16th amendment

 I'm curious to know what people think about the constitutionality of the 16th amendment. There have been a lot of arguments put forth by people like Bill Benson as to how the 16th amendment was never properly ratified. On the other hand, no court has ever upheld any of the 16th amendent as unconstitutional arguments. So I'm just curious to see what people here think about that.

 Also, I'm curiois to know if Rothbard ever commented on the constitutionality of the 16th amendment. He dealt a lot with the banks, and its true that the banks obviously wanted the 16th amendment to pass, and allow the Federal Reserve to come into being, so I'm curious if Rothbard dealt with that questions.

Thanks! 

It seems to me all of the Tax Protester Constitutional Arguments are specious except perhaps the one about self-incrimination when filing a return. Justice Holmes ruled that the fifth amendment protection did not mean you could refuse to file any return at all since you could note your objection on the form. I think that is also potentially incriminating.

Most of the rest of the arguments are just too stupid to consider - spelling errors, lack of the work "repeal", etc. 

The 16th amendment was, unfortunately, duly ratified.  Most of the arguments put forward against it are frivolous.

 The 14th amendment, however, was most definitely NOT duly ratified.  There are some tax arguments that COULD be made on the basis that the 14th amendment is invalid.

sam72:

 I'm curious to know what people think about the constitutionality of the 16th amendment. There have been a lot of arguments put forth by people like Bill Benson as to how the 16th amendment was never properly ratified. On the other hand, no court has ever upheld any of the 16th amendent as unconstitutional arguments. So I'm just curious to see what people here think about that.

 Also, I'm curiois to know if Rothbard ever commented on the constitutionality of the 16th amendment. He dealt a lot with the banks, and its true that the banks obviously wanted the 16th amendment to pass, and allow the Federal Reserve to come into being, so I'm curious if Rothbard dealt with that questions.

 

Thanks! 

sam72:

 I'm curious to know what people think about the constitutionality of the 16th amendment. There have been a lot of arguments put forth by people like Bill Benson as to how the 16th amendment was never properly ratified. On the other hand, no court has ever upheld any of the 16th amendent as unconstitutional arguments. So I'm just curious to see what people here think about that

I did a lot of research on this subject back in the late 70's to the mid 80's.  I saw the documents that are claimed to be inerror which ratified the amendment and saw that they are in fact in line with ratification, and thus I thinkthat the amendment was duly raified legally.  However, anyone who cares to read the decision by the Supreme court on it (240 US 1) will see that the 16th Amendment did nothing to change the Constitution except to require the Congress to tax income from all sources at the same rate.  I also read the congressional record of the debates in the Senate before and after the amendment was ratified, and found them extremely satisfying.  There was one senator who actually knew what they had done and proceeded to give an excellent dissertation on the taxing power.  The government does not have the power to tax everything as "Income" that they want.  They use the amendment as a cover for doing this though, convincing us that the amendment gives them the power to do anything to us.  I found 20 legitimate reasons why the income tax is invalid, but since no one cares I gave up trying to tell anyone.  The proof is that I was never indicted on anything by the government.

Donald Lingerfelt:

They use the amendment as a cover for doing this though, convincing us that the amendment gives them the power to do anything to us.  I found 20 legitimate reasons why the income tax is invalid, but since no one cares I gave up trying to tell anyone.

I would venture to say you might have willing audience here...

