User talk:BobHurt

Wikipedia is YOUR Dumping Ground

The majority of people I know who have an informed opinion about income tax would rightly challenge your presumed authority to use Wikipedia as a cyberspace soapbox for your views about the Federal Income tax. What makes your views correct and others' views incorrect? Shall I post the erudite and rational arguments of Bob Schulz (http://givemeliberty.org) to Wikipedia and let YOU rebut them?

You might find it interesting that NOBODY in the Federal Government has rebutted either Conces or Schulz's request for admissions - letters that pose their assertions in a confirm/deny style. What does that tell you about government honesty? The DOJ says they answer the questions with prosecutions. Why? Because they operate in utterly corrupt courts where defendants have no possibility of a fair trial. As I have pointed out, the Robert Lawrence case shows a clear example of how the defendant had to use a timing trick to win, and for that the DOJ moved for dismissal with prejudice, not because of the lie of a recalculated difference in the tax owed, but because the DOJ did not have time to corrupt the court before the end of the speedy trial window. How do they corrupt the court? By intimidating the judge, conspiring with him to prevent the entry of defense evidence, packing their ringers in the jury, and preventing the jury from hearing defense evidence.

Bottom line, the government cannot cite a law that makes the average citizen subject to or liable for an income tax, and the government routinely enters lies into the master files and other systems of records to make it seem like a person has taxpayer status when the person owes nothing. Since the Constitution prohibits a direct tax against the people, 26 USC does identify numerous taxable activities, but the typical IRS victim does not engage in any of those activities. Thus, the W-2 and 1099 constitute false and fraudulent reports of taxable income that do not and cannot refer accurately to the respective IRS victims. IRS agents know this, but file Substite Returns anyway.

I don't make this stuff up. I have witnessed the master files for many people who battle against the planet's biggest criminal racketeering organization (the IRS) which the planet's biggest law firm (the DOJ) supports. The unfairness of the contest between citizen and government eclipses that of the contest between David and Goliath.

And you seem unable to do anything but apologize for the criminals in government who illegally and directly impose the income tax upon people who don't owe it.

Bob Hurt 06:01, 3 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rebuttal to Famspear

Famspear, you seem reluctant to make yourself available for correspondence, while rushing too quickly to judgment.

I posted the text from Charles Conces' Report on Income Tax Liability which proves wrong the comments on Income tax in the United States, particularly those regarding the meaning of the 16th amendment. I figured since the author lied about that, the public deserved to know the truth. I'll post specific rebuttal on that link at the appropriate place, and make a new page for the report.

Conces makes his information publicy available without copyright notice, so it is freely postable elsewhere, and it should be on Wikipedia. For more information see:

I encourage you to work a little more diligently to provide accurate information about the onerous and unconstitutional implementation of income tax as a sledge hammer on the heads of innocent Americans who don't owe it, but whom the IRS chases down and abuses like some kind of modern Gestapo, helped in no small measure by attorneys like you. The above article on Income Tax in the United States shows lack of neutrality by claiming the 16th amendment removed the restriction of apportionment. In fact it did not repeal the apportionment requirements of direct taxation, but rather put income tax into the category of an excise.

You lied above when you said Conces' proofs were not verifiable. The text provided an abundance of Supreme Court rulings to prove its assertions.

BobHurt 15:42, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dear BobHurt: I'm not sure what you mean by the statement that I "seem reluctant" to make myself "available for correspondence." Please do not engage in name calling or personal attacks, such as calling me a "coward." You may want to read the Wikipedia rules and guidelines on personal attacks.

You are now admitting that you posted the Charles Conces report material. Posting this material in Wikipedia violates Wikipedia rules regarding original research, verifiability, and neutral point of view. Also, there are no "lies" (that I know of) in the article on Income tax in the United States, and you have identified none.

Your statement that I lied when I said Conces' proofs were not verifiable is incorrect. The text did not provide any Supreme Court rulings that prove the assertions. In fact, the phony nature of these kinds of postings has been repeatedly exposed right here on the pages of Wikipedia. These postings are tax protester rhetoric, and represent the kind of arguments the courts have uniformly ruled to be not only without legal merit, but also legally frivolous.

Thanks for your encouragement to me to "work a little more diligently" -- more diligently than what? I am certainly working diligently to edit Wikipedia and to see that may edits -- and those of others -- follow the rules of Wikipedia.

I argue that your additions to Wikipedia are intended to pursuade Wikipedia readers about what you call the "onerous nature of the current implementation of income tax as a sledge hammer on the heads of innocent Americans who don't owe it." You refer to the IRS as an agency that is chasing down and abusing people, and you are comparing the IRS to "some kind of modern Gestapo." Your rhetoric speaks for itself. Wikipedia is not the proper place to try to persuade other people that the IRS is abusing Americans (though certain IRS employees have of course been caught doing that very thing). The Federal income tax at least arguably is onerous, etc. Wikipedia, however, is not the proper place to do what you are trying to do. Wikipedia is not properly used as a cyberspace soapbox for people on a mission to "expose" what they see as IRS abuses.

I do not represent the Internal Revenue Service. "Attorneys like me" (to paraphrase the words of your ad hominem attack on me ) and CPAs and other tax professionals represent American taxpayers in dealings with the IRS -- and I suspect that attorneys like me, etc., do more in one typical month to help Americans with real tax problems with the IRS than you will ever hope to do by posting the false information you have posted in Wikipedia.

I understand that you may be a new user in Wikipedia. I encourage you to get a hold of your anger and channel your energy into reading and understanding Wikipedia's rules, and making constructive edits. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a platform for pushing your own personal views in the form of edits to encyclopedia articles. Yours, Famspear 15:59, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dear BobHurt: I should also mention another thing. You may not have been aware that "Charles F. Conces" has had his own legal problems with respect to Federal income taxes. In the interest of full disclosure, the following is the text of a news release from the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), dated April 25, 2006, and found at the web site for the Department of Justice:

COURT ORDERS MICHIGAN MAN TO HALT TAX-FRAUD SCHEME AND STOP PREPARING TAX RETURNS FOR OTHERS

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Justice Department announced today that a federal court in Grand Rapids has permanently barred Charles Conces of Battle Creek, Mich., from preparing federal tax returns for others and promoting several tax-fraud schemes. The civil injunction order, signed by Judge Gordon J. Quist of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, was entered against Conces and his organization, the National Lawman Committee for the Public Interest.

The court concluded that Conces “promotes tax evasion by creating and selling materials designed to obstruct the administration of the income tax laws.” The court also noted that Conces promotes the use of the so-called “zero return,” described by the court as “a return showing that the taxpayer has no income based upon the faulty premise that income is not taxable under the income tax laws.”

In addition to halting sales of his materials, Conces must also notify his customers of the injunction and give the Justice Department a list of his customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and Social Security numbers.

The Justice Department has obtained injunctions against more than 175 tax-fraud promoters and tax preparers since 2001. More information about the Justice Department’s efforts against tax-scam promoters can be found at http://www.usdoj.gov/tax/taxpress2006.htm. Information about the Justice Department’s Tax Division can be found at http://www.usdoj.gov/index.html.

That's the end of the Justice Department news release.

One of the rules or guidelines in Wikipedia is that Wikipedia editors assume good faith on the part of other editors, at least until that good faith is no longer deserved. Although the "Charles F. Conces" mentioned in this news release appears to be the same "Charles Conces" upon whom you are placing your reliance, I assume that you were unaware of Mr. Conces' legal problems -- especially regarding tax fraud schemes; otherwise you would have disclosed them. Whether Conces is guilty or not is not for me to say, but we need to disclose relevant legal problems he is having if we're going ask readers of Wikipedia to rely on Mr. Conces (who apparently is neither a lawyer nor a CPA) as an accurate, non-fraudulent source of tax "law." (I respectfully submit to you the proposition that under the rule of Wikipedia, Mr. Conces probably is not going to be acceptable for this purpose.)

I also assume, from your erroneous interpretation of the Sixteenth Amendment (in your comments above regarding apportionment) that you have not actually studied the actual texts of the court decisions and other materials cited by Mr. Conces, etc.

One of the basic concepts in Wikipedia is that you do not have to be an expert in a particular field to edit in that field. In tax law, you do not have to be a tax lawyer or a CPA, for example, to make edits. However, you are held to the same knowledge standards as the experts. You cannot simply copy and paste someone else's commentary or "research" about cases and statutes. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.

Generally, before a lawyer cites to a particular court decision, he or she analyzes the actual text of the court decision itself -- the actual, full, verbatim text, and not someone else's phony "summary." One of the problems we have had here in Wikipedia consists of repeated attempts by tax protesters to dump false quotations from cases, quotations taken out of context, false statements that a particular court in a particular case essentially ruled one way where the court actually ruled the opposite, etc. The Conces materials contain several instances of this kind of thing.

Please read the actual, verbatim texts of any materials you cite, and do not copy and paste original "research" from other internet web sites. Please also be advised that if you are going to set yourself up as have equal or better knowledge of the tax law than tax lawyers and CPAs, you are going to be held to the same standards of knowledge and research as tax lawyers and CPAs. That means you are going to be "called down" on errors you make which you, as a non-lawyer, non-CPA, cannot even be aware of, due to your lack of expertise.

I see that you were in the submarine service. Thanks for your service. One of my best friends also served. I will not presume to lecture you on the inner workings of a submarine. You, however, are free to lecture me (here in Wikipedia) on the intricacies of the tax law; if you do, however, you are going to be held to the standard of knowledge of a legal expert (not just a tax law expert), and you will be expected to know everything that a legal expert knows. Yours, Famspear 17:06, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another Rebuttal to Famspear

You are right that I am a new user, and I shall do my best to abide by your suggestions. I believe private correspondence would make more sense than this public venue for our exchange. After all Wikipedia is not a chat room (or is it?).

The subject entry says this:

Passage of the Sixteenth Amendment

In response, Congress proposed the Sixteenth Amendment (ratified by the requisite number of states in 1913), which states:

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.

As the Supreme Court held in Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad, 240 U.S. 1 (1916), the amendment did not expand the federal government's existing taxing power but rather removed any requirement for apportionment of income taxes (meaning tax on profit or gain from any source) among the states on the basis of population (i.e., regardless of whether the tax was deemed direct or indirect).

The above contention (that the 16th amendment removed any requirement for apportionment) is false, as proven by the very same U.S. Supreme Court ruling the article cited.

“… the contentions under it (the 16th Amendment), if acceded to, would cause one provision of the Constitution to destroy another; that is, they would result in bringing the provisions of the Amendment exempting a direct tax from apportionment into irreconcilable conflict with the general requirement that all direct taxes be apportioned. … This result, instead of simplifying the situation and making clear the limitations on the taxing power … would create radical and destructive changes in our constitutional system and multiply confusion.” BRUSHABER v UNION PACIFIC R. CO., 240 US 1, 12 (1916)

So you see, had the article contended correctly, then the 16th amendment would have exempted the income tax, imposed as a direct tax, from apportionment, but the Court clearly said it does not exempt direct tax (income or otherwise) from apportionment. It merely forces income tax into the class of excises. Thus, the 16th amendment actually does not repeal the apportionment requirement for direct income tax, and it does not repeal the firm denial of Congress' power to tax the people directly:

“Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included in this union, according to their respective Numbers…” U.S. Constitution, Article 1, sec. 2

"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; " U.S. Constitution, Article 1, sec. 8, clause 1

“No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.” U.S. Constitution, Article 1, sec. 9

The U.S. Supreme Court corroborated this interpretation.

“Nothing can be clearer than that what the constitution intended to guard against was the exercise by the general government of the power of directly taxing persons and property within any state through a majority made up from the other states.” Pollock vs. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co., 157 US 429, 582 (1895).

The article failed to point out that the Constitution prohibits Congress from directly taxing people, their labor, or their property because of the historical abuse the founders had suffered from tax agents of King George. That's the Constitution gave Congress the power to tax only the states directly. All of this was based on recognition of the inherent wrongness of the government hindering pursuit of happiness through abusive direct tax agents like the IRS.

“The patrimony of the poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his own hands, and to hinder his employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his neighbor, is a plain violation of this most sacred property. It is a manifest encroachment upon the just liberty both of the workman and of those who might be disposed to employ him.” Butcher's Union Co. v. Cresent City Co., 111 US 746, 757 (1884).

“The court held it unconstitutional, saying: 'The right to follow any lawful vocation and to make contracts is as completely within the protection of the Constitution as the right to hold property free from unwarranted seizure, or the liberty to go when and where one will. One of the ways of obtaining property is by contract. The right, therefore, to contract cannot be infringed by the legislature without violating the letter and spirit of the Constitution. Every citizen is protected in his right to work where and for whom he will. He may select not only his employer, but also his associates.” COPPAGE v. STATE OF KANSAS, 236 U.S. 1, 23 -24 (1915).

“That the right to conduct a lawful business, and thereby acquire pecuniary profits, is property, is indisputable.” TRUAX v. CORRIGAN, 257 U.S. 312, 348 (1921).

“… using of anything whereby any person or persons, bodies politic or corporate, are sought to be restrained of any freedom or liberty they had before or hindered in their lawful trade,' All grants of this kind are void at common law, because they destroy the freedom of trade, discourage labor and industry, restrain persons from getting an honest livelihood, and put it in the power of the grantees to enhance the price of commodities. They are void because they interfere with the liberty of the individual to pursue a lawful trade or employment.” Butcher's Union Co. v. Cresent City Co., 111 US 746, 756 (1884).

“A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the Federal Constitution.” MURDOCK v. COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, 319 US 105, at 113; 63 S Ct at 875; 87 L Ed at 1298 (1943).

“Thus, in the matter of taxation, the constitution recognizes the two great classes of direct and indirect taxes, and lays down two rules by which their imposition must be governed, namely, the rule of apportionment as to direct taxes, and the rule of uniformity as to duties, imposts, and excises.” Pollock, 157 US 429, 556 (1895).

“The court, fully recognizing in the passage which we have previously quoted the all embracing character of the two great classifications, including, on the one hand, direct taxes subject to apportionment, and on the other, excises, duties, and imposts subject to uniformity, held the law to be unconstitutional in substance for these reasons: Concluding that the classification of direct was adopted for the purpose of rendering it impossible to burden by taxation accumulations of property, real or personal, except subject to the regulation of apportionment,…” BRUSHABER v UNION PACIFIC R. CO., 240 US 1, 12 (1916)

“Evidently Congress adopted the income as the measure of the tax to be imposed with respect to the doing of business in corporate form because it desired that the excise should be imposed, approximately at least, with regard to the amount of benefit presumably derived by such corporations from the current operations of the government. In Flint v. Stone Tracy Co. 220 U.S. 107, 165 , 55 S. L. ed. 107, 419, 31 Sup. Ct. Rep. 342, Ann. Cas. 1912 B. 1312, it was held that Congress, in exercising the right to tax a legitimate subject of taxation as a franchise [231 U.S. 399, 417] or privilege, was not debarred by the Constitution from measuring the taxation by the total income, although derived in part from property which, considered by itself, was not taxable.” STRATTON'S INDEPENDENCE, LTD. v. HOWBERT, 231 U.S. 399, 417 (1913)

“…the whole purpose of the Amendment was to relieve all income taxes when imposed from apportionment from a consideration of the source…” BRUSHABER v UNION PACIFIC R. CO., 240 US 1, 12, 18 (1916)

“As has been repeatedly remarked, the corporation tax act of 1909 was not intended to be and is not, in any proper sense, an income tax law. This court had decided in the Pollock Case that the income tax law of 1894 amounted in effect to a direct tax upon property, and was invalid because not apportioned according to populations, as prescribed by the Constitution. The act of 1909 avoided this difficulty by imposing not an income tax, but an excise tax upon the conduct of business in a corporate capacity, measuring, however, the amount of tax by the income of the corporation, with certain qualifications prescribed by the act itself.” STRATTON’S INDEPENDENCE, LTD. v HOWBERT, 231 US 399, 414-415, (1913)

"The individual, unlike the corporation, cannot be taxed for the mere privilege of existing. The corporation is an artificial entity which owes its existence and charter powers to the state; but the individual's rights to live and own property are natural rights for the enjoyment of which an excise cannot be imposed." Redfield v. Fisher, 135 Or. 180, 292 P. 813, 819 (Ore. 1930)

My main problem with your attack of my posting is that you accused me of using Wikipedia as a soap box, implying that I was using it to denounce or complain, not to inform. I could say the same of the author of the subject article. Clearly, the author lied about the meaning of the 16th amendment, as though Wikipedia is some kind of soap box from which to propound lies under the guise of "neutral point of view." There is nothing neutral about that lie, is there?

I don't know or care who wrote the article, but I intend to see it corrected so as accurately to reflect the truth. The neutral point of view must not include siding with the government or the IRS. QUITE OFTEN, the government is DEAD wrong. By that I refer to judges, U.S. Attorneys, legislators, and agents of the executive branch, individually and collectively. The Neutral Point of View demands that Wikipedia present those areas of wrongness evidentially, for they have every bit as much validity as the government view.

Furthermore, Wikipedia should not denounce people who use the constitution and case law, as I have above, by putting their arguments in a negative category such as "tax protesters." That is anything but neutral, and it impugns without foundation the righteousness of their assertions.

Yes, federal judges throw people in jail all the time for income tax law violations. But if the above court rulings are correct, they show that any implementation of a direct tax upon the people in the guise of an indirect (excise) income tax is a fraud and a violation of the intent and purpose, not mention of the direct language, of the U.S. Constitution.

What does that tell you about our courts, our Treasury Department, or our president who pushes the IRS hard to go after people and forcibly extract taxes from them directly?

Yesterday, I sat in a meeting in which an associate told me Chief Justice Rhenquist once said in a public forum something like this:

"Isn't it wonderful to live in a country where everyone in our federal prisons is there vountarily?"

The Justice was making the point that district federal courts have jurisdiction only in the territories allowed by the Constitution, and that acceptance of jurisdiction outside those territories is optional for the Defendant.

"To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, byCession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;" U.S. Constitution, Article I, Sec. 8, clause 17.

And U.S. Attorneys, according to section 644 of their manual, must recognize that territorial limit in criminal cases. Thus, Americans are not even subject to the jurisdiction of federal courts outside those territories, and most of the states are outside that jurisdiction.

Furthermore, the Administrative Procedures Act, as supported by Chrysler v. Brown, and State of Ohio DHS v U.S. DHHS, very clearly describes and defines the requirement of substantive regulations to give force and effect to IRS enforcement provisions in 26 USC 7402 and 7604, but no such regulations exist.

By failing to reveal these important facts to the public, the courts allow the IRS to run roughshod over the American public, implementing a direct tax that no federal court can lawfully enforce, except by voluntary submission to its jurisdiction.

Most people stamd abysmally ignorant of the above realities, and articles like that on Wikipedia about the income tax attempt to keep them that way. So much for its "Neutral Point of View" flim-flam.

Chuck Conces has researched the above matters thoroughly, and he has created an "Inquiry" which I invite you to take and respond to. You can find it here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/national_lawman/message/553.

It will test your own truthfulness about the income tax. I'd love to receive your answers.

Yes, I know Chuck Conces has his own tax problems. Every American who tries to hold the IRS to the law does get in trouble. Why does this remind me of the "taxation without representation" complaints of the early American Colonists? Corrupt congress writes laws no ordinary person can understand, and when some sharp persons do ferret their way to proper understanding, corrupt IRS agents attack them with a corrupt US Attorney, who hauls them into court before corrupt federal judges. You know that in establishing precedents through so-called "case law" the judges thereby don't merely interpret the law, they actually change the meaning of the law. How else could the 2nd amendment be completely ignored in places like New York City where you can be jailed for shooting a burgling rapist who enters your home while your family is asleep? How else could so many citizens be jailed and robbed of their assets for not paying direct taxes they don't owe?

I encourage you to answer the questions on the above Inquiry. Then we'll see whether your point of view is neutral.

BobHurt 17:47, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dear BobHurt: Thanks for your reply. It's gonna take a while -- possibly several days -- to get back to you. Yours, Famspear 18:44, 8 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Famspear's reply

Dear BobHurt: Finally I'm able to get to some of your comments from May of 2006.

First of all, most of the cases you cited have already been cited here in Wikipedia. Specifically, the following cases are falsely cited over and over by tax protesters on the internet and here in Wikipedia:

Coppage v. Kansas

Truax v. Corrigan

Butcher’s Union Co. v. Crescent City Co.

Murdock v. Pennsylvania (Jones v. City of Opelika)

Flint v. Stone Tracy Co.

Stratton’s Independence, Ltd. v. Howbert

Redfield v. Fisher

Know why? Because on the internet, tax protesters repeatedly copy and paste the same citations to the same cases. This stuff has been passed around on the internet for a long time.

Now, before we get into the materials and the specific reasons why the materials are incorrect, we need to understand some stuff about legal analysis. Let’s talk mainly about analysis of case law.

Some basic rules for analysis of case law

First, before you cite a particular court decision you should study a verbatim reprint of the actual text of the court decision – not some tax protester’s “interpretation” or “summary.” In law, you should be looking for something called primary authority, which means the actual, verbatim texts of constitutions, statutes, treaties, regulations, court reports, etc. If you do not study and understand the actual text yourself, you will eventually get into trouble.

Now, we want to say something in particular about an important difference between statutes and court reports (also called “court opinions” or “case law”). When analyzing the texts of court reports, you must learn to distill something called the “holding” of a case. A holding in a case is basically a court’s ruling in the case. A case can have one or more holdings. Sometimes the holding is clearly stated in the text of the case. Sometimes the holding is not as clearly stated. Unfortunately, learning to determine the holding or holdings cannot be done by studying only one or ten or a hundred cases. This skill is developed by analyzing literally thousands of cases of all kinds on subjects including property, contracts, torts, procedure, constitutional law, criminal law, and so on.

You will never learn everything you need to know about tax law merely by studying tax law. Why? Because many of the legal concepts applied in tax law are not discussed or explained in the texts of the tax cases. The judges who write the decisions for lawyers, not for a lay audience.

Next – and this is oversimplified – you determine the holding or holdings of cases by looking at what the parties were actually fighting about, and then looking to see which of those “fights” were actually decided by the court. That means you cannot simply copy and paste quotations from the text. A MERE QUOTATION FROM THE TEXT OF A CASE – EVEN IF IT’S A VERBATIM QUOTE – IS NOT NECESSARILY A RULING IN THE CASE.

Having read the above paragraphs, you probably now know more about case law than the tax protesters do, or at least more than about 99% of the tax protesters.

The holding(s) of a case

A related concept is that anything that looks like a “ruling” that the court states in the text of the case that does not constitute something that the parties ACTUALLY FOUGHT ABOUT is not really a ruling in the case. It’s not a holding in the case. Thus, most of the text of a court decision – even where the court is stating what appears to be a “rule of law” -- is not part of the holding or holdings in that case. Now, there is a technical legal term that describes this verbiage that appears to state a rule of law but which is not really a ruling (a holding) in the case. All lawyers in English common law systems (such as England, the United States and Canada) learn this term in the first few weeks of law school. I am deliberately not going to tell you what the term is (at least not right now).

What this means is that a lawyer cannot simply take a quote from the text of a court decision and say that the quote is a “rule for which that case stands.” If you do such things consistently, you may well eventually be publicly humiliated in the presence of other lawyers, and maybe in the presence of your client, and maybe in open court.

Why am I telling you all this?

Non-experts in Wikipedia

In Wikipedia, non-experts are allowed to edit in fields of expertise. Indeed, you often will not know the level of expertise of a fellow editor who is editing in the article you are also working on. Some editors disclose their credentials only rarely – maybe only in the editor’s user page, or only when someone else brings up credentials.

With the privilege of “editing in areas of expertise without having expertise” comes a related burden, however. The burden is that YOU AS A NON-EXPERT ARE HELD TO THE SAME STANDARDS OF KNOWLEDGE AS THE EXPERTS. If you screw up, and expert may well call you on it.

For this reason, if for no other reason, Wikipedia users should also avoid making personal attacks on other editors in Wikipedia or calling another editor a liar, or referring to text in an article as a “lie,” especially where the user commenting on an area where he or she has no formally recognized expertise.

Law, medicine, accounting, theology, engineering, physics, mathematics – these would be examples of relatively complex bodies of knowledge where people spend years of formal study and real world experience to attain not only an advanced level of knowledge, but specifically to attain sufficient knowledge that the person’s expertise is formally recognized by other learned persons in that field. And expert status is not something you or I can claim for ourselves in the pages of Wikipedia. Expert status also is not something you or I can claim for ourselves by studying on our own, no matter how much we study. Expert status is something that can only be granted to us by other persons – people already generally recognized as experts in the field, or generally recognized as competent to grant someone the imprimatur of “expert.”

The Brushaber Case

All right, now let's look at this statement you made:

The above contention (that the 16th amendment removed any requirement for apportionment) is false, as proven by the very same U.S. Supreme Court ruling the article cited.

Sorry, that is incorrect. The Sixteenth Amendment removed any requirement that income taxes be apportioned among the states according to population. As, as explained below, the Court in Brushaber ruled that, based on the U.S. Constitution, as amended by the Sixteenth Amendment, an unapportioned Federal income tax was not unconstitutional. Look, Brushaber is a LEADING CASE. You have to understand that legal experts have studied this case in depth.

Now, the first thing to remember about Brushaber is that the income tax in that case was not apportioned among the states according to population. (In fact, no Federal income tax has ever been apportioned among the states according to population.) Because the tax was not apportioned, Mr. Frank Brushaber was trying to get the Federal income tax law declared unconstitutional. Again, as explained below, the Court ruled against him.

The following quote from Brushaber is false: "the contentions under it (the 16th amendment), if acceded to [ . . . ]”. The parenthetical phrase (“the 16th amendment)”, which does not appear in the text, is a tax protester’s attempt to disguise the fact that the word “it” was actually referring to the word “proposition” in a prior sentence. Guess what! The “proposition” in question was a losing proposition made by Mr. Frank Brushaber. The “proposition” was rejected by the Court.

Now, it's OK to insert parenthetical or bracketed explanatory language into a quotation -- but you should normally follow up with a statement that you yourself have inserted the parenthetical or bracketed verbiage (i.e., this tells the reader that the verbiage is your own explanation and is not in the original text).

And more directly to the point, the verbiage you insert must be ACCURATE. The verbiage cannot leave a false impression about what the quote was saying. Go back and read the actual text of the Court's decision. Again, the "contentions" were the contentions of Mr. Frank Brushaber, the LOSING PARTY IN THE CASE.

Frank Brushaber argued that because the income tax under the 1913 statute (enacted after ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment) was not apportioned among the states according to each state’s population, the income tax was unconstitutional. The Court rejected his argument and ruled that the unapportioned income tax was CONSTITUTIONAL!

Now, let's look at this comment:

[ . . . ] the Court clearly said it does not exempt direct tax (income or otherwise) from apportionment. It merely forces income tax into the class of excises. Thus, the 16th amendment actually does not repeal the apportionment requirement for direct income tax, and it does not repeal the firm denial of Congress' power to tax the people directly [ . . . ]

False! First, the Court did NOT say that the Sixteenth Amendment does not exempt an income tax from apportionment. Essentially, the Court said that the Sixteenth Amendment DOES repeal the apportionment requirement for "direct income tax". The income tax –whether considered direct or indirect -- was upheld.

Next, under American law there is no such thing as a "denial of Congress' power to tax the people directly". Indeed, the Constitution specifically grants the power to Congress to impose direct taxes without any limitation as to the KIND of direct tax (the apportionment requirement is a separate issue). Go back and read your copy of the full, actual text of the Constitution.

Forget about an income tax for a moment. Let’s talk about something called a “capitation.” The Constitution specifically mentions a "capitation." That's a head tax, and it’s a direct tax. Even today, Congress could legally enact a head tax on every man, woman and child in the country. (Say, for example, a law that says everyone has to pay exactly $10,000 a year in tax.) A capitation would be a direct tax, and because it would not be an income tax, it would not be covered by the Sixteenth Amendment. That means that a capitation, as a direct tax, WOULD be required to be apportioned among the states by population. (Interestingly, that would be relatively easy to do -- just impose the same dollar amount of tax on each and every person.) DIRECT taxes are SPECIFICALLY allowed under the plain language of the Constitution, and a capitation would be an example of a direct tax.

I’m not sure whether you understand what you’re reading when you say that “the Court clearly said it [the Sixteenth Amendment] does not exempt direct tax (income or otherwise) from apportionment”. Think about what Mr. Frank Brushaber was fighting about. The income tax in the Brushaber case was an unapportioned income tax, remember? Mr. Frank Brushaber CONTENDED that the 1913 income tax was unconstitutional because the income tax –which had not been apportioned among the states according to population -- was REQUIRED to be apportioned. (He argued a lot of other stuff, too, but let’s look at this particular fight.) The government and the railroad company argued that the income tax was perfectly constitutional. MR. BRUSHABER LOST THE CASE. THE COURT RULED THAT THE UNAPPORTIONED INCOME TAX WAS CONSTITUTIONAL (LEGALLY VALID).

Remember, Mr. Brushaber was the “appellant.” Looking at the actual text of the case. Brushaber, the appellant, was a stockholder in the railroad. Now look at this verbiage near the beginning of the case:

As a stockholder of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, the appellant filed his bill to enjoin the corporation from complying with the income tax provisions of the tariff act of October 3, 1913 (II., chap. 16, 38 Stat. at L. 166). Because of constitutional questions duly arising the case is here on direct appeal from a decree sustaining a motion to dismiss because no ground for relief was stated.

What was the Court saying here? Well, Mr. Brushaber filed a “bill” in the trial court. That means he filed a lawsuit. Mr. Brushaber was trying to get the trial court to “enjoin” (prevent) the railroad from complying with the 1913 income tax act (the tariff act). To enjoin someone from complying with something means to issue an order that says “thou shalt not comply,” Frank Brushaber was basically saying to the court, “Look, please order the railroad not to pay this income tax, because the income tax law is invalid. I’m a shareholder in the railroad, and I don’t want the company paying an invalid income tax.”

In the trial court, the railroad company made a motion to dismiss Mr. Brushaber’s case on the ground that he had stated “no ground for relief.” That basically means that the railroad was arguing that Mr. Brushaber’s contentions were incorrect as a matter of law. The trial court agreed with the railroad, and issued an order called a “decree” sustaining (upholding) the railroad’s motion. That means that the trial court agreed with the railroad and ruled that Mr. Brushaber’s arguments were incorrect as a matter of law. So Mr. Brushaber appealed, as the “appellant,” to the Supreme Court. The United States Court of Appeals was bypassed, and the case went from the U.S. District Court (the trial court) directly to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court was now hearing and deciding on his appeal. Mr. Brushaber wanted the Supreme Court to “reverse” the lower court ruling (that means, to rule that the lower court was wrong about the law). However, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the lower court.

Read the decision yourself. Do you see the word “AFFIRMED” near the end of the text? Do you understand what it means when a higher court “affirms” the decision of the lower court? It means that the lower court decision stands. It means that the appellant loses the appeal. Mr. Brushaber was the appellant. He lost the case. That means the court ruled against him.

Now let's look at your statement that the Amendment "merely forces income tax into the class of excises." Actually, your statement is more or less correct! What does the term "excise" means for purposes of the U.S. Constitution? Well, taxes can be divided into direct taxes and excises (indirect taxes).

Excises are not now -- and have never been -- required to be apportioned among the states according to population. Instead, excises are subject to something called the rule of geographical “uniformity,” which means basically that excises can’t be imposed just in New York and Montana, for example. If Congress enacts an excise, the excise has to apply all over the country. That means, for example, that a Congress controlled by the Democratic Party could not impose an excise that would apply only in states where Republicans are in the majority.

Income taxes on income from labor, personal services, etc., are examples of excises (indirect taxes). Originally, all income taxes from whatever source were deemed to be excises. That rule was changed – but only for income taxes on income from property (such as interest and dividends and rental income) -- by the Pollock case in 1895. However, even income taxes on gains on SALES (dispositions) of property continued to be classified as excises after Pollock. If you don’t believe that, go back and read the Pollock and Brushaber cases again.

Despite the fact that every Federal income tax ever enacted is and has been an unapportioned tax, and despite numerous attempts by tax protesters over the years to have them declared unconstitutional, no Federal income tax on income from labor, wages, gains from sales of property, etc., has ever been ruled unconstitutional because it was “unapportioned”. Again, the only Federal income tax that has ever been ruled unconstitutional BECAUSE it was UNAPPORTIONED was the 1894 income tax on income FROM PROPERTY (such as interest income, dividend income, and rental income). That was the Pollock case, decided the next year, in 1895. Even in Pollock, the court noted that the income tax on income from labor, personal services, etc., was not unconstitutional.

Indeed, the Court noted that it was striking down the ENTIRE tax statute only because Congress had not anticipated that the Court would rule a PART of the statute unconstitutional! After Pollock, the Congress was still free to re-enact a valid income tax on income from labor, wages, salaries, commissions, and gains on sales of property, etc., for example. An income tax on wages, etc., was still an excise, an indirect tax. Even after Pollock, excises were not required to be apportioned (they still aren’t, to this day).

But Congress had no political will to enact an income tax only on the income of the “working man,” with no income tax on things like dividends and interest income. An income tax just on income from labor would have appeared to be unfair to the working man, and an unfair advantage to people who were able to live strictly on things like dividends and interest (in other words, rich folks). That’s why the Sixteenth Amendment was proposed – to get around the Pollock decision and allow the Congress to tax incomes from whatever source (even income from dividends and interest) without apportionment among the states according to population. This is not just technical “legal” stuff, this is background history.

You also stated:

The article failed to point out that the Constitution prohibits Congress from directly taxing people, their labor, or their property because of the historical abuse the founders had suffered from tax agents of King George. That's the Constitution gave Congress the power to tax only the states directly. All of this was based on recognition of the inherent wrongness of the government hindering pursuit of happiness through abusive direct tax agents like the IRS.

Again, totally false. Nothing in the Constitution prohibits Congress from "directly taxing people, their labor, or their property." You're saying that you really believe that somewhere in the U.S. Constitution, direct taxation is forbidden -- based on “recognition of the inherent wrongness of the government hindering pursuit of happiness”??

There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution that prohibits a tax on labor, or on income from labor. Not only that, but plenty of courts have been presented with this argument -- and no court that has been presented with this argument has ever ruled that a Federal income tax law cannot validly tax labor or income from labor. Sorry.

Rebuttal to Famspear's Specious Reasoning re: Income Tax

Famspear, I state without equivocation that the Constitution allows Congress to impose direct taxes only upon the states BECAUSE it requires Congress to apportion all direct taxes among the states according to population. Congress can directly tax everyone, but no person can have the requirement to pay a higher direct tax than any other, because of the traditional meaning of "apportioned." And Congress and its minions in the IRS cannot lawfully collect the money directly from the people. Only the states can do that. The 16th amendment, as you admitted above did not change that fact.

You seem oblivious to the reality that indirect does not mean direct, and that the income tax applies not against the income, but against the activity that produced the income. Unlawfully, the IRS collects direct taxes, whereas it should collect only indirect taxes. A tax on wages constitutes a direct (not an indirect) tax, and therefore, only the states may collect it from the people of the state.

I have said our present Supreme Court is a pack of cowards for not setting this straight right now in any one of the hundreds of cases it refuses to hear for that purpose. I stand by that assertion. And our US Circuit courts vacillate between cowardice and crime in their refusal to stand fast to the Constitution's direct language in this matter, and to the Supreme Court's rulings that the income tax conferred no new power of taxation, but merely classified the income tax as an excise.

As an excise, the income tax can apply ONLY to taxable activities, and such activities cannot lawfully include occupations of common right, for that would amount to a tax on an inalienable right -the right to live, work, and accumulate property, free of abusive taxation. Your elementary school should have taught you that the encroachment upon that right by King George's minions precipitated the Declaration and the War of Independence from England. Our people would operate within both right and reason by repeating that Declaration.

--BobHurt 21:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Coppage v. Kansas

Here’s more verbiage:

“The court held it unconstitutional, saying: 'The right to follow any lawful vocation and to make contracts is as completely within the protection of the Constitution as the right to hold property free from unwarranted seizure, or the liberty to go when and where one will. One of the ways of obtaining property is by contract. The right, therefore, to contract cannot be infringed by the legislature without violating the letter and spirit of the Constitution. Every citizen is protected in his right to work where and for whom he will. He may select not only his employer, but also his associates.” COPPAGE v. STATE OF KANSAS, 236 U.S. 1, 23 -24 (1915).

The court held WHAT unconstitutional? Again, you apparently copied this from a tax protester web site. The Coppage case is cited over and over. This appears to be a tax protester’s sneaky attempt to leave the false impression that the Court in this case ruled that because the right to follow any lawful vocation, etc., is as completely within the protection of the Constitution as the right to hold property, etc., etc., etc., that the Federal income tax laws are somehow invalid or affected thereby. That is false. Nothing in this case determines anything about the validity of the Federal income tax. Want to know why?

Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U.S. 1 (1915), was a criminal case involving a defendant convicted, under a Kansas statute, of firing an employee for refusing to resign as a member of a labor union, for heaven’s sake. No issues of taxation were even presented to or decided by the Court.

Truax v. Corrigan

Now let’s look at this quote:

“That the right to conduct a lawful business, and thereby acquire pecuniary profits, is property, is indisputable.” TRUAX v. CORRIGAN, 257 U.S. 312, 348 (1921).

Again, you apparently are copying and pasting materials from tax protester web sites without actually studying the cases and determining what these courts actually ruled. Tax protesters cite Truax v. Corrigan over and over, falsely implying that the Court ruled that because there is an undisputable property right to conduct a lawful business and thereby acquire pecuniary profits, the validity of the FEDERAL INCOME TAX is in some way affected.

What was this case about? This was a case where a Mr. William Truax owned a restaurant called "English Kitchen," in Bisbee, Arizona. Mr. Michael Corrigan and others were former cooks and waiters at the restaurant. Corrigan and others allegedly instituted a boycott of the restaurant, after a dispute arose over the terms and conditions of employment. A strike was allegedly ordered by a local union with respect to certain union members employed at the restaurant. The restaurant’s business was allegedly harmed, and Mr. Truax sued various parties on a variety of grounds.

The lawsuit was thrown out by the trial court before the case could be heard, on the theory that Mr. Truax was incorrect as a matter of law. Mr. Truax appealed and the case eventually ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the trial court should not have thrown out the lawsuit, but should have heard Mr. Truax’s case. The case was sent back to the trial court so that a trial could take place.

Can you guess what’s coming next? The Court did NOT rule that because there is an undisputable property right to conduct a lawful business and thereby acquire pecuniary profits that the validity of the FEDERAL INCOME TAX is in some way affected or is in any way invalid or misapplied. Truax v. Corrigan was NOT EVEN A TAX CASE. No issues involving taxation -- or about the validity or application of any TAX LAW -- were even presented to or decided by the Court.

Butcher's Union Co. v. Crescent City Co.

Let's look at this quote:

“… using of anything whereby any person or persons, bodies politic or corporate, are sought to be restrained of any freedom or liberty they had before or hindered in their lawful trade,' All grants of this kind are void at common law, because they destroy the freedom of trade, discourage labor and industry, restrain persons from getting an honest livelihood, and put it in the power of the grantees to enhance the price of commodities. They are void because they interfere with the liberty of the individual to pursue a lawful trade or employment.” Butcher's Union Co. v. Cresent [sic; should be ‘Crescent”] City Co., 111 US 746, 756 (1884).

Oh dear. Butchers' Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U.S. 746 (1883) was a case involving interpretation of the Louisiana constitution and certain ordinances of the city of New Orleans. The Court ruled that the Louisiana constitution and the New Orleans ordinances did not impermissibly impair a pre-existing obligation under a contract when those laws effectively ended a slaughter-house business monopoly by the Crescent City Company.

More directly to the point: Butchers' Union Co. v. Crescent City Co. is not a tax case. No issues regarding the power to tax incomes from businesses, vocations, or labor were presented to -- or decided by -- the Court. THE WORD “TAX” DOES NOT EVEN APPEAR IN THE TEXT OF THE COURT’S DECISION.

Murdock v. Pennsylvania (also known as Jones v. City of Opelika)

How about this verbiage:

“A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the Federal Constitution.” MURDOCK v. COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, 319 US 105, at 113; 63 S Ct at 875; 87 L Ed at 1298 (1943).

I love it when tax protesters cite Murdock. This has got to be painful. Murdock, which may also be cited as Jones v. City of Opelika, 319 U.S. 105 (1943), was not a Federal income tax case. The tax protester who cited the above quote out of context conveniently failed to mention what the case was about.

