Tax forms are associated with a lot of things but “fashion forward” rarely springs to mind… until now. Britt Savage, a former Playboy bunny, is turning heads these days more for what she is wearing more than what she isn’t. And what she’s wearing are tax forms.
Savage recently fashioned a dress out of federal income tax forms, using mostly child and dependent care 1040A tax forms (because – not kidding – they incorporated lots of pink). She’s planning to wear it at a gig on Tax Day – for more info about the dress and a photo, head over to Wallet Pop.
Does the name Tony Alamo ring a bell? It should. The controversial evangelist, now 74 years old, has been making headlines for more than 25 years.
The flashy Alamo was born Bernie Lazar Hoffman in small town Missouri. Jewish by birth, Alamo married Edith Opal Horn, who was also Jewish. Alamo claims to have converted to Christianity after a super natural experience; after the conversion, he referred to himself as “a completed Jew.” Soon thereafter, he changed his name to Tony Alamo and Edith’s name to Sue Alamo. With a new religion and new names, Sue and Tony began their ministry.
Alamo Ministries grew quickly, expanding into other arenas and becoming a virtual empire worth an estimated $60 million in the 1980s. Those actions attracted the attention of the Department of Labor and the IRS, both of which instituted actions against his assortment of companies. Alamo appealed his DOL case all the way to the Supreme Court in 1985 and lost. That same year, the IRS retroactively revoked the tax exempt status for Alamo’s “church” for the years 1977 to 1980. The matter stayed in court for seven years. Eventually, the IRS seized “church” property in order to satisfy outstanding tax obligations in the millions.
Nonetheless, Alamo didn’t learn his lesson. Nearly ten years later, Alamo was convicted of filing a false federal income tax return and failing to file tax returns for three years. Income for the years in which he did not file is estimated to have been as high as $9 million. Much of the income came from a stint in the fashion industry where Alamo designed special denim jackets and accessories reportedly for such celebrities as Mr. T, Bono and Springsteen (a quick peek on eBay this evening revealed only one bid for any Alamo designs – and that bid was 99 cents).
In 1994, Alamo was sentenced to a fine of $550,000 and a maximum of six years in federal prison, he only served four of those years. One of the requirements of his release is particularly notable: he was ordered to return the remains of his deceased wife to members of her family. When his wife died of cancer years earlier, Alamo claimed she would be resurrected and kept her body on display in a crystal crypt on his dining room table. During the federal raid on his church compound, he had ordered his followers to hide her body. As part of the condition of his release, his followers turned the body over to Susan’s family, sixteen years after her death.
More after the jump…
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