Donald Lingerfelt:

sam72:

 I'm curious to know what people think about the constitutionality of the 16th amendment. There have been a lot of arguments put forth by people like Bill Benson as to how the 16th amendment was never properly ratified. On the other hand, no court has ever upheld any of the 16th amendent as unconstitutional arguments. So I'm just curious to see what people here think about that

 

I did a lot of research on this subject back in the late 70's to the mid 80's.  I saw the documents that are claimed to be inerror which ratified the amendment and saw that they are in fact in line with ratification, and thus I thinkthat the amendment was duly raified legally.  However, anyone who cares to read the decision by the Supreme court on it (240 US 1) will see that the 16th Amendment did nothing to change the Constitution except to require the Congress to tax income from all sources at the same rate.  I also read the congressional record of the debates in the Senate before and after the amendment was ratified, and found them extremely satisfying.  There was one senator who actually knew what they had done and proceeded to give an excellent dissertation on the taxing power.  The government does not have the power to tax everything as "Income" that they want.  They use the amendment as a cover for doing this though, convincing us that the amendment gives them the power to do anything to us.  I found 20 legitimate reasons why the income tax is invalid, but since no one cares I gave up trying to tell anyone.  The proof is that I was never indicted on anything by the government.

I have read the "The Law That Never Was" by Benson & Beckman. It seems to indicate numerous cases of (purposely?) "mistaken" application of proceedures and  skirting the rules of the various legislatures to pass the devil spawned creature. Surely such chicanery nullifies the ammendment, doesn't it?

 Indeed, any agorists, too would be very interested in what you may have to say on the topic.

I would be happy to explain some of the main arguments that were used to fight the government on the income tax issue.  However, I recommend that these be used to educate yourself rather than the fight the government, as I realized that since they own the courts (which are totally corrupt), we could never win there.  The court system is supposed to be our relief against a corrupt legislature and/or Executive branch, but they have thrown in with them to opress the people (see the "Federalist Papers").  Only someone like Ron Paul who has read the Constitution can do anything to change things.

The basic arguement is that wages are not "income" within the meaning of the term.  The first income tax was written and passed in 1893, and was challenged and ws decided by the Supreme Court in 1894.  The court in this decision (Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 158 U. S. 601) decided tht the law was unConstitutional because it taxed the total rents of a building without subtracting the capital portion of the rent.  They declared that "Income" was only the profit portion of gross recipts.  This is the crucial point, that only "Profit" is income to be taxed.  This definition has been held to this day.  The Pollock decision is a very important decision in US History.  It caused the  government to write the 16th Amendment in the first place. 

This begs the question as to whether or not the 16th changed anything.  According to the court in "Brushaber vs. Union Pacific" (240 US 1), no it didn't.  There was a bit of humor expressed by the court in their decision at the stupidity of the Congress for thinking that the Amendment changed their powers to tax everything as "Income", because they wrote in the amendment that an income tax no longer needed apportionment ( which direct taxes needed).  A tax on income being an indirect tax, never needed apportionment so this is really a stupid move on the part of Congress, which gave the impression that direct taxes no longer needed it.  Not the case.  The Court said that income taxes still needed uniformity, being an indirect tax.

There are two types of taxes, each needing a rule for applying.  According to the Constitution, article 1, sec. 8, clause 1, direct taxes need apportionment and Indirect taxes need uniformity.  A direct tax is one on the ownership of the thing being taxed and is not avoidable.  Congress, in laying a direct tax, must declare how much is sought to be raised beforehand, then each must collect the money and send it to the Ferderal government in proportion of the total population that reside in the state to the national population (this is one of the two reason for taking a census, and one of the big causes of the 3/5ths compromise).  For instance, if the state of New York had 10% of the national population, it was responsible to collect 10% of what the Feds wanted.  If cars were being taxed, then only people who owned cars would have to pay the tax, which would be divided between each car i the state.

Indirect taxes, on the other hand were totally avoidable, and on an act being taxed.  They are avoidable by merely not doing the thing being taxed.  For instance if gas was being taxed, one could avoid the tax by not buying gas.  Indirect taxes are to be uniform, that is, they are exactly the same geographically in the country.  A person buying gas in Florida or Main or California will pay exactly the same ammount of tax on a gallon regardless.  The tax on "excess profits" on oil in the 80's was declared unConstitutional because Alaska was excused from the tax, thus making it not uniform. 