Murdock (or Jones v. City of Opelika) was a case involving the validity of a city ordinance (this one in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, not in Opelika) worded as follows:

That all persons canvassing for or soliciting within said Borough, orders for goods, paintings, pictures, wares, or merchandise of any kind, or persons delivering such articles under orders so obtained or solicited, shall be required to procure from the Burgess a license to transact said business and shall pay to the Treasurer of said Borough therefore the following sums according to the time for which said license shall be granted.

'For one day $1.50, for one week seven dollars ($7.00), for two weeks twelve dollars ($12.00), for three weeks twenty dollars ($20.00), provided that the provisions of this ordinance shall not apply to persons selling by sample to manufacturers or licensed merchants or dealers doing business in said Borough of Jeannette.

A group of people who were Jehovah's Witnesses went from door to door distributing literature. They failed to obtain the license under the ordinance. The case ended up in court, and went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which stated:

There was evidence that it was their [the Jehovah’s Witnesses’] practice in making these solicitations to request a 'contribution' of twenty-five cents each for the books and five cents each for the pamphlets but to accept lesser sums or even to donate the volumes in case an interested person was without funds. [ . . . ] The First Amendment, which the Fourteenth makes applicable to the states, declares that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ....' [ . . . ] It could hardly be denied that a tax laid specifically on the exercise of those freedoms would be unconstitutional.

In other words, the “tax” in this case was, in effect, a license fee imposed on door to door sales people under a city ordinance. The city was trying to exact the fee from Jehovah’s Witness members who were going door to door. Citing this case is an apparent attempt by tax protesters to leave the FALSE impression that the ruling in this case affects the validity of FEDERAL INCOME TAXES, hoping that readers will not look up the actual text of the case. Sorry, but this was not a Federal tax case. Questions about the validity of the FEDERAL INCOME TAX were neither presented to nor decided by the Court.

Flint & Stratton cases

Now, here we go with your references to Flint v. Stone Tracy Co. and the Stratton's Independence case. Again, these cases are cited over and over by tax protesters all the time, because they keep copying and pasting from each other’s web sites. Here’s the verbiage:

“Evidently Congress adopted the income as the measure of the tax to be imposed with respect to the doing of business in corporate form because it desired that the excise should be imposed, approximately at least, with regard to the amount of benefit presumably derived by such corporations from the current operations of the government. In Flint v. Stone Tracy Co. 220 U.S. 107, 165 , 55 S. L. ed. 107, 419, 31 Sup. Ct. Rep. 342, Ann. Cas. 1912 B. 1312, it was held that Congress, in exercising the right to tax a legitimate subject of taxation as a franchise [231 U.S. 399, 417] or privilege, was not debarred by the Constitution from measuring the taxation by the total income, although derived in part from property which, considered by itself, was not taxable.” STRATTON'S INDEPENDENCE, LTD. v. HOWBERT, 231 U.S. 399, 417 (1913)

Flint v. Stone Tracy Co.

First of all, in Flint v. Stone Tracy Co., 220 U.S. 107 (1911), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that section 38 of the corporation tax act enacted August 5, 1909 did not violate the constitutional requirement that revenue measures originate in the U.S. House of Representatives. There were other rulings in the case as well. The bottom line is that the 1909 income tax law was upheld by the Court in Flint v. Stone Tracy Co. Sorry.

The Stratton Case

In Stratton's Independence, Limited v. Howbert, 231 U.S. 399 (1913), a mining corporation argued that the 1909 corporation tax act did not apply to that mining corporation. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected that argument and ruled that the 1909 corporation tax act DID apply to mining corporations, and that the proceeds of ores mined by the corporation from its own premises were INCOME within the meaning of the 1909 tax act. The Court also ruled that the corporation was not entitled to deduct "the value of such ore in place and before it is mined" as depreciation within the meaning the 1909 act. The Court upheld the tax.

Redfield v. Fisher

Uh-oh, here comes Redfield v. Fisher:

"The individual, unlike the corporation, cannot be taxed for the mere privilege of existing. The corporation is an artificial entity which owes its existence and charter powers to the state; but the individual's rights to live and own property are natural rights for the enjoyment of which an excise cannot be imposed." Redfield v. Fisher, 135 Or. 180, 292 P. 813, 819 (Ore. 1930)

Again, Redfield v. Fisher is cited by tax protesters over and over for the false implication that the court somehow ruled that the income of an individual cannot be validly taxed for Federal income tax purposes.

Gee, sorry. Redfield v. Fisher is not a Federal tax case. In fact, it's not a Federal case at all. This is an Oregon Supreme Court case. No issues involving the validity of Federal income tax laws or any other Federal tax laws were decided by the court.

How this applies to Wikipedia

You say:

Clearly, the author lied about the meaning of the 16th amendment, as though Wikipedia is some kind of soap box from which to propound lies under the guise of "neutral point of view." There is nothing neutral about that lie, is there?

You are falsely accusing other people of lying. The article is a statement of well-settled law. Please do not accuse other people of lying merely because you disagree with what they write or because you believe they are incorrect. It is even more infantile to do so when (as far as I can tell) you, BobHurt, do not claim to have any formal training in law or accounting. The vast majority of the cases you have cited are cases that are cited over and over by tax protesters on the internet – and many of the arguments made by tax protesters about theses case have already been discredited right here in Wikipedia! None of the courts in these cases ruled what the tax protesters falsely imply that the courts ruled. The tax protesters are simply cutting quotes out of the cases and then falsely claiming that the quotes mean something other than what the courts ruled.

Worse, in some cases Wikipedia editors have caught tax protesters falsifying quotes or even falsely claiming that a court ruled one way when the court actually ruled the opposite.

You have to understand that much of the ACTUAL TEXTS of the material cited by tax protesters is easily available to a lot of people who don’t have a “tax protester” axe to grind. Protesters who don’t do their homework or (worse) deliberately falsify things long enough are eventually going to get caught. Therefore, when you copy and paste from tax protester web sites, you yourself can get caught up and embarrassed, even though you did not personally intend to deceive.

You say:

I don't know or care who wrote the article, but I intend to see it corrected so as accurately to reflect the truth. The neutral point of view must not include siding with the government or the IRS. QUITE OFTEN, the government is DEAD wrong. By that I refer to judges, U.S. Attorneys, legislators, and agents of the executive branch, individually and collectively. The Neutral Point of View demands that Wikipedia present those areas of wrongness evidentially, for they have every bit as much validity as the government view.

Well, the article is not necessarily presenting the "government’s" position about what the law is – although I can tell you the government’s position is certainly in consonance with the article. Look, tax lawyers who represent the Internal Revenue Service and tax lawyers who represent taxpayers AGAINST the Internal Revenue Service take contrary positions on lots of issues. Sometimes the IRS wins. Other times the taxpayer wins.

No honest and competent tax lawyer representing a taxpayer, however, is going to take the ridiculous positions or argue the silly arguments put forth by tax protesters. Know why? Not only are tax protester arguments legally incorrect, they’re WORSE: the arguments are LOSERS. Tax protester arguments are, by definition, by and large legally frivolous. That usually means that not only have the arguments lost in court, but they have lost in court OVER AND OVER AND OVER. Do you have any idea how many times tax protesters have lost on the arguments using the cases you cited above?

Next, I’m sorry but neutral point of view does NOT demand that Wikipedia "present those areas of wrongness" evidentially, as you put it. Neutral point of view does mean presenting competing but meaningful alternative viewpoints without taking a Wikipedia position as to whether any one viewpoint is correct. However, under the rules Wikipedia is NOT required to give EQUAL weight to minority viewpoints. Please read the rules.

Also, the tax protesters’ view cannot possibly have every bit as much validity as the government view. The government says the Federal income tax law is valid and is being properly applied. Tax protesters say the Federal income tax law is either invalid or is not being properly applied. One side is correct and the other side is incorrect. One argument is valid and the other is not. One side WINS IN COURT EVERY TIME and the other side LOSES IN COURT EVERY TIME. You are quite wrong.

Either way, the job of Wikipedia is not to determine which view is valid. The job of Wikipedia editors is, however, to assure that any view -- that is presented -- is presented under the Wikipedia rules, especially Verifiability and Neutral Point of View. For example, an implication that the Supreme Court in Brushaber ruled that the Federal income tax is unconstitutional would simply not be Verifiable for purposes of Wikipedia. It would be not only false, it would be unverifiable.

You also say:

Furthermore, Wikipedia should not denounce people who use the constitution and case law, as I have above, by putting their arguments in a negative category such as "tax protesters." That is anything but neutral, and it impugns without foundation the righteousness of their assertions.

With all due respect, you are totally incorrect on this point. The term "tax protester" is a technical legal term used by the courts, legal scholars and, until recently by the Internal Revenue Service, to describe persons who espouse incorrect arguments that the Federal tax laws, especially the income tax laws, are invalid or are being misapplied.

Yes, the legal term "tax protester" has indeed come to have very negative connotations over the years. However, the Wikipedia rules do not require that we censor ourselves or refrain from using technical legal terms like these, even where the terms have negative connotations, even where some people find the use of the terms offensive. The mere fact that people’s feelings are hurt or the "righteousness of their assertions is impugned" is of no moment. Obviously, if a tax protester makes arguments that are legally classifed by the courts as “tax protester” arguments, using that specific term, that fact can be Verified. All you have to do is study the actual texts of court decisions. There are court decisions that specifically identify tax protester arguments as a MATTER OF LAW.

A Wikipedia article that reports a particular argument as being designated as a "tax protester" argument by the courts is not impugning WITHOUT FOUNDATION. The article HAS a proper foundation. The fact that the "righteousness" of a tax protester’s "assertions" would be thereby impugned is not a valid reason for Wikipedia editors to censor themselves. I’m sorry but that’s how Wikipedia works.

More on your comments

You say:

Yes, federal judges throw people in jail all the time for income tax law violations. But if the above court rulings are correct, they show that any implementation of a direct tax upon the people in the guise of an indirect (excise) income tax is a fraud and a violation of the intent and purpose, not mention of the direct language, of the U.S. Constitution.

You are quite incorrect, and here's why. In the cases you cited, no court ever ruled that any implementation of a direct tax upon the people in the guise of an indirect (excise) income tax is a fraud, etc. More to the point, no court has ever ruled any Federal income tax imposed by the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to be unconstitutional. Believe, me lots of tax protesters have tried.

Your argument that "district federal courts have jurisdiction only in the territories allowed by the Constitution" is actually in some sense correct (but not in the sense I think you meant). “Territories” is the wrong word, though. It’s just that the “territories” allowed by the Constitution would be, at a minimum, all fifty states and the District of Columbia. Nothing in the Constitution or any statute prevents the imposition of a Federal income tax in ALL FIFTY STATES and the District of Columbia. Specifically, nothing in Article I, section 8, clause 17 limits the power of Congress to enact tax legislation in ALL FIFTY STATES. Tax protesters have tried many times to get a court to rule that Federal court jurisdiction does not apply in the fifty states -- and the protesters lose every time.

You said:

Furthermore, the Administrative Procedures Act, as supported by Chrysler v. Brown, and State of Ohio DHS v U.S. DHHS, very clearly describes and defines the requirement of substantive regulations to give force and effect to IRS enforcement provisions in 26 USC 7402 and 7604, but no such regulations exist.

Whoever is giving you the information you are citing is hoodwinking you in a big way. Again, the case you are citing, Chrysler Corp. v. Brown, 441 U.S. 281 (1979) is not even a tax case! No issues involving the validity of Federal tax laws were even presented to or decided by the Court.

However, there was a passing reference to the Internal Revenue Service in the Chrysler case in a footnote -- and it’s interesting. That’s because the Chrysler case is sometimes falsely cited by tax protesters for the ridiculous, totally laughable proposition that the Internal Revenue Service is not a government agency (or bureau) within the U.S. Department of the Treasury! Some protesters even claim the IRS is a Puerto Rican collection agency! Unfortunately, tax protesters pass this information around among themselves, but few if any apparently read the actual text of the Chrysler decision. In this case the Court specifically referred to the "Act of July 1, 1862, ch. 119, 12 Stat. 432, the statute to which the present Internal Revenue Service can be traced" -- to use the Court's own words. Nowhere in the case did the Court rule that the IRS is not a government agency.

By the way, tax protesters also claim that the IRS is not a government agency because the IRS was not CREATED by the 1862 statute. They are actually CORRECT that the IRS itself was not created by statute. The 1862 Act created the office of the Commissioner. Unfortunately -- and this point apparently sails right over the heads of many tax protesters because they don't even realize it -- THERE IS NO LAW THAT REQUIRES THAT A BUREAU (OR AGENCY) WITHING THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY BE CREATED BY STATUTE.

Another false and down right goofy claim by some tax protesters is that the agency called the “Internal Revenue Service,” by name, is not “mentioned” anywhere in the Internal Revenue Code. A tax protester made this ridiculous claim earlier this year right here in Wikipedia, and was publicly humiliated. Want to know why?

Ummm, excuse me, but the Internal Revenue Code contains over NINETY specific references to "Internal Revenue Service," by name. No, the IRS was not " created" by statute, but it’s MENTIONED BY NAME by Congress in the statutes many times. And not just in the Internal Revenue Code, but in many other titles of the United States Code -- and in uncodified statutes as well. Moral of the story: For heaven’s sake, at least don’t just copy and paste junk from tax protester web sites. Tax protester literature is full of false statements. Wikipedia editors will shoot you down very quickly. The text of the Internal Revenue Code is readily available on the internet.

