Personal Income Tax - Law or Fraud?

[Blotan Hunka]

Addressing some points made here.....

http://www.quatloos.com/taxscams/taxprot2.htm

 

[heretic888]

While I don't have a strong position on this issue one way or the other, I think I should say something here.

People who believe all the various conspiracy theories out there -no moon landing, 9/11 demolition teory, illumanati, x-file stuff-are also the same people who buy into this tax protest stuff. They sit next to each other at the Hatters Tea Party playing tug-o-war with the same teapot.

This line of reasoning is one of the best examples of the logical fallacy Guilt By Association that I have ever seen. It is also a common ploy in politics.

It would be nice if we maintain a little intellectual honesty here.

Laterz.

 

[TonyMac]

What they did not officially establish was the internal revenue service.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

I dont know. A simple google of "tax protest conspiracy theory" comes up with interesting associations pretty quick.


http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/11/15/153033.shtml

"The tax protest movement is a right-wing extremist movement," said Mark Pitcavage, director of "fact finding" for ADL. "You're not talking about tax reformers here. You're talking about people who have incredible conspiracy theories about the government."
ADL considers those who organized and attended the anti-tax rally to be such a serious threat that it included the group on its monthly calendar of "extremist events." Pitcavage said that the event's organizer, a group called "We The People Congress," advocated an agenda that is "so far out of the mainstream" that the group has disenfranchised itself from the rest of American society.

"These are people who do not think simply that taxes are too high or want tax reform," Pitcavage said. "They have convinced themselves they do not have to pay taxes and that there's a major government conspiracy designed to cover up that fact."

Pitcavage warned that the anti-tax movement was not confined to protest rallies.

"It's also a movement that has been linked strongly to violence, to attacks on IRS agents, to blowing up IRS offices, as well as many other crimes," he said. "There's a great deal of criminal activity associated with the movement."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Patriot

Some views commonly associated with The Christian Patriot movement, sometimes considered synonymous with the Militia Movement, are generally organized around a belief that world events are secretly controlled by some group such as the Illuminati, the Council of Foreign Relations, international banking families, Communists, Jews, the United Nations, or some combination of the above, and that conspiracy will culminate in a new world order conspiracy, which is either present or impending.

Christian Patriots hold to a strict constructionist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, and are closely associated with the tax revolt movement.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/preview/articles/1006america1006.html

This "documentary" is a heartfelt polemic by Aaron Russo, an entertainment-industry veteran turned celebrity tax protester. The film's faults are many, but first among them is that it's deadly dry.

Aside from the obligatory parade of talking heads, it's packed with enough quotes to make you suspect Russo was captain of his high-school debate team, with index-card arguments ever at the ready. The quotes linger on the screen long after you've finished reading them, leaving you itching for a remote control (Fast Forward - or Stop?). advertisement

For more than an hour, the film pounds home a paranoid variation on the tax-protest argument, which isn't really an argument but a series of assertions that don't always make sense together: that the 16th Amendment, which authorized the federal income tax, was not properly ratified; that, even if it were, its definition of "income" does not include wages; that, therefore, federal tax law is unconstitutional; and that, besides, there is no actual law, per se, requiring citizens to pay the income tax.

All of these arguments have been repeatedly laughed out of court. But the paranoid part is that Russo implies everyone in the government, the IRS and the courts knows that the whole tax system is a fraud, and they've all tacitly agreed (must we say conspired?) to enforce it anyway.

In the film's the final half-hour, Russo runs through a litany of contemporary threats to individual freedom, including the Patriot Act, media conglomeration, voting machines and the suspension of habeas corpus. Hands down, the highlight of the movie is its funny-scary depiction of ordering pizza in the near future (you can have the double meat, but only if you pay a $20 health surcharge because of your high cholesterol).

