the funny thing here is, that when challenged in the courts, income tax law stands the test and people pay.
this is a very silly argument.
Who is challenging the Income Tax? I agree the Surpeme Court has ruled on it and it stands. Getting the government and the banks private hit man (IRS) to obey the law is another thing.
The Income tax is lawful the problem is it is not applied properly.
"I agree that the Internal Revenue Code doesn't specifically define what "income" is but we can get a good idea of what it is from what the code says, e.g. "Except as otherwise provided in this subtitle, gross income means all income from whatever source derived." For the purpose of this discussion, "gross income" is synonymous with "income" in that it's what you or I have before the government gets its grubby hands on it and before we avail ourselves of any of the government-granted "deductions."
Major issue with what you are trying to interpret "into" the section vs define from the section. I may derive "income" from a business transaction but am I taxed on the total transactions or the profits in total from my business dealing? THe courts have decided on what "income" is and it is "profits" or "gain" Again read the decisions and yes it does matter as congress has never given a "legislative" definition that I know of. The courts have decided through variable means why it did defined a certain way. The end result I don't make profits. Seems to be you want ot ignore the Supreme Court because it conflicts with you basis.
You are being taxed on what you receive and it doesn't have to do solely with business transactions. To put it simply, you didn't have the money before but you have it now - and now the government is going to tax it.
Quote:
Also whether it says including (but not limited to)" and the phrase "and similar items." means nothing really and is weak and PURE speculation.
But it does mean something. It is the way the government justifies taxing wages and salaries. If you want to say the government is being deceptive in doing so, you won't get any argument from me.
Quote:
Why in the world would they take out the most CLEAR point of what "income" is by definition in relationship to the masses? Especially when it was CLEARLY defined before. To say well it might not but it can "allude" to is simple government trying to keep the issue vague when they know it's not.
It's exactly in this practice of keeping it vague that allows the government to find new and creative ways of taking more money from the citizenry.
Quote:
Why is wages and salaries not listed! The reason BECAUSE IT IS NOT PROFITS or GAINS!
You didn't have the money before and now you have it: I'd say it was gain.
Quote:
Notice the previous wording on that as well. It is an exchange, thus equal! I agree the wording does cause confusion and yes it was done on purpose.
That it was done on purpose was my point!
Quote:
The most two basic ways of gaining "alleged" income not defined and taken out hmmmm geee wonder why!!!! Then obscure wording used. the clear meaning of the courts on the decisions is clear "income" is not just ANYTHING brought in! That is the WHOLE point of the previous court decisions.
But Supreme Court decisions are not law. They are merely opinions expressed by those whose function is outlined in Article III of the Constitution:
"The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority; to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls; to all Cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party; to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State; between Citizens of different States; between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects." This was changed in the 11th amendment as follows: "The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State."
Quote:
It is profits FROM CAPITAL or LABOR. I as a person who earns wages or salary do not as I have a even exhange. A business most of the time has laborers involved in which cost(having workers to fullfill obligation on behalf of the business vs benefit(the cost of workers being less than services or product rendered) is realized by the company. Thus as you know the company or business makes a "profit" in the end. As I a worker cannot have a profit as I am of equal exchange.
You didn't have the money before you engaged in the labor: I'd say you profited from the labor - even if you think the money you got wasn't worth the labor you put in.
Quote:
"As for Supreme Court decisions, they're not amendments to the Constitution and they're not legislation."
You ought to know better than that. They both work hand in hand!
The Courts want you to believe that but the Supreme Court has been overstepping its constitutional bounds ever since Marbury v. Madison.
Quote:
Also is the rents, interest, royalties etc... in Section 61 sources or income?
I'd say that most of them are "income" but notice "Income from life insurance and endowment contracts," "Income from discharge of indebtedness," "Income in respect of a decedent," and "Income from an interest in an estate or trust;" this suggests that while rent, interest, royalties, etc. are themselves "income," life insurance, endowment contracts, the discharging of indebtedness, etc. are sources.
Sorry to respond so late I have been out of the country and am leaving again soon so I wanted to give a little more info so everyone can understand.
Trust me this thing is even more clear when you get into activities that the IRS are involved in. They won't show the laws of legal authority for liens and levy and summons among just a few things along with Federal Witholding laws etc.... Those are a deep but clear subject in themselves.