By the way, you don't give a full citation to the State of Ohio DHS case, so I'm not going to bother with it, at least not right now. I just happened to have the Chrysler case, because it is one that’s falsely cited over and over by tax protesters.

Section 7402

Regarding 26 U.S.C. section 7402 (section 7402 of the Internal Revenue Code), which you cited: Do you even know what section 7402 is about? If you did know, you might realize that there would normally be no regulations for "IRS enforcement provisions" under section 7402! And do you know why? If you don't know why, you might want to go look up section 7402 and figure out for yourself. The answer should be obvious to a lawyer who reads section 7402 (wouldn’t have to be a tax lawyer). Ask yourself: Why are there no "IRS enforcement" regulations under that section, hmmmmm? I am not going to spoon feed you on this one. (Actually, I’m saving you a little humiliation by not printing the answer right here.)

Section 7604

And regarding section 7604, you’re saying there’s no Treasury Regulation promulgated under this statute? Good grief, what about Treasury Regulation section 301.7604-1? For heaven's sake, this regulation has been on the books since October 23, 1959, and was amended in 1973. Do you know how long it took me to find this regulation? About two minutes. Would you like to see the actual text of the regulation?

Judges interpreting the law and judges making the law

On another point, you are absolutely correct when you say that judges don't merely interpret the law, they actually change the meaning of the law! Uh-oh what is Famspear talking about now?

Well, the American legal system is based on something called English common law. Now, English common law is primarily case law -- literally, judge-made law! This is one of the dirty little "secrets" that many non-lawyers don't seem to know -- except that it's not really a secret at all! Our legal system is based primarily on JUDGE-MADE LAW.

Remember that civics or government class you took in grade school? Remember studying that the legislative branch (Congress) makes the law, the executive branch (the President) enforces the law, and the judicial branch (the courts) "only interpret" the law? Well, that statement was a correct description of our legal system, but only up to a point.

What was glossed over in grade school was one of the central realities of the legal systems of England, the United States, Canada and a few other countries: namely that at one time (when we were all either "England" or "English colonies") nearly all of our constitutional laws, our property laws, our criminal laws, our procedural laws, and what came to be our tort laws and our contract laws, were JUDGE-MADE laws, not statutes. Yes, that's right. Not only that, but the judges were allowed to make up the law AS THEY WENT ALONG, even with criminal law. That's why our founding fathers put a "no ex post facto law" provision in the Constitution. And if you doubt that we inherited the common law from our English forebears, pull out your copy of the Constitution and read the Seventh Amendment. Yes, there were also statutes (laws enacted by the Parliament) -- but common law is primarily case law, not statutes.

Conclusion

Again, one of the principles of Wikipedia is that non-experts are allowed to edit in areas of expertise. But, with that privilege comes a burden. Your burden is that you are held to the standards of an expert in a particular field if you edit articles in that field. Just for starters, a person should not cite or quote from a statute, court decision, etc., unless that person has studied the ACTUAL, FULL VERBATIM TEXT of that source -- not merely an "excerpt" or "quote" from that source on some tax protester web site. If, as you have done, you quote from or cite to statutes, cases, etc., without reading the full text of the actual material, you are gonna be hung out to dry sooner or later. Again, in law, you want to cite, wherever possible, to what is called Primary authority. And there are lots people in Wikipedia who have access to Primary authority. For example, I have immediate internet access (at both home and at work) to the full, actual, verbatim text of almost every reported Federal court decision on taxation (not just income tax, but other Federal taxes as well) since the year 1913 from the U.S. Supreme Court on down to the appeals courts, U.S. district courts, bankruptcy courts, and the U.S. Tax Court, and a lot of cases before 1913. If I go to the trouble to drive down to the county law library downtown or the law school library where I went to law school, I have access to ALL reported Federal cases involving taxation, even back into the founding of the nation. I have immediate access not only to the entire Internal Revenue Code as presently enacted, but also to almost every amendment to the code since 1954, with the congressional committee reports. I also have access to the Federal tax statutes not found in the Internal Revenue Code (yes, that's right, some Federal tax statutes are not in the Internal Revenue Code itself). I also have access to ALL Treasury regulations (including temporary and proposed regs), IRS revenue rulings, revenue procedures and IRS publications. I also have access to gazillions of internal IRS documents -- to which I suspect you not only have no access to but have never heard of -- but which are available to attorneys and CPAs. I have copies of almost every IRS tax form (not just for individual taxes, but also partnerships, corporations, estates, trusts, etc.) for every tax year going back to 1979, PLUS THE RELATED IRS INSTRUCTIONS back to 1979. Other editors who may be attorneys or CPAs may have access to all these materials as well.

You have to understand that U.S. tax law is complex in the extreme. You cannot play effectively with the big boys and girls of tax law without the proper tools.

Further, before you cite a particular case as authority, you have to determine whether that case has been overruled, reversed, vacated, distinguished, etc., by a later case. For example, many tax protesters cite a case called Gould v. Gould, not realizing that Gould v. Gould has been effectively overruled by statutory enactment. The Pollock case was effectively overruled by the Sixteenth Amendment. Some cases are expressly overruled and other cases are effectively overruled. You have to be able to determine all this to properly analyze the law. And so on. As a non-lawyer, it would be very difficult to figure out how to do that.

You gotta "be right before you write," or you will embarrass yourself.

Yours, Famspear 02:58, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I applaud your work in setting me straight, Famspear. Thank you for all the time you spent on the above comments.--BobHurt 23:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. Famspear 19:50, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Postscript: Tax regulations Are Not "Required" In Order For Tax Statutes To Be Valid, Enforceable, Etc.

One thing I did not mention above in response to your commentary about the presence or absence of certain tax regulations: There is no law that requires, as a general proposition, that regulations be promulgated under a tax statute in order for that tax statute to be valid, enforceable, etc. Your citation to the Chrysler v. Brown case to the contrary was incorrect on that point. Not only did the Court in Chrysler NOT rule that tax regulations are required but, as noted above, Chrysler wasn't even a tax case at all.

Tax protesters have tried this argument several times and have always failed. Duties imposed by statute cannot be avoided merely because the IRS or some other agency has not promulgated a regulation under that statute. By contrast, the mere fact that a statute specifies that an agency is authorized to promulgate a regulation does not necessarily mean that the agency is REQUIRED to do so. See, for example, Carpa v. Smith, 98-2 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 50,627 (D. Ariz. 1998); United States v. Langert, 902 F. Supp. 999, 95-2 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 50,504 (D. Minn. 1995); Russell v. United States, 95-1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 50,029 (W.D. Mich. 1994); United States v. Washington, 947 F. Supp. 87, 97-1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 50,129 (S.D.N.Y. 1996); United States v. Hicks, 947 F.2d 1356, 91-2 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 50,549 (9th Cir. 1991). Yours, Famspear 20:38, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Then what purpose do regulations have? Obviously, regulations guide the executive branch in the enforcement of the law. Without the empowering law (provision of a statute at large), a revenue-related regulation has no force against the people, though it might have force against government employees.

I have long thought that a proper law must have an implementing regulation. I see you do not agree with this. I'll back down from that belief till I find proof to support it.

I do not agree that utterances of the Supremes have no value or power over the nation unless part of a "holding" or "ruling." Even in a non-tax case, a principle explained by the prevailing justices of the Supreme Court has power and the people should heed it to the extent applicable, and it should guide lower courts as precedent, even in different types of cases, so long as the principles apply.

--BobHurt 23:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For Famspear, about Federal Common Law Crimes

Please answer this:

Is there such a thing as a common law crime in federal courts?

BobHurt 07:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Bob: What's your view? Famspear 15:16, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Famspear: What's yours? BobHurt 20:34, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Bob: I asked you first! No, wait, you asked me first. Why do you ask? Famspear 20:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Bob: By the way, I have posted some new information on your other talk page, at:

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User_talk:Bobhurt#Famspear.27s_reply

Yours, Famspear 21:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also, some more information here (on Bob Schulz):

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User_talk:Bobhurt#More_on_the_talented_Mr._Bob_Schulz

Yours, Famspear 22:09, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the tips. First, you answer my question, then I'll explain why I ask. Is there such a thing as a common law crime in federal courts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by BobHurt (talk • contribs) 16 August 2007

Dear Bob:

I am reminded of these passages from the Bible:

And when he [Jesus] entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" Jesus answered them, "I also will ask you a question; and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, whence was it? From heaven or from men?" And they argued with one another, "If we say, `From heaven,' he will say to us, `Why then did you not believe him?' But if we say, `From men,' we are afraid of the multitude; for all hold that John was a prophet." So they answered Jesus, "We do not know." And he said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things."

--Matthew 21:23-27 (Rev. Stand. Vers.)

Bob, if you're afraid to tell me why you're asking the question, then maybe you shouldn't ask the question. Yours, Famspear 15:24, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Famspear, you are not Jesus, and this question and situation have no similitude to that quoted above. Therefore you have used a fallacy to support your refusal to answer, and your refusal amounts to nothing more than an effort to obstruct the truth. That makes me wonder all the more whether obstruction of the truth might constitute your entire purpose for writing on Wikipedia.

Answer the question. Is there such a thing as a common law crime in federal courts? Please explain your answer.

--BobHurt 14:43, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, Bob, the illustration from the Bible is directly on point. You are afraid. Out of the blue, you asked me a question. I responded by asking the reason for your question. Instead of telling me why you are asking, you are accusing me of an effort to "obstruct the truth."

I am not here to answer your questions. I am here to edit Wikipedia. From time time you do ask questions, and from time to time I do answer those questions. But neither I nor anyone else here in Wikipedia is under some sort of moral obligation to answer your questions. You are not searching for truth, Bob. You want to argue with me. But you are afraid. Yours, Famspear 15:00, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You have no right or valid reason to impute motives to me. I simply mean to get my question answered without further condition. I have asked it honestly and with the desire to know your opinion. I take unbrage at your effort to manipulate me by comparing me negatively and yourself positively to Jesus, for if anything, I see the comparison opposite from how you seem to see it.

I suspect cowardice motivates your refusal to answer so simple and direct a question.

Why not stop the childish repartee and get on with your answer? I shall appreciate your giving it with a suitable explanation.

--BobHurt 21:24, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Bob: Ask yourself why you have repeatedly referred to other people (in this case, me and the Supreme Court Justices) as "cowards" here in Wikipedia? (Remember that this was the term you used to describe me back in the spring of 2006 when you first began interacting with me -- practically in your first communication with me, as I recall.) Ask yourself why you just stated that I, Famspear, have no right or valid reason to impute "motives" to you -- when I have not mentioned your "motives" in this conversation. What I said was that you are afraid. Fear is an emotion, not a motive in the sense I think you mean.

Since you express such a low opinion of me (and of the Justices of the United States Supreme Court), ask yourself: why do you want to hear my opinion? While you're at it, ask yourself why you keep posting tax protester arguments -- addressed to me, Famspear. Ask yourself why you repeatedly express your negative thoughts about the government here in Wikipedia. Ask yourself why you have repeatedly falsely "accused" me, right here in Wikipedia, of somehow being an agent of the government (or words to that effect). Ask yourself: What is it with Bob Hurt and "the government," anyway?

Ask yourself: Why don't you yourself stop the childish repartee and answer your own question about common law crimes? Yours, Famspear 22:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just answer the question, Famspear. What have you to fear or to prove by your recalcitrance?

--BobHurt 23:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Answer your own question, Bob. ("Is there such a thing as a common law crime in federal courts?") What do you have to fear -- or to prove? Famspear 15:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Judge Made Law

Well first of all excuse my typing an spelling prowes. As far as tracing my ISP I dont care. My name is James Clair, Brown. I read the discusion on taxation. I am not taking sides one way or the other. Near the end there is some meantion of the 'common law'.

It suggests that the 'common law' is recorded case law. I agree. It also suggests that it is Judge Made Law. I would agree BUT with some reservation. When the People here in America are setting as Jurists they ARE the Judges. To merely imply that only an elected, or appointed Judge set president is wrong in my 'opinon'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.81.209.215 (talk • contribs) on 10 August 2007

Bob's comments, 18 August 2007

Famspear, you write like a charlatan intending to justify your evil deeds in your editorial work on the income tax pages of Wikipedia. You wrongly accused me of being "totally incorrect" above. "Tax Protester" constitutes a term of derision intended to prejudice ignorant truth-seekers into disbelieving the "tax protester" arguments. DOJ and judicial criminals devised the term and use it in court. You seem to think any judicial belch or fart belongs in Wikipedia pages. Judges say it so you feel justified in echoing it.

You should characterize the tax protesters and their arguments as opposing views and give them as much front and center time and space as you give the others, without demeaning them by referring to them as "tax protester."

Wikipedians should use proper language to inform people about the facts, and where possible the truth, neutrality. Like a charlatan and bigot, you have just tried to justify violating that principle. Sorry, Famspear, I don't buy your assertion on this point, and neither should anybody else.

You have failed to point out that Law does not mean truth. Something can be both law and quite criminal at the same time. The congressional record and court cases show many such laws overturned, excised, or altered because of their criminal nature.

The efforts of Congress to tax the people directly constitute a shining example of this point. And that gives all the more reason for you to start treating arguments that oppose the government view with at least as much respect and deference that you treat the government view.

Meanwhile, remember to point out that, while proponents of the opposing view differ somewhat in their arguments, the do not differ nearly as do Circuit judges on whether income tax has a direct or indirect nature. Virtually all opposition view proponents agree that the income tax as implemented today constitutes an egregious crime against the people because it functions like an unconstitutional imposition of a direct tax upon the property of people. Thus, you cannot use the courts as a shining example of "jurisprudence" or of a balanced and proper view of law, for many judicial rulings seem to educated, informed people like abject idiocy.

