis in law for the income tax.  
What gives him the idea that the IRS is collecting taxes and the goverment is spending them - with out anyone having enacted a law to that effect?

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**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2003, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-for-real-death-fast-over-taxes/176316/2 "2003-05-20T10:07:38Z")

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Seems real. I googled the guy and found a bunch of sites, but they seemed to belong to the tin foil hat/militia type. Does anybody know how long the human body will last with no food and just water?

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**Author:** ![rpavlick3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b5a626/32.png) [@rpavlick3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rpavlick3)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2003, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-for-real-death-fast-over-taxes/176316/3 "2003-05-20T11:33:17Z")

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His real point isn’t whether there is a law that specifically makes him liable to pay income tax, but rather that the IRS is a bloated bureacracy and can’t or won’t answer a simple question from a concerned citizen.

Thus, if the IRS (and the Federal government) is unresponsive to it’s citizens and the question isn’t answered, the actual existence of the law doesn’t matter as we are living in an authoritarian state. In effect, the federal goverment would be saying, you must “voluntarily” comply with this mandatory tax but you need not worry about simple little things like the legislative process.

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**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2003, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-for-real-death-fast-over-taxes/176316/4 "2003-05-20T19:14:46Z")

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Accidental duplicate thread. See the other copy at [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=185115](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=185115)