To chan everyone of your responses still simply show me you don't understand the "legal" aspects of what has happened or the cases involved that have defined what income is. Thus the response by the House and Senate to rely on such cases. I again will restate..
My wages are exchanged for my "TIME" it cannot nor ever could be a profit. My time = $$$$ thus a exhange. I lose my time in exhange for...... It does't matter if I made a $1,000,000 dollars a second or $1 a year it is a valued exchange for my time. As I as a individual cannot make a profit on my time rendered. It is a equal exchange. What I have now is in contrast to what I lost. I lost my time which is fleeting and cannot be restored. To say well you have now something you did not have then ignores the fact of equal exchange. I also lost what I had then for whatever I gained. Back to the legal definition of "income".....
The "constitutional sense" of the word "income" is used in section 61 of the Internal Revenue Code. In going from the 1939 Code which was Section 22 to the 1954 Code both the House and the Senate declared that "income" within the meaning of Section 61 is "based upon the 16th Amendment and the word "income is used in it constitutional sense sense." This change in the meaning of "income" was explained in House Report No. 1337 note 10 and A18 ad Senatereport No. 1622 at note 10 and 168. The case C.I.R v. Glenshaw Glass Co. 348 U.S. 426 shows this in action in footnote 11. Thus "income" in its constitutional sense means income "separated from it's source" as occurs when a corporate profit is determined. The tax is on "profit" and not on the "sources" that produced profit. This constitutional meaning of "income" is based in the decisions mentioned before and heavily on "Brushhaber vs Union Pacific RR, 240 U.S. 1 in which the Supreme Court said: "The whole purpose fo the (16th) Amendment was to relieve all income taxes when imposed from aportionment from a consideration of the sources whence the income derived." The misuse of the term "income" especially how YOU have used shows again, you have no understanding of it's meaning and application from the legal aspect. You still think in the normal term of "anything" that comes in and that is not the case.
In taxing "income" the sources i.e wages, dividends, rents, interest, captial gains that produced that "income" cannot be considered or taxed DIRECTLY or except by rule of aportionment. As this gets back to the whole rule of direct vs indirect. Now we can know that "income" in it's constitutional sense does not mean "income" in it's ordinary sense. As mentioned before in the previous cases when looking at Merchant's Loan and Trust Company vs Smietanka, 255 U.S. 509 pages 518 and 519 you will see further proof that the "constitutional meaning" of "income" is "corporate profit." In that case the Supreme Court stated, "The word "income" must be given the same meaning in all of the Income Tax Acts of Congress that was given to it in the Corporation Excise Tax Act of 1909 and what that meaning is has not become definitely settled by decisions of this court." So basically we again come down to narrowed usage of the word "income" and again it is not ANYTHING or EVERYTHING.
LOL! Chan doesnt understand the "legal" aspects but you are making the same kind of arguemnt that has failed before the United States Supreme Court time and again.
__________________ If I do something stupid blame the Lortab!
"LOL! Chan doesnt understand the "legal" aspects but you are making the same kind of arguemnt that has failed before the United States Supreme Court time and again."
Ferd, uhhhh you have no idea what you are talking about failing before the Supreme Court. Please show me how and point to what cases from the Supreme Court have failed before the Supreme Court. Show me where the current listed decisions have been overturned. You obviously are generalizing as a whole the Tax movement and I know you won't find a Supreme Court case arguing against/overturning the definition of income from previous Supreme Courts DECISIONS!
Sorry to respond so late I have been out of the country and am leaving again soon so I wanted to give a little more info so everyone can understand.
Trust me this thing is even more clear when you get into activities that the IRS are involved in. They won't show the laws of legal authority for liens and levy and summons among just a few things along with Federal Witholding laws etc.... Those are a deep but clear subject in themselves.
To chan everyone of your responses still simply show me you don't understand the "legal" aspects of what has happened or the cases involved that have defined what income is. Thus the response by the House and Senate to rely on such cases. I again will restate..
My wages are exchanged for my "TIME" it cannot nor ever could be a profit. My time = $$$$ thus a exhange. I lose my time in exhange for...... It does't matter if I made a $1,000,000 dollars a second or $1 a year it is a valued exchange for my time. As I as a individual cannot make a profit on my time rendered. It is a equal exchange. What I have now is in contrast to what I lost. I lost my time which is fleeting and cannot be restored. To say well you have now something you did not have then ignores the fact of equal exchange. I also lost what I had then for whatever I gained. Back to the legal definition of "income".....
The "constitutional sense" of the word "income" is used in section 61 of the Internal Revenue Code. In going from the 1939 Code which was Section 22 to the 1954 Code both the House and the Senate declared that "income" within the meaning of Section 61 is "based upon the 16th Amendment and the word "income is used in it constitutional sense sense." This change in the meaning of "income" was explained in House Report No. 1337 note 10 and A18 ad Senatereport No. 1622 at note 10 and 168. The case C.I.R v. Glenshaw Glass Co. 348 U.S. 426 shows this in action in footnote 11. Thus "income" in its constitutional sense means income "separated from it's source" as occurs when a corporate profit is determined. The tax is on "profit" and not on the "sources" that produced profit. This constitutional meaning of "income" is based in the decisions mentioned before and heavily on "Brushhaber vs Union Pacific RR, 240 U.S. 1 in which the Supreme Court said: "The whole purpose fo the (16th) Amendment was to relieve all income taxes when imposed from aportionment from a consideration of the sources whence the income derived." The misuse of the term "income" especially how YOU have used shows again, you have no understanding of it's meaning and application from the legal aspect. You still think in the normal term of "anything" that comes in and that is not the case.
In taxing "income" the sources i.e wages, dividends, rents, interest, captial gains that produced that "income" cannot be considered or taxed DIRECTLY or except by rule of aportionment. As this gets back to the whole rule of direct vs indirect. Now we can know that "income" in it's constitutional sense does not mean "income" in it's ordinary sense. As mentioned before in the previous cases when looking at Merchant's Loan and Trust Company vs Smietanka, 255 U.S. 509 pages 518 and 519 you will see further proof that the "constitutional meaning" of "income" is "corporate profit." In that case the Supreme Court stated, "The word "income" must be given the same meaning in all of the Income Tax Acts of Congress that was given to it in the Corporation Excise Tax Act of 1909 and what that meaning is has not become definitely settled by decisions of this court." So basically we again come down to narrowed usage of the word "income" and again it is not ANYTHING or EVERYTHING.
To reiterate what I said in an earlier post, "Congress had power to tax under the Constitution prior to the 16th amendment. Note the following from Article I, Section 8:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.
Notice the following from Artilce I, Section 9:
(No capitation, or other direct Tax, shall be laid unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.) (Section in parentheses clarified by the 16th Amendment). This is the part that the 16th amendment changed."
Now, here's what the 16th Amendment says:
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
The Internal Revenue Code (26 U. S. C.) is the law that states how the Internal Revenue Service will carry out the collection of any taxes Congress imposes. The IRS need not cite some OTHER law to justify its procedures for carrying out its duties. As for the definition of "income," the definition is however Congress or the IRS choose to define it and, for at least as long as I've been alive, income has been defined in such a way as to include wages and salaries. People taking your position have tried for decades to fight the taxing of wages and salaries but no Supreme Court decision has been decided in your favor. If there had been such a decision, Congress would have changed the Internal Revenue Code accordingly (or risked having that part of the Code again thrown out).
Not following this story, but I am opposed to the current income tax structure.
I do believe it is still listed as voluntary, but apparently that is just in theory.
Very true, if you ask the IRS or the Government to give proof were it say one must render to this so-called income tax there is none, nothing on the books or in our constitution to uphold it! Do I pay?? Yes and why ? Because Government does not obey the Laws and can do whatever they want with you, so no we are not free people, we are salves to a lie, people don't want lose the things they've worked so hard for, so they play their game~
Americans send their money to the Internal Revenue Service or, more properly, allows the IRS to take it from them.
Why?
For years, the IRS has proclaimed that the great virtue of America's tax system is that it's voluntary. How does the IRS define "voluntary"? It says that the tax is voluntary because everyone computes his own income tax liability and sends the amount owed to the government. In other words, if the government calculated the tax liability for the citizenry, the tax would be involuntary. But since the people themselves are permitted to compute the liability, the tax is voluntary.
