Joe says:

so I guess people wanted to see these folks shots down like dogs.

GigG says:

Sounds like the USM service did a good job and should be praised for their creativeness. Had these idiots been able to they would have fought back and then they would have been shot by those arresting them, those here would have been yelling bloody murder that we are living in a police state.

wriprodir says:

“so I guess people wanted to see these folks shots down like dogs.”

Is there something wrong with that?

Yo,
Michael “$22M poorer” Vick

OhForTheLoveOf says:

I’m not an anarchist either, nor am I particularly sympathetic to these anti-tax loonbats…

But “a little” anarchy is good for the society from time to time…

MikeN says:

This time they were gassed, and it didn’t lead to a large fiery death trap.

OhForTheLoveOf says:

#10 – Okay… In that case I am more sympathetic to their position… But my point is still that a little anarchy (or to paraphrase the idea I’m stealing more accurately, a little revolution) is a good thing from time to time…

…and these days, that time to time should be more frequent.

Stars & Bars says:

#12 Mr. Fusion

Here is you chance BIG GUY!!!

$1,000,000 if you can show the law that requires citizens pay income tax.

http://tinyurl.com/3bmce3

Please let us know what you do with your new fortune.

mark says:

12. Mr. Fusion- “There is no argument that the Federal Government has a “right” to tax. There may be denial from the lunatic fringe, but no argument.”

An attorney posted on this blog about a week ago (I have tried but cannot find it now) the various aspects of this question. I do not pretend to understand tax law, I doubt if ANYONE is truly an expert in that field. You can ask 10 different experts and recieve as many answers. But what it boiled down to was that it was a poorly written and left open to interpretation and was soon to be argued, in the near future. My personal feelings are taxes are a necessary evil, and I have no problem paying my fair share, as long as it is transparent. In answer to your second question, (and it is a very good one) the short answer is no, for one simple reason. Do you really think that I would get a straight answer, I mean really? For that, I am guilty.

mark says:

20. Yes, thank you.

Stars & Bars says:

#22 Mr. Confusion

1916: Brushaber vs. Union Pacific Railroad, 240 U.S. 1

The Brushaber case was about a French Immigrant, Frank Brushaber, who lived in New York in the Borough of Brooklyn and who claimed to be a citizen of the State of New York but never claimed to be a U.S. federal citizen, which made him a “nonresident alien”. Mr. Brushaber owned stock in the Union Pacific Railroad, a corporation chartered in the federal Territory of Utah before it became a State. As a territory, Utah was part of the federal United States, and as such, was a “domestic corporation” or “federal corporation” at the time it was formed. Mr. Brushaber filed suit in federal District Court in New York to enjoin the Union Pacific Railroad from volunteering to pay federal income tax on its profits because he didn’t want his stock dividends correspondingly reduced as a result of the tax. The issue was not him personally paying income taxes on the stock, but the reduction of his dividends by the amount of taxes the corporation insisted on volunteering to pay prior to distributing the remaining profits to its shareholders.

Justice Edward D. White was the author of the opinion of the court in this case. This was the same justice who wrote the dissenting opinion in the Pollock Decision back in 1895, which incidentally declared the income tax unconstitutional. It was clear then, that he had an Axe to grind and wanted to reverse the damage done by the Pollock decision. In the Brushaber case, Justice White’s method for reversing the damage done by the Pollock decision was to obfuscate the issues by writing a very confusing opinion. The Brushaber decision is, without a doubt, one of the most confusing and difficult Supreme Court decisions of all to read and understand, and this is no accident. The Brushaber decision ruled that the 16th Amendment did not amend or change the U.S. Constitution. It decided that the federal corporation could not be stopped from volunteering to pay the federal income tax, even though this damaged the interests of its stockholders by reducing their dividends.

The decision stated that taxes on income had been “sustained as excises in the past.” The ruling established that income tax is constitutional as an excise tax on federal corporations, but not as a direct tax. The measure of whether it is a direct or an indirect/excise tax is determined by the burden the tax on income places on the property that is its object. Who or what then is subject to an excise tax? In most cases it is usually corporations involved in foreign (outside the country) commerce. You can see that by reading section 3.8.11.1, which talks about the legislative intent of the Sixteenth Amendment as described by President Taft in his speech to Congress on June 16, 1909. The IRS relies on the Brushaber decision to prove the constitutionality of the income tax on natural persons, but ignores the Court’s ruling in that case that the income tax is an excise tax and that the “person” paying the tax in this case was a federal corporation rather than a natural person. The government and the IRS like to cite this case because the case was written in an especially confusing way.

