Abortion doctor's murderer urges conservatives to commit tax fraud to defund Planned Parenthood

An unrepentant murderer is urging conservatives to commit tax fraud to protest abortion.

Scott Roeder, who was sentenced to 50 years without parole for gunning down Dr. George Tiller inside his Wichita, Kansas, church in 2009, says in a newly released YouTube video that Americans should stop paying federal income taxes to defund Planned Parenthood, reported the Kansas City Star.

Roeder argues in the 18-minute, audio-only interview, conducted by Iowa abortion protester Dave Leach, that income taxes are unconstitutional because the 16th Amendment, which grants the government authority to collect those taxes, was never officially ratified.

That claim is popular among tax protesters -- including the sovereign citizen movement, which Roeder became involved with in the 1990s.

"If everyone were to go into their personnel department and tell them you need to have your W-4 revised, and you put 'exempt' where it calls for it, because now that you know the truth that the 16 Amendment is the only power the Congress has to tax the people on their income -- which is not a law, it's been proven that it's not a law, it never was a law -- it's just another fraud that's been perpetrated on American people," Roeder said.

Roeder claims he declared himself exempt in 1992 and hasn't paid income taxes since, but courts have repeatedly declared such claims to be frivolous since the tactic was pioneered in the 1950s by Wichita building contractor Arthur Porth -- who, not surprisingly, was eventually convicted on various tax evasion charges and imprisoned.

“There are legal, ethical, moral and biblical ways to stop funding the murder of the unborn through our income tax,” Roeder said.

The IRS considers such tactics to be fraud, and the agency says the U.S. Supreme Court upheld income tax laws in 1916 and other courts have done the same since then.

Conservative lawmakers have proposed defunding Planned Parenthood after a series of deceptively edited videos released by an anti-abortion group showed officials discussing the donation of fetal tissue for research.

Roeder was disciplined two years ago for another YouTube interview, but prison officials said he apparently broke no rules by speaking by telephone to Leach -- who also believes that killing abortion doctors is a justifiable homicide.

Another tax protester and anti-abortion abortion activist, Kent Hovind, also recently promoted his views from prison through telephone interviews posted on YouTube.

Roeder was disciplined in 2013 for telling Leach that the life of Julie Burkhart, a former employee of Tiller's, was at risk because she reopened the slain doctor's clinic.

“To walk in there and reopen a clinic, a murder mill where a man was stopped, it’s almost like putting a target on your back — saying, ‘Well, let’s see if you can shoot me,'” Roeder said in an interview posted on YouTube by Leach.

Listen to the latest interview posted online by BibleWizard: