Arthur Porth

Who is Arthur Porth?

Arthur Julius Porth was a Wichita, Kansas building contractor and tax protestor who ran afoul of the federal government in the mid-20th century. In the case of Porth v. Brodrick, he sued the government for a refund of $135 in taxes he paid, claiming that he was placed in a position of involuntary servitude contrary to the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and alleging that the clear intent of Congress in adopting the Sixteenth Amendment was to provide for a fair, just and reasonable source of revenue to the United States Government through a simple and direct levy or tax upon the income of the people, but that Federal tax legislation enacted after the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment had given rise to such a mass of ambiguous, contradictory, inequitable and unjust rules, regulations and methods of procedure, that the taxpayer's rights as a citizen of the United States had been placed in jeopardy because the present and existing tax laws, rules, regulations and methods of procedure had compelled him to assume unreasonable duties, obligations and burdens in order to make a just accounting of his income and pay the tax thereon. His petition was denied. In the case of Porth v. Templar, which resulted from a five-count indictment relating to his failure to deduct tax from employees' wages, he successfully challenged a district court probationary condition banning him from speaking or writing on the unconstitutionality of tax evasion laws.