In the Brushaber decision the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a federal corporation may volunteer to pay the income tax on its profits, even though its stock dividends paid to nonresident alien stockholders living outside the federal zone were correspondingly reduced by the amount of income tax. Shortly after the ruling in this case, the U.S. department of the Treasury issued Treasury Decision 2313 interpreting this case.

Treasury Decision 2313 explained that the Brushaber decision ruled the tax to be constitutional on receipts of nonresident aliens only who were involved in a “trade or profession” in the United States and that the taxes must be declared on a 1040 form? It is crucial to understand the meaning of “trade or profession”, which means the holding of a public office in the federal United States. In effect what the Treasury was saying above is that the only persons who complete the 1040 form are those who have elected to have their income treated as effectively connected with a “trade or business” in the federal United States, which means these people elected to be treated as elected or appointed U.S. officials for U.S. tax purposes.

Another important historical note about the Brushaber case was that the tax Act of 1913 contained a section creating a duty or liability to pay the income tax which was later removed starting with the 1954 code. Therefore Treasury Decision 2313 could talk about the liability to withhold taxes on income “effectively connected with a trade or business” in the [federal] United States, which was equivalent to saying that those who had volunteered to pay the tax by making the election under 26 U.S.C. §6013(g) must include income from federal corporations. The court never bothered to explain whether or not Frank Brushaber had made such an election, and if they had they would have given away the government’s biggest secret. One must assume that Brushaber made the election.. We must remember that because of later Supreme Court Rulings, most notably Stanton v. Baltic Mining, 240 U.S. 103 (1916), the Sixteenth Amendment was ruled to be irrelevant and gave no new taxing powers to the U.S. government.

I sank your Battleship.

More later.

Stars & Bars says:

#24 Mr. Confused Communist Pig you’re having a wet dream, again.

You failed to properly rebut any of the cases I cited, even Brushaber Brushaber was kicked in the @$$. Ready for round two of your @$$ whipping.

Just how does the U.S. Supreme Court defining “income”:

“Income has been taken to mean the same thing as used in the Corporation Excise Tax Act of 1909 (36 Stat. 112) in the 16th Amendment, and in the various revenue acts subsequently passed.” [Bowers v. Kerbaugh-Empire Co., 271 U.S. 170, 174 (1926)]

“… the definition of income approved by the Court is: `The gain 1 derived from capital, from labor, or from both combined, provided it be understood to include profits gained through sale or conversion of capital assets.'” Eisner, supra. “Income within the meaning of the 16th Amendment and the Revenue Act means, gain … and in such connection gain means profit … proceeding from property severed from capital, however invested or employed and coming in, received or drawn by the taxpayer for his separate use, benefit and disposal” [Stapler v. U.S., 21 F.Supp. 737,U.S. Dist. Ct. EDPA, (1937)]

Here comes one of your cited cases… Conner v. United States, 303 F. Supp. 1187 (5th Cir. 1971)

The Court ruled similarly in Goodrich v. Edwards, 255 U.S. 527 (1921) and in 1969, the Court ruled in Conner v. U.S., 303 F.Supp. 1187, that: “Whatever may constitute income, therefore must have the essential feature of gain to the recipient. This was true when the 16th Amendment became effective, it was true at the time of Eisner v. Macomber, supra, it was true under sect. 22(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1938, and it is likewise true under sect. 61(a) of the I.R.S. Code of 1954. If there is not gain, there is not income …. Congress has taxed INCOME and not compensation.”

And here is more evidence that earnings from labor are not “income”:

“… one does not derive income by rendering services and charging for them.” [Edwards v. Keith, 231 F. 111 (1916)]

Even at the state level, courts following the lead of the U.S. Supreme Court:

“There is a clear distinction between profit and wages or compensation for labor. Compensation for labor cannot be regarded as profit within the meaning of the law.” [Oliver v. Halstead, 196 Va. 992, 86 S.E.2d 858 (1955)]

and:

“Reasonable compensation for labor or services rendered is not profit.” [Lauderdale Cemetery Assoc. v. Matthews,345 Pa. 239, 47 A.2d. 277, 280 (1946)]

The above Supreme Court cases establish that:

1. Congress has no authority to redefine the meaning of income. The Constitution is the only thing that can define it.
2. Any attempt by Congress to redefine the meaning of income in the Internal Revenue Code can safely be disregarded if it is inconsistent with the above definitions by the Constitution and the U.S. Supreme Court.
3. Income taxes authorized by the Sixteenth Amendment starting in 1913 are and always have been indirect excise taxes only on state or federal corporations involved in foreign commerce.
4. The tax is not on income, it is a tax on gain or profit derived from the sale or conversion of federal (not state) corporate assets and the amount of tax is computed based on the amount of gain (income).
5. Because the income tax is an indirect excise tax and all excise taxes are taxes on privileges, the tax must be paid by the federal corporation to the entity granting the privilege. A state-chartered corporation would also pay income tax to the federal government, but only on profits derived from foreign commerce, which is the only aspect of commerce that the federal government is granted with the jurisdiction to regulate and tax under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution. A federally-chartered corporation would NOT pay income tax to a state unless it physically operates within the state.
6. The U.S. government is classified as a federal corporation. 28 U.S.C. §3002
7. Regardless of what any circuit court says about the meaning of income, the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings above supersede all circuit courts. This finding agrees with the Internal Revenue Manual:

Internal Revenue Manual
4.10.7.2.9.8 (05-14-1999)
Importance of Court Decisions
1. “Decisions made at various levels of the court system are considered to be interpretations of tax laws and may be used by either examiners or taxpayers to support a position.
2. Certain court cases lend more weight to a position than others. A case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court becomes the law of the land and takes precedence over decisions of lower courts. The Internal Revenue Service must follow Supreme Court decisions. For examiners, Supreme Court decisions have the same weight as the Code.
3. Decisions made by lower courts, such as Tax Court, District Courts, or Claims Court, are binding on the Service only for the particular taxpayer and the years litigated. Adverse decisions of lower courts do not require the Service to alter its position for other taxpayers.” [IRM, 4.10.7.2.9.8 (05/14/99)]

The findings are consistent with the taxable sources listed as taxable in 26 CFR § 1.861-8(f), which are all either income earned by Americans living overseas or income from federally chartered corporate activities.

Since the Rules contained in the Internal Revenue Manual, even if codified in the Code of Federal Regulations, do not have the force and effect of law (U.S. v. Horne, [C.A. Me. 1983] 714 F2d 206) and the power to promulgate regulations does not include the power to broaden or narrow the meaning of statutory provisions beyond what Congress intended (Abbot, Procter & Paine v. U.S., [1965] 344 F2d 333, 170 Cl.Ct. 408) and regulations cannot do what Congress itself is without power to do; they must conform to the Constitution (C.I.R. v. Van Vorst, [C.C.A. 1932] 59 F2d 677).

Since the above cases are the undisputable law with respect to what is or is not income, the word “income” does not mean all monies that come into the possession of an individual, which is called “gross receipts”, but rather profit or gain FROM the money a [federal] corporate “person” (a legal fiction denoting a corporation) takes in, such as interest, stock dividends, profit from an employee’s labors. All of these constraints on the definition of “income” result from the apportionment clauses found in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 4 and Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution. None of the income of most individuals falls in the category of “income” defined by the Supreme Court, and therefore such “income” cannot be taxable “gross income” as defined in 26 U.S.C. §61. This means that a natural person’s wages, which are compensation for his labor, are not taxable because such a tax would amount to an unconstitutional direct tax on property (labor). With no taxable “income”, you are not liable to file a return. These conclusions are confirmed by the Supreme Court, which said on the subject:

“Every man has a natural right to the fruits of his own labor, is generally admitted; and no other person can rightfully deprive him of those fruits, and appropriate them against his will…” [The Antelope, 23 U.S. 66; 10 Wheat 66; 6 L.Ed. 268 (1825)]

More later.

Mark T. says:

Mr. Fusion gets pwned! You can tell when he is losing an argument when he starts calling you names.

Obviously, Stars & Bars knows this topic inside & out and Mr. Fusion appears to be a little out of his league.

BTW, the law is the law. It isn’t “bullshit”. Even the government has to answer to it, not just the citizens. Whether the government is right or wrong, simply questioning the laws’ validity or asking that the laws be followed and enforced does not make you a traitor.

Stars & Bars says:

#26 More liberal spin from Mr. Confused Communist Pig e.g. if you are unable to refute the points, discredit the points. You can do neither.

I have established that the income tax does not meet either criteria of Constitutionally legal taxation in America, that is direct apportioned tax or indirect uniform tax. You continue to believe that the 16th Amendment allowed for a third form of taxation, however, the Supreme court ruling on the amendment states that it allows for no new forms of taxation.

The 16th Amendment did not allow the Federal Government to levy a new tax, thus there is no Constitutional basis for the income tax.

In addition to a heavy progressive or graduated income tax, just how many of the following do you support?

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

3. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

4. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.

5. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state. The Bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

6. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, Gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equitable distribution of the populace over the country.

7. Free education for all children in public schools. Combination of education with the industrial production.