--BobHurt 22:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bob, you're saying that I "write like a charlatan intending to justify [my] evil deeds in [my] editorial work on the income tax pages of Wikipedia"??? Uh, thanks for sharing that with us, Bob. And, uh, thanks for the rest of your comments. Hang in there, Bob. Famspear 03:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Charlatan? Well, Yeah, Kinda

Yes, Famspear. You should feel entitled to the titles of charlatan, bigot, arch-deceiver, and even wolf-in-sheep's-wool.

You work to deceive people into thinking that Congress can constitutionally impose an income tax directly upon property such as labor, wages, interest earnings, and the like, none of which have directly taxable natures, according to Article I Section 2 Clause 3 and Section 9 Clause 4, and that the IRS can directly collect that imposed tax from the people.

You refuse to explain to people that the income tax, as an excise, can lawfully apply only to specifically identified, privileged activities, not to occupations of common right.

You refuse to explain that Congress can lawfully directly tax people only by levying the tax against the states by rule of apportionment, which in effect means that Congress cannot lawfully directly tax people, but that it can lawfully directly tax ONLY the states, based on each state's percentage of the population of all of the states added together (excluding D.C. and the territorial possessions).

All of your work to defeat tax protester arguments does have a noble side, for we should give our first loyalty to truth, and if an alleged protester does not understand case law or the convolutions of 26 USC and associated regulations, somebody who does understand should straighten them out so they can make valid arguments.

I recognize my error in quoting all those supreme court cases without reading and understanding them myself, and I appreciate your setting me straight. You have made it clear that I misunderstood at least some of them. And, I don't like misunderstanding.

Nevertheless, when I backtrack to the basics, I still come up with the same conclusions:

AIS2C3 and AIS9C4 prohibit direct taxation of people's property, labor, and income.
AIS2C3 and AIS9C4 requires Congress to collect direct taxes only from the states, and prohibits Congress or its agents or executive branch employees from collecting a direct tax from the people.
Only the State's employees may collect Congress-imposed direct taxes from the people
Amendment 16 put income tax in the indirect (excise) class, meaning Congress can impose an income tax only upon a specifically identified taxable activity.
AIS8C17 limits the exclusive legislative power of Congress to the Federal Zone and no other provision of the Constitution extends that power to any other area EXCEPT as necessary to fulfill the Constitution's guarantees of protections of the states or the people. Therefore, Congress cannot tax people in the state lands at all. Congress can tax people in D.C., the territorial possessions, and in the federal zone (even the parts of the federal zone located in the states). I realize that you and almost the entire legal profession disagree with me about AIS8C17. I hold that position because of the 9th and 10th Amendments.

Remember that all of your suppositions about the subject of the income tax mean nothing until the Supreme Court has ruled on it. --BobHurt 00:48, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Bob: You're still on the wrong track. I'll respond to this statement first:

Remember that all of your suppositions about the subject of the income tax mean nothing until the Supreme Court has ruled on it.

That is incorrect. Many non-lawyers do seem to have this misconception that something isn't "the law" until the United States Supreme Court has ruled on it. There are many sources of law: statutes, regulations, case law, treaties, and of course the Constitution. Many, many statutes, regulations, and treaties, and case laws are not only not the subject of any litigation in the United States Supreme Court, they're not the subject of litigation in any courts of law. The mere fact that a court has not ruled on a particular statute, etc., does not make that statute any less "the law."

I don't have any substantial "suppositions" about Federal income tax law that I have discussed with you here in Wikipedia, Bob. Everything I have discussed with you has been a description of the text of the Constitution itself, as well as the texts of statutes, regs, etc., and the holdings in court cases. These things are not my "suppositions" -- and they're not really "mine."

Law, like history, or physics, or arithmetic, or biology, is knowable. Like history, or physics, or arithmetic, or biology, law is not based on "how you feel about it," or "what you suppose about it." Law is not taking quotations out of context from court decisions where the courts ruled Federal income taxes to be valid and then arguing that the quotations mean something other than what they actually say, and then arguing that the same cases somehow stand for the silly idea that the same Federal income taxes are invalid.

Nothing in any provision of the U.S. Constitution prohibits "direct taxation of people's property, labor, and income."

If by "the states" you mean the state governments, nothing in the Constitution "requires Congress to collect direct taxes only from the states." Nothing in the Constitution prohibits Congress or its agents or executive branch employees "from collecting a direct tax from the people."

The statement that "Only the State's employees may collect Congress-imposed direct taxes from the people" is nonsensical. Nothing in the Constitution or in any court ruling or statute says that.

The statement that "Congress can impose an income tax only upon a specifically identified taxable activity" is hogwash. There is nothing in the Constitution or in any statute or court ruling, etc., etc., that says that. The income tax is not an "activity" tax.

Article I, section 8, clause 17 does not limit Congress in any way. That provision is a limitation on STATE power, not Congressional power, as the courts have ruled. The so-called Federal zone argument -- that Congress cannot tax people in the state lands -- is lunacy. Completely without legal merit. And the Ninth and Tenth Amendments have nothing to do with the power of Congress to impose an income tax on U.S. citizens and residents, wherever they may be. Yours, Famspear 01:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Bob: Here's another chance for you to read about what the Federal income tax law really is. In these two companion cases, decided in 1916, the corporate and individual taxpayers made the following arguments:

(A) that the Federal income tax was not allowed by the Sixteenth Amendment;

(B) that the Federal income tax statute exceeded the power of direct income taxation under the Sixteenth Amendment, and that the statute was governed solely by the general taxing authority conferred upon Congress by the Constitution;

(C) that, as an attempt to levy a direct tax without apportionment, the income tax was void;

(D) that because the income tax statute operated retroactively, it was repugnant to the Constitution;

(E) that because of the “discriminations and inequalities” which it created, including a progressive tax on the income of individuals, the income tax statute was repugnant to the Constitution.

All these arguments were rejected by a unanimous United States Supreme Court (except for one justice not taking part in the decision). The Court again upheld the validity of the Federal income tax, both as to individuals and as to corporations. With respect to the individual income tax, the case is Thorne v. Anderson, Collector of Internal Revenue. With respect to corporate income tax, the case is Tyee Realty Co. v. Anderson, Collector of Internal Revenue. Both cases are included in one report under the case name Tyee Realty Co. v. Anderson, 240 U.S. 115 (1916).

Some tax protester web cites fraudulently claim that the Court ruled the opposite way in these cases -- just as tax protesters have made the same fraudulent claims about the Court's rulings in Brushaber and Stanton and other cases where the Supreme Court upheld the Federal income tax as constitutional. Unfortunately for tax protesters, the text of Tyee Realty/Thorne is very short and easy to read. When will these fraudsters learn that Supreme Court decisions are available for all to read on the internet? Famspear 04:20, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

More on Income Tax, Rebutting Famspear

Famspear, thanks for taking the time to respond, and trying to correct my erroneous assertions to the extent you could. Let's see whether I can say it better.

Supposition - that people and property constitute valid subjects of Income Tax

I classify as a "supposition" your assertion that the income tax constitutionally applies to people's property. Regardless of what you and lower court judges think, rule, or ballyhoo, until the Supremes rule on this contentious issue, you only suppose wages and other property constitute valid subjects of the income tax.

The supreme Court has not ruled on "What is the Subject of the Income Tax." Millions of Americans (including me) believe the constitution prohibits application of direct taxes to people and their property and in so doing, it prohibits direct collection of any such taxes from the people. We believe people and property do not constitute valid subjects of the income tax, not because Congress cannot tax people or their property, but because it cannot constitutionally tax them directly except by levy upon the states. I mean that when I say Congress cannot directly tax people or their property. The Constitution's restriction on the application of direct taxes (it may levy direct taxes only upon the states) operates like a prohibition of power directly to tax people and their property.

How We See the Meaning of Tax Power in the Constitution

We believe as we do because the Constitution clearly expresses what Congress may do, the territory in which Congress may do it, and what exclusions apply to the powers of Government. In other words, the Government may NOT do whatever its employees want it to do except as the Constitution prohibits. Instead, the Government may do ONLY what the Constitution permits, and then only to the extent that the Government does not interfere with the Constitution's guarantee of powers of the states and rights of the people. The people's guaranteed rights have pre-eminence except where specified otherwise through specific statements of powers ceded specifically and intentionally to the Government for the purposes stated in the preamble. The Constitution says(emphasis added):

Art I.2.3 Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons...

Art I.8.1 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;

Art I.8.17 TTo exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--

Art I.9.4 No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

Am IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Am X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Am XVI 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.

Regardless of what any judge or justice says the above excerpts mean, they must mean what they specifically say, and any imputed departure from such meaning must constitute treason against the Constitution and the people who empowered it and who today promise to support it.

Regarding the 16th Amendment and the Constituiton's Taxation Authorityr

I believe that the 16th Amendment has NO valid place in our Constitution, for careful research has proved that a quorum of states did not ratify it and the Supremes cowardly called the question of legal validity a political matter. Other courts have discounted Benson's conclusions in [The_Law_that_Never_Was his book], but what else can we expect when all federal judges and attorneys pay (and think others should also pay) income tax?

But even as a valid amendment, it did not give Congress any new taxing power, for Congress already had plenary power to levy taxes. Nor did it secretly repeal or magically controvert Art I.2.3 or I.9.4. It merely removed the rule of apportionment from the income tax, and in so doing, it placed the income tax in the class of an excise - an indirect tax. It did not, as many have alleged, permit Congress to levy upon the people an unapportioned direct tax.

Let me rephrase and clarify: since direct taxes must follow the rule of apportionment, and since the 16th Amendment removed that rule from income taxes, therefore income tax cannot have a direct nature. Thus, the 16th Amendment indirectly classified the income tax as an indirect tax.

Even the Supremes agreed in Bowers v. Kerbaugh-Empire Co. that income tax can at most tax a gain or profit on labor or capitol. Carrying that principle to its full and obvious logical conclusion yields a proper understanding of the income-taxability of wages and capital gains. One's labor has precisely the value of one's wages or other compensation. Therefore, no one can receive a gain or profit through wages. And the resources of time, study, and ingenuity one must expend in deployment of capital has precisely the value of any return on one's investment of the capital, so one cannot obtain a gain from capital. The ROI and the wages constitute no gain and no profit, but rather an equal value exchange for labor and other resources expended. Any effort of Congress to tax wages or capital gains, unless derived from a privileged activity, does not have the support of the Constitution.

Congress must obey the rule of geographical uniformity when imposing indirect taxes. That means people in one part of the land pay no more or less indirect tax on the same taxable element than people in another. It also means the income tax must tax something other than people (capitation) and their property. Property consists of money, cars, boats, planes, houses, land, bank accounts, stocks and bonds, wages, interest earned on savings and investments, labor, expertise, knowledge, and so on, which belong to a person. Any tax on people and property constitutes a direct tax, not an indirect tax.

So, strangely, as an indirect tax, the "income" tax cannot constitutionally apply to one's income, for that would directly tax one's property without obeying the requirement of apportionment. Therefore, income tax must apply to something other than a person or property. The Constitution classifies duties, imposts, excises, and taxes together into one category of tax. The 16th Amendment made the income tax into an excise (indirect tax). Since the income tax, an excise, cannot constitutionally apply to property and people, it must apply to happenings, activities, events, and occurrences, to which I refer collectively as "taxable activities".

A taxable activity excise consists of a tax imposed on the performance of an act, the engaging in an occupation, or the enjoyment of a privilege. The income tax excise takes the form of an excision or extraction of a tax from a stream of money received as a result of engaging in a particular, specifically defined "taxable activity." The income tax must operate as tax upon an activity, not upon the fruit derived from the activity. The income merely provides the means of determining the amount of tax liability for engaging in the activity.

Examples of taxable activities include manufacturing or importing alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has the responsibility for collecting such taxes. as well as working for the Federal Government, a privilege for which government employees must "return" a kickback by filing a "tax return" under 26 USC Subtitle A.

As an excise illustration (actual tax and price varies somewhat), Congress has lawfully imposed an excise tax of around $30 per gallon upon the privilege of making grain alcohol, a dangerous substance that humans consume. Kentucky distillers charge $40 a gallon for a 5-gallon jug of 175-proof corn whiskey. The Government obtains the excise of $30 per gallon from the Distiller. The government has a variety of ways of streamlining this process. For example, it sells tax stamps to whiskey makers who apply the stamps to end-consumer bottles of whiskey, and ATF agents spot-check whiskey retailers to make sure all the bottles of whiskey for sale bear such stamps.

Congressional Authority to Assess, Collect, Lien, and Levy

Having fairly well settled the intent of the Constitution to channel the plenary taxing power of Congress so as to prevent it from abusing the people through the direct collection efforts of Federal Government agents, let us look at the evolution of the implementation of that power, and its targets.

The House Law Revision Council (HLRC) codifies Public Laws, then (as the plan goes) Congress passes the various titles of codes into positive law. It has not passed into positive law Title 26, the Internal Revenue Code, so we cannot rely on that title as an accurate reflection of the Public Laws. So, with profound diffidence, I shall refer to provisions in 26 USC, which I might refer as the "IRC". And I shall connect some dots so that you can see the intended expression of Congress's taxing power.

IRC 6201 provides authority to assess income taxes. The HLRC derived authority for 6201 from the 1874 Revised Statutes Section 3182 which derived authority from the Statutes at Large enacted on Dec. 24, 1872, chap. 13, sec. 2, vol. 17, page 402, which authorized assessments ONLY on the activities involving importing and making tobacco and distilled spirits. I know of no amendment to the Statutes at Large which changes that intent as the present-day intent of IRC 6201.

IRC 6321 provides authority to impose liens for unpaid taxes. The HLRC derived authority for 6321 from the 1954 code, which descended from the 1939 code Section 3670 (made by the Government's Joint committee on Taxation in its 1992 Derivations of Code Sections of the 1939 and 1954 code), which descended from the Revised Statutes of 1874 Section 3186 ("Lien for Taxes"), which derived authority from the 13 July 1866 Statute, which identifies only excise taxes on cotton and distilled spirits as lienable, and which Congress amended in the Act dated 29 May 1928 as shown in Statutes at Large Volume 45 page 875 Chapter 852 Section 613 to amend the method of lien, but not to modify the subject of the lienable taxes: cotton and distilled spirits, nothing else. I know of no amendment to the Statutes at Large which changes that intent as the present-day intent of IRC 6321.

IRC 6331(a) provides authority to levy by distraint for unpaid taxes. The HLRC derived authority for 6331(a) from the 1954 code, which descended from the 1939 code Sections 3310, 3660, 3690, 3692 and 3700 (made by the Government's Joint committee on Taxation in its 1992 Derivations of Code Sections of the 1939 and 1954 code), of which 3690 (species of tax) descended from the Revised Statutes of 1874 Section 3187 ("Taxes collectible by distraint"), which derived authority from the 13 July 1866 Statute Volume 14 Chapter 184 Section 9 pages 98, and 106, which authorized collection by levy and distraint only the excise taxes on producing cotton and distilled spirits. I know of no amendment to the Statutes at Large which changes that intent as the present-day intent of IRC 6331(a).

Bottom line, I know of no provisions in the Statutes at Large that permit any agent of Government to assess or collect directly from people any taxes by request, lien, levy, or distraint, other than as stated above - the activities of producing or importing tobacco, distilled spirits, and cotton.

Nevertheless, I googled 26 USC and received 1035 references to "hereby imposed." When you scan the list you see that Congress has imposed taxes on many kinds of activities. They state many of them as taxes on products, but since people own products, and products constitute property for which Congress cannot lawfully collect directly from people, the tax must apply only to some activity related to the product.

Imposition of Tax and Imposition of Liability

Even more interesting, the imposition of a tax on an activity MUST accompany an imposition of liability upon someone to pay the tax. The imposition of a tax without the imposition of a liability in effect makes the tax into a voluntary contribution or a gift to the Government. Since the HLRC constructed the IRC in such a way that it implies that the imposition of the tax constitutes the imposition of a liability to pay the tax, I consider the construction a form of fraud and extortion.

Look at 26 USC 1. It imposes a tax upon the incomes of people, but it does not impose upon anyone a liability to pay that tax. I cannot find the word segment "liab" anywhere in the section.

But in the corresponding regulation at 26 CFR 1-1.1 I do see the word liable, as follows (emphasis added):

26 USC § 1. Tax imposed

(a) Married individuals filing joint returns and surviving spouses
There is hereby imposed on the taxable income of—

26 CFR Sec. 1.1-1 Income tax on individuals.

(a) General rule. (1) Section 1 of the Code imposes an income tax on the income of every individual who is a citizen or resident of the United States and, to the extent provided by section 871(b) or 877(b), on the income of a nonresident alien individual. For optional tax in the case of taxpayers with adjusted gross income of less than $10,000 (less than $5,000 for taxable years beginning before January 1, 1970) see section 3. The tax imposed is upon taxable income (determined by subtracting the allowable deductions from gross income). The tax is determined in accordance with the table contained in section 1. See subparagraph (2) of this paragraph for reference guides to the appropriate table for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 1964, and before January 1, 1965, taxable years beginning after December 31, 1964, and before January 1, 1971, and taxable years beginning after December 31, 1970. In certain cases credits are allowed against the amount of the tax. See part IV (section 31 and following), subchapter A, chapter 1 of the Code. In general, the tax is payable upon the basis of returns rendered by persons liable therefor (subchapter A (sections 6001 and following), chapter 61 of the Code) or at the source of the income by withholding. For the computation of tax in the case of a joint return of a husband and wife, or a return of a surviving spouse, for taxable years beginning before January 1, 1971, see section 2. The computation of tax in such a case for taxable years beginning after December 31, 1970, is determined in accordance with the table contained in section 1(a) as amended by the Tax Reform Act of 1969. For other rates of tax on individuals, see section 5(a). For the imposition of an additional tax for the calendar years 1968, 1969, and 1970, see section 51(a).

(b) Citizens or residents of the United States liable to tax. In general, all citizens of the United States, wherever resident, and all resident alien individuals are liable to the income taxes imposed by the Code whether the income is received from sources within or without the United States. Pursuant to section 876, a nonresident alien individual who is a bona fide resident of Puerto Rico during the entire taxable year is, except as provided in section 933 with respect to Puerto Rican source income, subject to taxation in the same manner as a resident alien individual. As to tax on nonresident alien individuals, see sections 871 and 877.

(c) Who is a citizen. Every person born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction is a citizen.

In the above code sections you see "imposed" in the IRC but "liable" in the CFR. Did the Treasury department get the authority to create a tax liability out of thin air? Perhaps they forgot how to abide by the law and common sense:

"To the extent that regulations implement the statute, they have the force and effect of law...The regulation implements the statute and cannot vitiate or change the statute..." [Spreckles v. C.I.R., 119 F.2d, 667]

Furthermore the CFR makes all Citizens of the United States liable, but fails to indicate that "United States" can only mean the area over which the Constitution gives Congress exclusive legislative authority, as identified in Art I.8.17, plus the territorial possessions later acquired. And note that if the Constitution meant to give Congress authority outside that area, it would have done so explicitly and specifically, as Chief Justice Marshall opined in Barron v. City of Baltimore about the question as to whether the 5th Amendment compensation for property imposed an obligation upon the states. The Supremes of the Marshall court said it did not apply to states because the Constitution's framers had no trouble specifying states when they wanted to, such as in Article IV. Likewise, the framers would have given Congress additional legislative authority specifically outside the Federal Zone if they had wanted to.

Obviously, since Congress has exclusive legislative authority only inside the Federal Zone, the income tax of 26 USC and 26 CFR can only apply inside the Federal Zone. And the codes corroborate that principle by using the term "citizen of the United States."

Clearly, from the Statutes at Large, which limit the imposition of tax, lien, and levy by distraint to making and importing various products, from the wording of 26 USC 1 and 26 CFR 1-1.1, which imposes income tax upon US citizens (not citizens of the states), and from the wording of 26 USC 1, which fails to impose any tax liability, the income tax does not apply to most Americans in the several states, by virtue of domicile, citizenship, their general lack of involvement in taxable activities, and paucity of law that makes them liable.

In summary, most Americans have no income tax liability because they engage in no activities upon which Congress has lawfully imposed an income tax, and for other reasons stated above. Furthermore, the IRS has no authority to collect a direct tax of any kind from the people.

--BobHurt 04:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Bob: You've made so made errors in your post that I'm not going to have time to deal with them, at least not right now.

I am curious. How did you develop your beliefs about the government that you have described over the past year or more here in Wikipedia? Without getting too specific (because you may not want to give too much personal information on the internet - and I certainly don't give much personal information), did your interest in Federal income tax start with something that happened to you personally?

As you know, I disagree with about 98% of your comments, but based on your comments it appears you have read a lot of material on government, taxes, and so on. Did you read materials mostly on the internet, or did you mostly purchase "hard copy" materials, etc.? If it's mostly from the internet, what web sites do you read? Yours, Famspear 04:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Famspear's response

Dear Bob: OK as to your latest thoughts, here a just a few of the misconceptions you have.

First, you seem to believe that I assert that the income tax constitutionally applies to people's "property." I have never said that. Your phrase "wages and other property" reveals your misunderstanding.

Property taxes versus income taxes (or, more broadly, "state of being" taxes versus "event" taxes)

A right to receive earned wages is a property right. The Federal income tax is not imposed on that right. The tax is imposed on the income itself -- on the event.

There are basically two kinds of taxes: "state of being" taxes and "event" taxes.

A tax on property "by reason of its ownership" is a "state of being" tax. The "state of being" that is taxed is the "state of title" (such as, the state of title on January 1st). If the title to that property on January 1st is such that you hold that title, you are the taxpayer.

Some property taxes are imposed on real estate, others on personalty (such as equipment used in a business).

Examples of event taxes are income taxes and sales taxes.

If an income tax were a property tax (a kind of state of title tax), then if you had a piece of equipment in your business on January 1, 2005, the income tax would be imposed on the value of that property as of that date. And then, again on January 1, 2006, that same property would have another income tax imposed on it. There's just one problem with this scenario. The income tax is NOT a property tax. The income tax is NOT a "state of being" tax.

The income tax is an EVENT tax. That means for example, that your income tax with respect to that property is imposed ONLY ONCE -- when the income event with respect to that property occurred. Let's assume for the sake of argument that you received that piece of equipment in an exchange whereby you rendered labor for someone on January 1, 2005 (a rather unusual example, but it'll work for this purpose). Let's say that the reasonable value of that labor was $100, and that you therefore recorded the acquisition of that piece of equipment as being $100 (your basis), and you showed $100 of income on your 2005 tax return.

A year later, on January 1, 2006, is another income tax imposed on that same piece of property that you still happen to own? Answer: No. No additional "income" event has occurred. You might pay a PROPERTY tax based on the fact that you OWN the property on January 1, 2006, but you will not pay an "income" tax. You paid the income tax on the only income event -- which occurred back on January 1, 2005.

That is the fundamental difference between a state of being tax (such as a "tax on property by reason of its ownership") and an event tax (such as the income tax).

Tax protesters are constantly confused by the fact that the Federal income tax is imposed "directly" on individuals. That does not make it a "direct tax" in the Constitutional sense. Under the case law, the only kinds of direct taxes for Federal purposes are capitations and taxes on property by reason of its ownership. An income tax is not a "direct tax" in the sense in which you are thinking -- except that CERTAIN income taxes (taxes on income in the form of interest, dividends and rents) were TREATED as direct taxes in a case called Pollock. Even in Pollock, the Court stated that taxes on income from "employments" (such as taxes on wages and salaries) were not direct taxes, but were instead "excises" (indirect taxes). The Sixteenth Amendment was ratified to cancel the Pollock "direct tax" treatment of taxes on interest, dividends and rents.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the income of individuals is taxable. The Supreme Court has ruled that the income of corporations is taxable. The Supreme Court has ruled that the income of a decedent's estate is taxable. Your statement that the Court has not ruled on "what is the subject of the income tax" is incorrect.

The Constitution does not prohibit "the application of direct taxes to people and their property." Indeed, a direct tax can include a tax on property -- a tax on property by reason of its ownership -- and direct taxes are specifically authorized by the Constitution. Go back and read your own copy of Article I.

The argument that Congress cannot tax people or their property directly "except by levy upon the states" -- whatever that is supposed to mean -- is nonsensical. Neither the Constitution nor any court case interpreting the Constitution says that the power is limited to "levy upon the states."

Bill Benson is your guide?

The sentence beginning with the phrase "regardless of what any judge or justice says" -- and essentially referring to rulings with which you disagree as "treason" -- is nonsense, as is the statement that the Sixteenth Amendment "has no place in our Constitution." Mr. Benson's so-called "careful research" did not prove that a quorum of states did not ratify the Constitution, and every court that has been presented with Benson's laughable book has rejected that theory. The fact that you continue to rely on Mr. Benson's own word (and Mr. Benson's discredited book) -- Mr. Benson, a criminal whose web site still contains at least one phony, non-existent quotation from a court case -- a criminal who continues to try to mislead people into thinking that his "book" has somehow kept him out of jail, when in fact he tried to use his book and his nonsensical "non-ratification" argument as a "defense" in his criminal case -- and then was convicted and went to prison -- is sad.

Show some real proof. Show where his proofs fell into error. Corrupt judges do not reliable opinions give. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BobHurt (talk • contribs)

Income, gain or profit

Your argument that wages are not taxable because the value of the labor is equal to the value of the compensation has been rejected by the courts so many times, it's hilarious. It's also hilarious from the standpoint of basic economics -- because you are assuming that "income" or "gain" or "profit" is somehow the excess of the value of what you RECEIVE over the value of what you give up. If that were the correct definition of "income" or "gain" or "profit" for tax purposes, then almost no one would ever have income, gain or profit. Virtually all arm's length exchanges are exchanges of tangible or intangible things of EQUAL VALUE! The idea that no one can receive gain or profit from wages violates basic economics, basic accounting, and basic tax law concepts. Wake up, Bob!

Uniformity

Your argument about geographic uniformity is wrong. What you are referring to is essentially what the courts have called "intrinsic uniformity." The "intrinsic uniformity" argument was rejected by the Supreme Court over a hundred years ago. There is no requirement that people in one part of the land pay "no more or less indirect tax on the same taxable element than people in another." Why? Because the populations of some areas are large, and the populations of other areas are small. The Constitution requires only GEOGRAPHIC uniformity, as the courts have ruled. That means that you cannot tax just people in New York and Montana. That means that you have to impose the income tax in all fifty states, essentially. That does NOT mean that you have to collect the same amount from each state, and that also does NOT mean that the amount you collect from each state has to be proportional to population, either.

Taxable "activity"

The "taxable activity" argument is a rabbit trail. You are lost on that trail. An income event can occur WHILE ENGAGED IN AN ACTIVITY -- but the income tax is not an "activity tax." The term "activity" is a legal term of art in the tax law. If I were you, I would stay away from it and concentrate on the meaning of the term "income." Income is an "event." Some events may involve an "activity." Others may not.

