For a tax-protest to be credible, the protester has to show evidence of good-faith.

Here are some points to consider:

• It’s futile to argue the constitutionality of laws that the courts themselves have repeatedly ruled are constitutional. The enforceable law is whatever the courts say it is. The law of God, natural law, morality, your personal opinions, your rabid convictions won’t count when it comes to enforcement. Sorry.
• There is a legitimate part of government – admittedly a small one – which goes toward services the citizenry receive.  A good-faith tax protest would pay up that amount.
• A good-faith tax protest would not involve teaching tax-evasion methods (there’s a big difference between evading and avoiding taxes) to uninformed people that lands them in jail.
• A good-faith tax protester would not receive any services from the government, or would pay for those he’s obliged to receive from need. He might even overpay to show good faith. He might put the some of the money he owed (say, money that would have gone to war or to the bail-out) to some civic use – not because he is obliged to, but to show that his unwillingness to pay taxes doesn’t stem from venality.  He might place it in a family foundation that would benefit his own family but at the same time be of use to the community. The purpose of his act is to change enough minds to change the law. Establishing his credibility is part of that.
• A good-faith tax protest would be conducted from start to finish publicly because its purpose is public – to protest the tax. A protest is a public act.

If you want to engage in counter-economics, then you should know its activities are criminal and will be so regarded. Don’t expect sympathy from the rest of the public which does pay its taxes.

Notice that the media has made a distinction between the tax-resistance of the Vietnam war era and contemporary tax resisters – emphasizing the “white supremecist” elements and scams in the latter (and doubtless there are many).

Expect most people to believe (and, unfortunately, in some cases they will be right about it) that you are just another free-loader on the system.

Check out this factsheet to see how the government views tax protesters like Irwin Schiff.

And here’s a sympathetic view of Irwin Schiff from Libertarian Republican.

My view? I don’t know Schiff’s case in detail but I’m not persuaded by his methods, though sympathetic to his aims.

My suggestion, if you really don’t want to be subject to Uncle Sam, leave the country. Drop citizenship.

A large mass of people renouncing US citizenship is the smartest, least problematic way to defund the US government.