1980: Anti-Tax Evader Creates Phony ‘Money Certificates’ to Avoid Tax Payments, Defraud Government

A portion of the cover of ‘Mirache on Main Street.’ [Source: Book Covers (.com)]Nashville musician Frederick “Tupper” Saussy III, who makes a living writing advertising jingles, writes a popular anti-tax protest book, Miracle on Main Street. Along with claiming that taxation is illegal (see 1951-1967, 1970-1972, and 1976-1978), Saussy concocts a fraudulent kind of “checkbook” money he calls “Public Office Money Certificates,” and says tax protesters can use them to pay their debts. The “certificates,” he claims, are “redeemable in dollars of the money of account of the United States upon an official determination of the substance of the money of account.” The idea will be copied by Posse Comitatus protesters (see 1969) and, later, by the Montana Freemen (see 1993-1994). In 1985, Saussy will be convicted of tax evasion and will become a federal fugitive. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2001]