Protester Risks His Land To Make A Point

Gorden Ormesher sees himself as a tax messiah, a martyr battling a beastly bureaucracy with paper and a theory.

At 62, the retired builder says he’s unwilling, but driven. He’d rather play with his grandchildren or spend weeks in the woods taking photographs.

It’s just something he has to do, he says.

“For years, people have been walking into the tax man like sheep,” he says. “It’s the way we’ve been conditioned. It’s got to stop.”

This winter, Ormesher paid three years of property taxes with a $16,532 promissory note county officials say is worthless.

His argument: U.S. currency is no longer backed by gold, so a note can’t be worth any less.

It’s part of a grand protest against over-regulation, unnecessary taxation and invasion of privacy.

The tax office seemed the perfect place to start, he says. He’s pinned his land holdings - a retirement nest egg - on it.

He may be left with a goose egg instead, says County Treasurer Jeanine Ashcraft.

This week, Ormesher’s months-long protest could end with the county seizing title to his house and four tracts of land.

Ormesher considers it a risk worth taking for his family’s future.

At home, pictures of his grandchildren line a living room wall.

A wooden bookshelf holds reference texts, including the Book of Mormon and Good-Bye April 15!, an unsigned guide to income tax protests.

Ormesher says he turned to anti-government literature after a run-in between his son and county building inspectors. Government officers are too zealous, he says.

“The system is broken,” he says. “Democrats, Republicans … the choice is between the lesser of two evils.”

Ormesher helps distribute the back-to-basics doctrine to people who have run-ins with government.

“The newspaper is full of people going up against the system who love to talk about this,” he says.

Besides, he says, what if he’s right?

“If I win, we all win,” he says. “If I lose, I’ll just do what I would have done anyway - pay up.”

Ashcraft says if county commissioners take title to the land this week, it won’t be that simple.

Someone else with a financial stake in it - a bank, for instance - could pay back taxes and next year’s taxes and take ownership before Ormesher changes his mind. One stakeholder has already expressed interest, she says.

Ormesher doesn’t appear worried.

“I understand my rights,” he says. “They just don’t understand the law.”