One can only wonder, of course, how many public-school-trained Americans believe this nonsense. The truth is that the income tax is no more voluntary than the military draft. If you fail or refuse to pay, they will seize you, fine you, jail you, or in the worst case, kill you, just as they do if you refuse to comply with a military draft.
And this is the true reason that people troop down to the post office and dutifully deposit those returns and checks.
Of course, an IRS official would respond, "You have a choice, and that's what makes the tax voluntary. You can choose to pay the tax or you can choose to go to jail. No one forces you to choose to pay the tax, and so it's voluntary."
But the choice between two evils does not convert the choice of one of them into a voluntary act. It is instead a choice between two coerced options.
For example, suppose a thief grabs you in a dark alley, points a gun in your face, and says, "Your money or your life." You choose to give him your money rather than surrender your life.
Could the thief later appear in court and say to the judge, "Your honor, I'm not guilty of theft because my victim gave me his money voluntarily"?
The process is no different with the IRS. Despite all the deceptive hoopla about the IRS's being a nice, pleasant, friendly, benign agency (check out its website at www.irs.gov), the truth is that this agency is no different, in principle, from the Nazi Gestapo or the Communist KGB.
State-sponsored terrorism
The IRS is a state-sponsored terrorist organization. Its very existence depends on the terror that it is able to strike in the hearts and minds of the American people. And it knows that the reason that American citizens scurry down to that post office to mail their tax returns is that they live in deadly fear of retaliation by this agency, just as people in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia lived in mortal fear of the Gestapo and the KGB.
Every April, the IRS engages in a very subtle and sophisticated advertising campaign to reinforce the fear that it has instilled in the American people. For example, there was the time they hauled away the multimillionaire Leona Helmsley to jail for taking a few improper income-tax deductions. The not-so-subtle message to the rest of us? "If the wealthy and powerful cannot stand against us, what chance do you have? Pay your taxes on time or else!"
This year, the publicity campaign centered around the Indianapolis Baptist Church in Indiana. The church owes $6 million in unpaid payroll taxes. The church's position is that they never paid "salaries" to their employees but instead made a series of "love gifts."
Unfortunately, however, IRS people don't believe in love, because one of their spokesmen (who asked not to be identified) dismissed the church's argument, declaring, "In the United States, if you employ people, whether you are tax-exempt or not, you've got to withhold taxes for workers."
Got to? But I thought it was all voluntary!
The IRS threatened to begin foreclosing its tax lien on the property, and guess what date it selected to begin the process: April 10. What a remarkable coincidence! "If a 50-year old church with 1,000 members cannot stand against us, what chance do you have? Pay your taxes on time or else!"
The viciousness of the IRS
What happens if you refuse to file your tax returns and refuse to pay your income taxes? Well, tax resisters say that nothing will happen to you because, echoing the IRS commissioner, they say that the income tax is voluntary. Their arguments are multifaceted, ranging from their claim that the U.S. criminal statutes and IRS code do not require people to pay their taxes to their claim that the 16th Amendment was never properly ratified. On the basis of these claims, thousands of American tax resisters don't file and don't pay taxes and tell other people that they can live tax-free lives as well.
All too often, however, what the tax resisters don't tell others is that they live lives of misery and impoverishment. Most of them don't have bank accounts, preferring to deal with bank money orders purchased at convenience stores, because the IRS will simply place a levy on their bank accounts. They also customarily don't own real estate, including a home, because the IRS clouds their title with tax liens. They don't hold salaried positions because the IRS garnishes their wages. Thus, to truly avoid the IRS's collection of the taxes owed, tax resisters are often relegated to finding a series of "independent contracts," entailing no withholding tax, which provides them with a subsistence standard of living.
Are they principled? You bet. Are they courageous? You bet. But they cannot deny that when people free themselves from the "voluntary" income tax, the result is a lifestyle different from that of everyone else.
Tax resisters often point to the fact that they are not in jail as proof that the income tax is voluntary. But the truth is that many of them have gone to jail. And while the IRS doesn't go after all of them, especially those who keep a low profile, it is simply owing to staff shortages and not because the IRS has folded or surrendered.
