Tax Lawyer's Blog

I hope I don’t get a lien plopped on me, but this one is just too good to pass up.

Donna Brinkle and Joel Brinkle are being sued by the State of Florida for fraudulently and illegally placing liens on state employees and private citizens. 

Republic of Brinkle

In the ’90s, the Brinkles stopped paying taxes and declared themselves independent of all government authority. Joel Brinkle went to jail and the IRS began enforced collection action to seize their assets and Seminole County sold their home to collect the unpaid property taxes.

I have met and talked with many tax protesters in my time, but the Brinkles’ claim to be their own sovereign nation takes the cake.

The Orlando Sentinel reported that,

In February the Brinkles tried to buy a $700,000 house in Alaqua, a prestigious gated community in Seminole County, from Hunter Paschall, a Longwood property investor. Instead of money, however, they presented him with a homemade money order. Although the deal fell apart, the Brinkles recorded the sale had been done, county land records show.

According to Donna Brinkle, that money order was perfectly valid. As head of her own sovereign country, she has the power to create her own monetary system, and she did.

A judge disagreed, ruling that Paschell was the rightful owner. The Brinkles filed liens against him, his wife and his company.

Donna Brinkle said she has not given up on taking ownership of the Alaqua house, just as she has not given up on reclaiming her 5 acres in Geneva.

“It’s still mine. It’s still my and my husband’s,” she said. “All we lack is someone with a bigger stick than they have in Seminole County.”

According to the Sentinel, the couple has filed over two dozen liens in the past six years. They filed a lien against a Sanford lawyer who sued the Brinkles in a land dispute, a Longwood company that towed their vehicle and a deputy court clerk who insisted that the Brinkles pay the standard fee to record a document. They even filed a lien against former President of the United States, Bill Clinton.

(Well, okay, maybe that last one was justified.)

Donna Brinkle said they file the liens to get back at people who have done them wrong.

And get this, the Brinkles complained to the Sentinel that they don’t have enough money to pay their heating and air conditioning bills because they are “scraping by on $1,300.00 per month of Social Security Benefits.”

SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS? Don’t they mean foreign aid?

Now that I think about it, I have a few credit card bills I’d like to take care of. I think I’ll pay them in Papps, the official currency of the sovereign nation of Pappastan.

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