Yes, in the age of data mining and unlawful enemy combatants, the erosion of civil liberties is a very real issue, but Russo's brand of libertarianism is at best naive and at worst tin-foil-hat crazy. When politicians propose a national ID card, Russo sees it as the endgame of a master plan by "bankers" to impose world government and enslave mankind, a plan that began in 1913 with the 16th Amendment and the creation of the Federal Reserve. And he seems to think that all threats to liberty would disappear if we just went back to the gold standard.

Add in "crazies, loonies and tin hat" to your search to find even more.

 

[DavidCC]

Woman finds way to avoid paying taxes: Just ask
Associated Press

Aug. 12, 2003

Also on this page: Interview with tax protester who beat IRS in court MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A woman who said she refused to pay federal income taxes because the IRS didn't respond to her inquiries about tax law has been acquitted of tax evasion.

Vernice Kuglin, a 58-year-old FedEx pilot, had been charged with six counts of tax evasion. Had she been convicted by the federal court jury, she would have faced up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines.

"I feel justified," she said after Friday's verdict.

Kuglin said she began to question the federal tax system about 10 years ago and wrote the Internal Revenue Service twice in 1995 with questions about what law required her to pay taxes. She said she didn't get a response. On Dec. 30, 1995, she filed a withholding statement directing that no taxes be withheld from her pay.

The government accused Kuglin of filing false W-4 forms from 1996 to 2001, during which time she earned $920,000 in income. Normal withholding would have been about $250,000.

Federal prosecutor Joe Murphy said during closing arguments that Kuglin did have an opportunity to sit down and discuss her situation with the IRS, "and she didn't."

The five-day trial did not resolve whether she must make the tax payment.

"I think it is safe to assume the IRS will attempt civil collection, but she is not guilty of tax evasion," said defense attorney Robert Bernhoft.

Another defense attorney, Larry Becraft, who helped win acquittals for 17 defendants in another Memphis tax trial 12 years ago, said the letters from his client to the IRS showed a lack of criminal intent to evade tax laws and that she sincerely believed her conduct was proper.

"The whole thing could have been resolved if the government had simply answered her questions," Becraft said. "It didn't happen. I made an argument to the jury that an American has a right to ask the government for answers."

IRS spokeswoman Nancy Mathis said in a statement Tuesday that would-be tax evaders "should not take solace in this jury decision." She noted that last year more than 1,000 taxpayers were convicted of federal tax crimes.


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I'e read the letters she wrote to the IRS. the gist of them was - please show me where in the Law or Codes where it says that I must pay taxes on my wages earned within the US borders. and if you go read the relevant sections of the ISC etc it pretty much says that taxable sources of income are overseas commerce. So earning wages inside the US is not explicitly decribed as a taxable income source. the theory was, if the agents enforcing the law couldn't demonstate that there was in fact a law at all... then they couldn't enforce it.

However, notice this case is from 2003. She got these letters and the idea to do what she did form a guy named Larkin Rose. He made a DVD and had website spreading this tax protest theory. I was almost ready to try this same letter writing tactic myself but I had some other nefarious things going on and didn't want any IRS scrutiny LOL. Well, in 2005 Larkin Rose was convicted of tax evasion and is probably in jail right now.

I still believe that the personal income tax shoud be eliminated and that it probaly isn't wholly legal. but, the people who could chang it have their salaries paid by it, so why would they ever do so?

if the income tax doesn't piss you off enough, check into these facts: what percentage of the federal revenues does it comprise? How many years ago was the federal spending equal to today's revenue MINUS the income tax?

 

[Makalakumu]

More food for thought...

http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/launder/haven/2000/1118dcj.htm

Al Thompson squeezed most of his manufacturing company's 28 employees into a conference room here in October to say he had good news: Income taxes must be paid by only a few Americans, mostly those working for foreign-owned companies. So, he told the workers, they would not have to pay income taxes ever again. His business is exempt, too, he said. No Social Security or Medicare taxes, either. The company was no longer withholding taxes from their paychecks, he said, or telling the Internal Revenue Service how much they made.