Let me provide you with an example of the viciousness of these IRS people. When I was a young attorney, I represented a woman who owed the IRS, as I recall, somewhere around $20,000. Her husband had abandoned her and her child and was living somewhere in Mexico. The bank was foreclosing on her home, which had an equity of about $40,000 in it.
Owing to indifference or incompetence, the IRS had forgotten to file a tax lien against the property. We advertised the foreclosure sale in the local newspaper, and on the appointed day, lots of people showed up and bid on the property. The result was an enormous foreclosure check for the equity, which was made jointly payable to my client and her husband (who, unfortunately, was not around to endorse and cash the check).
We immediately filed suit for divorce in state court, deposited the check into the registry of the court, and asked the judge to use the money for child support for my client's teenage boy until he reached 18 years of age. By placing the money under the control of a state court, we had immunized it from IRS liens.
A local IRS agent got wind of what we had done, walked into my law office, and pleasantly demanded his share of the money. I pleasantly responded that there was nothing I could do because the money was under the control of the state judge, who himself was concerned about the welfare of the child.
The IRS agent smiled and left my office. He then embarked on a course of harassment that included regular telephone calls and visits both to my client's home and to her place of work. He also made regular visits to her son's high school, where he seized the boy's truck.
After several weeks of this abuse, my client walked into my office and said, "Pay them the money. I cannot live like this." The IRS's nasty, vicious, little devils who constantly remind us of the "voluntary" nature of the income tax and how they're here just to "serve" had won.
What happens to tax resisters who follow their principles to their logical conclusion? Government agents kill them. And the only reason that we don't see IRS killings is that tax resisters place limits on themselves as to how far they will actually follow their principles. For they know that if they follow their principles to the end, they will find themselves part of the next life. Leonard Read, the founder of The Foundation for Economic Education, made this point in his book Anything That's Peaceful.
For example, let's assume that a tax resister says, "The income tax is voluntary, and I'm not paying it." Someone asks him, "Aren't you going to sell your home? The IRS could put a lien on it." He responds, "No way. This is my home. It belongs to me. I bought and paid for it with my own money. No IRS agent is going to take it away from me and I'm not going to sell it to avoid these people. I ain't afraid of them!"
One day, the IRS files its tax lien and sends a notice of the lien to the tax resister, with a request that he pay the back taxes. The resister says, "They don't understand. I ain't paying." If in fact he did pay under threat of foreclosure, then we would have to ask him, "Why then did you refuse to pay in the first place?"
The IRS files suit to foreclose its lien and the judge orders the foreclosure to take place, The resister says, "Let them foreclose. What's that to me? I ain't leaving my home." Of course, if he paid the taxes to avoid the foreclosure, we'd have to ask him, "Why then did you refuse to pay in the first place?"
At the foreclosure sale, a buyer purchases the property and the judge orders the local sheriff to evict the resister and give possession of the property to the new buyer. The sheriff sends the resister a letter asking him to vacate the property. The resister says, "You people don't understand what I've said from the very beginning. I ain't paying my taxes and you ain't gonna take my property from me. This is my home." And after all, if he tried to negotiate a deal with the new owner and the IRS, we would have to ask him, "Why then did you refuse to pay the taxes in the first place?"
On the appointed day, armed deputy sheriffs (and possibly a few tanks) surround the tax resister's house, prepared to enforce the judge's writ of possession. Through a megaphone, they order the resister to come out and vacate the premises. If the resister comes out and departs, we would have to ask, "Why then did you refuse to pay your taxes in the first place?" But if the resister decides to resist force with force, they will kill him.
Thus, if a tax resister refuses to pay his taxes, and if he follows his principles to their logical conclusion, he is a dead man.
There is one -- and only one -- good solution to the income tax and the IRS: repeal the tax, abolish this Gestapo-KGB agency, and ensure through constitutional amendment that this horrific assault on the freedom and well-being of the American people can never again become part of American society.
Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation, publisher of Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax by Sheldon Richman.
A few years back, I seem to remember a woman in Virginia, I think it was, sueing the government over taxes, and winning.
But, my memory may be faulty.
Here a case below, what helps is if you have at least one jury who knows and understands yours and ours Constitutional rights! And who'll stand up for it!
Linear Mode
