Vivien Kellems
Encyclopedia
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
industrialist and tax resister
Tax resistance
Tax resistance is the refusal to pay tax because of opposition to the government that is imposing the tax or to government policy.Tax resistance is a form of civil disobedience and direct action...
who fought the U.S. federal government for over 25 years over withholding
Tax withholding in the United States
Three key types of withholding tax are imposed at various levels in the United States:*Wage withholding taxes,*Withholding tax on payments to foreign persons, and*Backup withholding on dividends and interest....
under 26 USC §3402, and other aspects of income tax in the United States
Income tax in the United States
In the United States, a tax is imposed on income by the Federal, most states, and many local governments. The income tax is determined by applying a tax rate, which may increase as income increases, to taxable income as defined. Individuals and corporations are directly taxable, and estates and...
. She was also a fervent supporter of voting reform and the Equal Rights Amendment
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and, in 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time...
.
Kellems received a BA
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
from the University of Oregon
University of Oregon
-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...
in 1918, where she became the only woman on the debate team. She went on to earn a masters degree in economics, and worked towards a PhD at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
.
In 1927, she founded Kellems Cable Grips, Inc., in Connecticut, based on a patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
for an invention in the area by her brother. In 1948, she refused to collect withholding tax
Withholding tax
Withholding tax, also called retention tax, is a government requirement for the payer of an item of income to withhold or deduct tax from the payment, and pay that tax to the government. In most jurisdictions, withholding tax applies to employment income. Many jurisdictions also require...
es from her employees on behalf of the government, stating, "if they wanted me to be their agent, they'd have to pay me, and I want a badge." She was interviewed about her tax opposition on "Meet the Press
Meet the Press
Meet the Press is a weekly American television news/interview program produced by NBC. It is the longest-running television series in American broadcasting history, despite bearing little resemblance to the original format of the program seen in its television debut on November 6, 1947. It has been...
" on September 26, 1948 at a time when women rarely appeared on the show. She has described herself in her book Toil, Taxes and Trouble.
The Kellems case is presented also by Murray Newton Rothbard in his book For a New Liberty
For a New Liberty
For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto is a book by American economist and historian Murray N. Rothbard, first published in 1973, that helped launch the modern libertarian movement in the United States, and was the first modern free market anarchist manifesto For a New Liberty: The...
:
She surrendered her case when continued pursuit of it threatened to bankrupt her company, but continued to challenge that and other aspects of the income tax for the rest of her life, saying in a 1975 Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
interview that "[o]ur tax law is a 1,598-page hydra-headed monster and I’m going to attack and attack and attack until I have ironed out every fault in it." From 1965 until her death, Kellems reportedly only sent blank returns to the IRS. Her stands against the income tax system have made Kellems an admired figure to the tax protester
Tax protester (United States)
A tax protester is someone who refuses to pay a tax on constitutional or legal grounds, typically because he or she believes that the tax laws are unconstitutional or otherwise invalid...
movement.
Kellems Grip is the patented invention. Vivien Kellems and her brother Edgar Kellems invented an improved version of the wire mesh grip in use at that time and the "endless-weave grip" was born. Around 1928 Vivien Kellems solicited Queens Electric Light and Power Company and the Brooklyn Edison Company for a total of twenty orders, hired a man to weave wire the Kellems Company was underway. The grip is a mechanical product for pulling, positioning, routing and strain relief of cables.
External links
- Vivien Kellems Papers from the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut
- Vivien Kellems: Tax Resister, Feminist, and Industrialist by David T. Beito.