Mr. Thompson is part of a tiny but increasingly flamboyant fringe of American business. Arguing that the federal tax laws do not apply to them, these small companies are thumbing their noses at the I.R.S. in a very public way: they have not only stopped withholding taxes and turning them over to the government, they are also bragging about it on Web sites and radio talk shows, and organizing seminars to promote the gospel of defiance. And they are boasting that they must be right because the I.R.S. has not come after them, even though it knows what they are doing. Mr. Thompson noted that he had not sent a weekly tax payment to the I.R.S. since July, yet "I have not been drug off to jail."
Indeed, the I.R.S. has not only failed to pursue these businesses, it has in some cases given refunds after they claimed they did not owe taxes paid earlier. In at least two cases, the businesses say they even received apologetic letters from the I.R.S. for not rescinding penalties and issuing the refunds sooner. Many tax experts express astonishment at the idea that the I.R.S. is aware that legitimate businesses are cheating yet has not even written to ask why their tax payments stopped, let alone begun action to make them pay. This undermines the principle on which the American tax system is based, they say: people who do not pay their taxes will pay the consequences.

What in the heck is going on here? Especially the part where the IRS is issuing apology letters and refunds!

 

[Makalakumu]

if the income tax doesn't piss you off enough, check into these facts: what percentage of the federal revenues does it comprise? How many years ago was the federal spending equal to today's revenue MINUS the income tax?

Here is the weird thing that I am discovering as I attempt to do some fact checking on Aaron Russo's film. Things like education and emergency services are almost totally covered at the local level. Funds for roads and transportation come from gas taxes. Funds the military are almost totally covered by the corporate income tax...which is perfectly constitutional btw. And other social programs have other funding streams.

So what does the federal income tax really pay for? The movie claims that it pays for the interest the Federal Reserve charges in order to print our money. If this is the case, then that would make the federal income tax one of the biggest schemes to redistribute (from the bottom up) the wealth ever designed!

As of yet, I have not been able to confirm whether this is true, however, it seems plausible via the process of elimination.

btw - I pay my taxes and will continue to the pay them.

 

[heretic888]

I dont know. A simple google of "tax protest conspiracy theory" comes up with interesting associations pretty quick.

Which is completely irrelevant, as it does not change the fallaciousness of this line of argumentation.

The heart of logical discourse is a direct and honest appraisal of both sides, hearing out the arguments and evidence they have (or do not have) to offer for their respective position. That is intellectual honesty.

Stating that because X person believes Y, therefore Y is wrong is not intellectually honest in even the slightest sense. In essence, as with all other logical fallacies, it involves dismissing the opposing position without bothering to do the work of wading through any arguments of evidence they have to offer. It is nothing short of a cheap trick.

Once again, I really don't have a dog in this fight one way or the other. Regardless, I just can't stand it when such dishonest methods are used in place of genuine debate.

Laterz.

 

[DavidCC]

More food for thought...

http://www.globalpolicy.org/nations/launder/haven/2000/1118dcj.htm




What in the heck is going on here? Especially the part where the IRS is issuing apology letters and refunds!

that article was from 2000. in the 6 years since it appears the IRS ahs decided to fight back. I would be curious to see where these guys are now. hopefully not sharing a cell block with Larkin Rose.

 

[jazkiljok]

wesley snipes- action star and martial artist seems to think the irs doesn't have a right to his money as well.

not a good idea.


http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/10/17/wesleysnipes.indicted.ap/index.html

 

[DavidCC]

I heard that today. it's funny because Snipes was also on board with Larkin rose, I rember reading on Rose's site about Snipes. YIKES glad I kept paying my taxes.

 

[Makalakumu]

This is the video that sparked the debate. Somehow, I found it on Google Video again. I would watch it soon, because the last time it was up, it was removed for whatever reason.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3562833209373997429&sourceid=zeitgeist

Anyway, I thought it was interesting...