The Pollack court decided that since congress failed to allow the taxpayer to subtract the return of capital portion of the rents before taxation, the income tax was unConstitutional.  To this day, companies are allowed to reduce from the "Gross Proceeds" the capital expended in the attempt to earn the gross proceeds.  From this we get "Gross Income", from which deductions (Conressional gifts) are deducted to arrive at "Net Income" which is taxed.  Another aspect is that somehow a government privilege is involved.

This all being said, are wages "profit", or "Income"? We don't think so, mainly for two reasons.  First it is not avoidable.  We have to work to get money to live. The court has repeatedly said that working is a basic right and the source of all individual property.  Rights cannot be taxed.  The internal Revenue Code defines Gross Income as "All Income from whatever source derived, including wages ...".  Not getting into the fact that this does not define "Income" for now, it appears to tell us that wages are income.  After looking at it for a while, it's telling us that we can somehow get profit "from" wages.  This appears to say that somehow we can get profit by recieving wages.  However, it kind of implies that we can deduct from our wages the capital return portion from our wages to get the profit portion, which is the income portion.  The IRS maintains that it is all profit because we have not paid any capital into the recieving of the wages.   But didn't we?  Have we not invested our time of life?  Have we not invested our skills and mental effort?  What portion of the wage is return of capital?  All of it!  There are many decisions of the Supreme Court to back this up, going back to 1795.  The court said working is a "right", so congress cannot tax "working" either.  Believe it or not, the commisioner of Internal revenue challenged this concept in court and was laughed out of the courtroom.  He didn't even appeal the decision. 

I would refer anyone who wishes a good education in taxation to read the Pollock, Brushaber, and Eisner vs. Moccomber (252 US 189) decisions.  There are many other very good decisions one can refer to as well.  I just can't list them all here.  I someone wants to find out something, let me know an I will go into my archives and find it if I have it.  This is only one of the very good things we found out.  I will write others soon.  For instance, why do we call it a "return"?  What are you returning?  How about the 5th amendment?  Or the Paperwork Reduction Act? 

It is my opinion that Congress deliberately avoided writing a tax that complied with any law, Constitutional provision or moral judgement.  Nothing about the tax is just in any way.  Can we win in Court using any arguement?  I don't think so.  Some of our compatriots were killed by the IRS in the early 80's fro standing up against them, so I don't recommend failing to pay them. 

Donald Lingerfelt:

...

It is my opinion that Congress deliberately avoided writing a tax that complied with any law, Constitutional provision or moral judgement.  Nothing about the tax is just in any way.  Can we win in Court using any arguement?  I don't think so.  Some of our compatriots were killed by the IRS in the early 80's fro standing up against them, so I don't recommend failing to pay them. 

I understand what you are saying about our compatriots being picked off by the government. I don't think that outcome can be avoided because of their extreme bloodthirstiness and desire to form (force) the people into a unified mass of support for their bads (opposite of goods). I would think, though, that there could be some method for flying under their radar. What may that be?

Unfortnately, I think that one may play the game, which has a few loopholes in it, at least so far and to some extent.  Going offshore is one way to avoid the tax.  That route is closing up lately but still exists. 

Another way is to go independant, that is, stay out of the 'system', ie.: don't use banks, work under the table, no credit cards, etc.  As the government gets more and more technologicaly advanced, there will be less and less freedom, but for now this can be done to some extent. 

Offshore is probably the best way.  there are a lot of countries that sell themselves as tax havens.  The info is out there on the net all over the place.  You can spend you money by using an American Express Gold card from the offshore bank.

I think that Ron Paul and those like him in the future may be the only real method to reverse the trend, except for outright political revolution of course.  Freedom is quickly eroding and most americans unfortunately are all for dominant government.  I am amazed at how often I hear things like "We need more laws!' or "someone should do something about that.".  People want total government control today and think that we are a "free" country at the same time.  Right now I don't see a change in trend.