Tax at the National Parks: Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site Edition

By Sam Brunson

Last week, my family and I were at the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site. I wasn’t terribly familiar with the Tuskegee Airmen before visiting; frankly, their story is amazing, inspiring, and shocking. Basically, Army War College study from the early twentieth century claimed that African Americans lacked intelligence, ambition, and courage, and were thus unfit for the military, and especially unfit to be airmen.

The Tuskegee Institute had an airfield where it trained African American pilots; eventually the government accepted it as a training ground for military pilots. The Tuskegee Airmen proved the Army War College study wrong with a distinguished record of military service. Still, the military in the 1940s was segregated, and these Tuskegee Airmen served in segregated units and, when they returned home, they faced continued racism. Many, tired of what they experienced, went on to join the civil rights movement. And many of them share their stories, through audio, video, pictures, and artifacts, at the NHS. Continue reading “Tax at the National Parks: Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site Edition” →

Tax at the National Parks: Great Smokey Mounains Edition

By Sam Brunson

This will be the third in my series of tax-in-the-National-Parks posts. (I’m as surprised as you.)[fn1]

We spent a couple days camping at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. At the Oconaluftee Visitor Center, there were a series of displays about Appalachian life.[fn2] As I was looking at the moonshine still, I noticed this sign: Continue reading “Tax at the National Parks: Great Smokey Mounains Edition” →

Tax at the National Parks: Grand Portage Edition

By Sam Brunson

A year ago, the National Parks surprised me with a tax name-check. I mean, realistically, there shouldn’t have been anything surprising about encountering a picture of Al Capone at Alcatraz, but I didn’t think I’d see taxes there.

So consider this the second year in a row where the National Parks have surprised me with tax. My family was at Grand Portage National National Monument (which is incredibly cool, btw) learning about the Ojibwe and the North West Company and the thriving fur trade. In one room, there was a display about hatmaking. And, on the wall, was this cartoon:

Continue reading “Tax at the National Parks: Grand Portage Edition” →

Alcatraz!

Early in the Alcatraz Cellhouse Audio Tour, my wife pointed out one of the pictures in D-Block: right next to people imprisoned for narcotics offenses, conspiracy to kidnap, and murder was Mickey Cohen, in Alcatraz for tax evasion.

Tax evasion! Alcatraz was a pretty harsh punishment for not paying your taxes. Unless, of course, you weren’t really sent to Alcatraz for not paying taxes, Which, of course, Cohen wasn’t. Neither was the inmate at the other side of the picture: Al Capone. Continue reading “Alcatraz!” →