Positive law and non-positive law

Your discussion regarding positive law and the Law Revision Counsel and the "derived authority" is incorrect. The authority of the 1939, 1954 and 1986 codes does not come from the earlier enactments you mentioned. As explained below, the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended is POSITIVE LAW, was affirmatively enacted by Congress, and every single original provision thereof and amendment thereto -- is published in the United States Statutes at Large (except for the newest Congressinal Acts, to be published in the most recent as-yet-to-be published volume).

Acts of Congress are published by the United States Government Printing Office in a publication called the United States Statutes at Large. The Internal Revenue Code of 1939, like the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, was a Congressional enactment. Both the 1939 Code and the 1954 Code were therefore published in the United States Statutes at Large (volume 53 part 1, in the case of the 1939 Code).

The Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is the current Code, and is a set of statutes enacted by the U.S. Congress. According to the United States Statutes at Large (published by the United States Government Printing Office) the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, the predecessor to the current 1986 code, was enacted by the Eighty-Third Congress of the United States with the phrase "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled" and was "approved" (signed into law) at 9:45 A.M. on August 16, 1954, and published as volume 68A of the United States Statutes at Large. Section 1(a)(1) of the enactment states: "The provisions of this Act set forth under the heading 'Internal Revenue Title' may be cited as the 'Internal Revenue Code of 1954'. Section 1(d) of the enactment is entitled "Enactment of Internal Revenue Title Into Law", and the text of the Code follows, beginning with the statutory Table of Contents. The enactment ends with the approval (enactment) notation on page 929.

Every single amendment to the 1954 Code (including the Tax Reform Act of 1986 which changed the name of the '54 Code to "Internal Revenue Code of 1986") have been Acts of Congress. Every single amendment is given both a public law number and a "statutes at large" volume and page number. EVERY SINGLE AMENDMENT TO THE 1954/1986 CODE HAS BEEN PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES STATUTES AT LARGE!!!!! No tax protester web site ever seems to mention this fact. Surprise, surprise!

Title 26 of the United States Code -- which ALSO happens to be entitled the "Internal Revenue Code" -- is indeed non-positive law compiled by the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives. What the tax protesters have not been telling you Bob, is that they are trying to confuse you on terminology. The fact that title 26 is "non-positive law" does not change the fact that the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 (and, as renamed, the Internal Revenue Code of 1986) as amended to this very day are POSITIVE LAW. All were enacted in the form of ACTS OF CONGRESS, and every single Code with EVERY SINGLE AMENDMENT has been published in the United States Statutes at Large (except for amendments made most recently, and those are published as "slip law" pamphlets until the Government Printing Office can issue the latest volume of the Statutes at Large).

Just as importantly, the actual TEXT of "Title 26, Internal Revenue Code" (the non-positive law published by the U.S. Government Printing Office) and "Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as amended" (the positive law as enacted by Congress and published in the Statutes at Large also published by the U.S. Government Printing Office) ARE IDENTICAL -- or are PRESUMED in COURT to be identical -- unless YOU THE TAXPAYER can show the court that there is a difference. Even if there is a difference, the court is legally bound to follow THE LAW, which is the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as published and amended in the United States Statutes at Large and published by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

What tax protesters also do not grasp is that many lawyers, government agencies, and even the courts themselves DO NOT ALWAYS USE THE NON-POSITIVE LAW publication, which is "title 26" as published by the Government Printing Office! We use commercially published versions of "title 26" as published by Thomson/West Publishing, CCH, and other private publishers. Bob, the VAST MAJORITY OF STATUTORY TEXTS are physically published by PRIVATE PUBLISHERS in the United States, and have been so since the late 1800s! NOBODY CARES THAT TITLE 26 AS PUBLISHED BY THE GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE IS NON-POSITIVE LAW, when most people don't use a government-published copy anyway!!!! Welcome to the real world, Bob!

Famspear, My purpose for showing you the derivations of today's IR Law did not arise from a desire to say Congress did not enact today's IR laws into positive law. I cited the derivations to illustrate the MEANING of the IR law of today which you, the IRS, and the courts seem so prone to misinterpret. If we question the meaning of today's IRC, then we must accept the source of the evolution of that law as a guide to understanding it. And that source shows with crystal clarity that Congress intended to tax activities, not people or their property (which includes their income). From the beginning the tax fell upon the activity, and the income measured the tax due. The income itself was never a subject of the tax, once the Supreme court struck down unconstitutional tax laws that attempted to levy a direct upon property. --BobHurt 14:34, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Federal zone

Your "Federal zone" argument has also been rejected so many times, it's hilarious. Go back and read it again. Do you see the word "exclusive"? You don't seem to understand what that word means. The case law tells us what the word means.

Conclusion

Bob, if I were you I would stop reading the nonsense literature you are reading on the internet or wherever you are getting your information, and begin reading material from reputable sources. You have been deceived by tax protesters in a very big way. Yours, Famspear 21:49, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bob's response

No, Famspear, YOU wake up. You have made my point for me. Very few people outside government engage in activities upon which Congress has imposed a tax. Excessive money flowing into government gives rise to lunatic spending on unnecessary wars, largess to the undeserving, and inflation. It never made sense.

But if necessary, Congress can always raise the money by taxing the states directly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BobHurt (talk • contribs) on 25 August 2007.

No, Bob, I have refuted your point. Your income is subject to the Federal income tax. So is mine (unfortunately).

Excessive money flowing into government may well give rise to lunatic spending, etc., etc. That has nothing to do with what the law is. Yours, Famspear 19:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Have you lost your mind, Famspear? Income is not an event. It is property in transit. You own property in one place, and effect its transportation to another place. That transportation is not the subject of a valid tax unless specified by naming the property.

You seem intent upon using our language to pervert the intentions of the framers of our Constitution. They made it clear that if Congress wants to tax property directly, it can apportion the tax among the states. If it wants to tax incomes, it can only do that by taxing the specifically defined activity that produced the income. You can find such definitions here:

26 U.S.C. §§ 4001, 4003, 4041, 4042, 4051, 4064, 4071, 4081, 4091, 4121, 4131, 4161, 4181, 4251, 4261, 4271, 4371, 4461, 4481, 4611, 4661, 4671, 4681, 4682, 4701, 4911, 4912, 4940, 4941, 4942, 4943, 4944, 4945, 4948, 4951, 4952, 4953, 4955, 4958, 4971, 4972, 4974, 4975, 4976, 4977, 4978, 4979, 4979A, 4980, 4980B, 4980C, 4980D, 4980E, 4981, 4982, 4999, 5000, 5001, 5041, 5051, 5701, and 5881.

You insist on using rulings of corrupt, biased judges (who pay income tax, and must, according to Congress, and who want everyone else to suffer similarly) as the basis for your fraudulent arguments. The language of the constitution seems clear enough to me and most others who read it. The Government has handcuffs on, and people like you try to loosen those shackles by echoing inane rulings of the very corrupt judges who should keep the shackles locked tightly.

Geographic uniformity means what it says. Don't like it? Change the Constitution. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BobHurt (talk • contribs) on 25 August 2007.

I might have made errors through misstatement, but I think you wrong to call my assertions nonsense. I can read, but apparently you and the justices you claim have allowed income tax on estates and wages cannot read and comprehend the crystal clear words of the Constitution in Article I Section 2 Clause 3 and Section 9 Clause 4. You keep justifying a change to the meaning of those passages, but I find no justification for breaching such a simple requirement, no matter how much it annoys those who want to pillage the people's wallets.

Again, regardless of what you or our corrupt courts say to the contrary of the Constitution's clearly expressed restrictions, Congress cannot constitutionally impose a tax directly upon the property or people except by imposing that tax upon the states by the rule of apportionment. In other words, Congress cannot tax people or their property directly, period. If it attempts to do so, it attempts to perpetrate a crime upon the people. If it does anyway and the courts assist them, then the courts commit crimes against the people too.

The 16th Amendment did not change that. It made the income tax an indirect tax, not on property (income), but on the activity that produces income. And Congress has specified such activities as I showed you in the above citations of 26 USC. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BobHurt (talk • contribs) on 25 August 2007

No, Bob, I have not lost my mind (yet). Income is an event - it's an increase in something. It's not "the something itself." The dollar bill sitting in your pocket is not income merely because it's sitting there. But if I PAY you a dollar for services you perform, the PAYMENT is an event. It's a transaction. It's an occurrence. The dollar bill is not the event, it's not the transaction, it's not the occurrence. It's the EVENT that is taxed, not the dollar bill. If the dollar bill were taxed, we would be talking about a property tax (a tax on property by reason of its ownership).

In other words, if the government taxed you over and over on the same dollar bill, even though it never left your pocket, that would be a property tax, not an event tax. Real estate is taxed that way. In Texas, if you own a piece of property on January 1st, you are taxed on the value of that property effective January 1st of each year, over and over, even though no "event" (no change in ownership) has occurred since the previous January 1st.

By contrast, if you are taxed on the income event that resulted from your receipt of that dollar bill, that income event occurs only once, and you are not taxed OVER and OVER on that same dollar bill each year (at least not under the Federal income tax law). It's the receipt of the money that's taxed, not the continuing ownership of the money. When you receive something, an event has occurred.

No, Bob, I am not "intent upon using our language to pervert the intentions of the framers of our Constitution." I am just explaining the law to you. Believe me, I am neither a member of Congress writing the statutes, nor an IRS agent enforcing them, nor a Federal judge interpreting them. I don't make the laws.

And no, neither you nor I can find the definitions you want in the Code sections you cited. The Code sections you cited are part of the Internal Revenue Code, but they have nothing to do with Federal income tax. You are reading the wrong Code sections (or else you are simpling copying tax protester garbage you read somewhere). Look at the Chapter headings of the Code sections you cited. (Look in the table of contents for the Code, if you have one.)

You are actually CORRECT when you say that Congress cannot constitutionally impose a tax directly upon the property or people except by imposing that tax by the rule of apportionment -- if you leave out the words "upon the states." ("Upon the states" is irrelevant.) You then contradict yourself by saying that "[i]n other words, Congress cannot tax people or their property directly, period." That is incorrect.

The Constitution specifically allows Congress to tax both the people and property -- as long as the apportionment rule is followed. Taxes on people are called "capitations" and taxes on property are "property taxes on property by reason of ownership." An income tax is NEITHER A PEOPLE TAX NOR A PROPERTY TAX.

As used in the Constitution, the term "direct tax" refers to capitations and property taxes. The fact that the tax liability is imposed "directly" on some person or another does not make the tax a "direct tax" as that term is used in Article I. To say that an income tax is a direct tax (in the legal sense) merely because a person is directly liable for it, etc., is to engage in a fallacy called "whole word equivocation." We studied this fallacy in law school.

An income tax is neither a capitation nor a property tax. And after income taxes on interest, dividends and rents (not compensation for personal services) were TREATED as direct taxes in the Pollock case, the people of this country, through their state legislatures, ratified the Sixteenth Amendment, which removed any apportionment requirement that had been imposed by Pollock.

In the sense in which you are using the word "direct" (which is different from the legal sense used in the Constitution as I explained above), Congress can indeed tax people "directly" -- by taxing their income. Nothing in Article I says otherwise.

I understand that you strongly feel that the courts are committing "crimes against the people." Bob, I am not saying that any of this is fair, or that I like it. I am not trying to argue with you about what is fair. I am just explaining to you what the Constitution says and what the Federal courts have ruled. The courts don't agree with your analysis; they never have, and they never will. Don't take it personally. Yours, Famspear 20:39, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Famspear:

You seem to imply something like "Black isn't black just because I say so." I don't buy such specious reasoning and your fraudulent assertions. Yes, you echo some court sentiments, but you also slam me with a lot of your own unjustified opinions, leading me to question your loyalty to the IRS and its bilking of the people as the predominate motive in your writings here.

You have implied or asserted repeatedly over the past months that the Congress may rightly tax people and their property directly simply by trying to change the meaning of the words direct and indirect, and playing word games with the meanings of property, income, and the like.

You don't seem able to come to grips with the evil that has your soul tightly in its fist, and your arrogance prevents you from receiving instruction in any area you believe yourself expert. I believe your expertise lies in the area of encouraging people to pay taxes they don't owe, and finding tricks to reduce but not eliminate those taxes. So you don't have expertise in actually defending people against unconstitutional taxation. For that reason you have grown arrogant and self-indulgent with your learning, using it to bolster your dead-wrong opinions that people ought to accept the rulings of corrupt judges and justices who have a vested interest in making people into virtual slaves.

Without going into this in any detail, I encourage you to investigate the claims about the bankruptcy of the USA, and then maybe you'll understand better why the Supreme Court and other Federal Courts will never change their position on the income tax until a violent rebellion forces them too. But you should already know from the diversity of opinions that judges often disagree with one another as to the meaning and intent of the Constitution and Congress. So you should also know they have unreliable opinions that should not, and ultimately MUST NOT comprise the law of the land as it they now seem to.

You refer to their rulings incessantly, but you seem to forget the importance of the written law enacted by Congress, as convoluted and confusing as it often seems.

I have read diverse rulings regarding the necessity, for example, that the IRS sign all required documents under penalties of perjury. Some seemed to imply it unnecessary or inapplicable to some area of taxation. But when you look at IRC 6065 and 7806, you see with crystal clarity the legislature's intent. And when you look at the disputes among judges regarding the APA, you find that many of them say it does not apply to the very 1040 forms for which Congress primarily intended it. In fact, IRS recalcitrance and violation of the law annoyed Congress to such an extent from the time of the first APA in 1980 that Congress clarified its language in the 1995 APA. And yet federal judges still spurn the clear meaning of the APA and refuse to impose its requirements upon the IRS.

What are those if not conspiracy to rob the people, Famspear?

So you can understand why I assert my views as I do. I do not mind that you attempt to educate me, for I admit that I have only studied income tax matters for a few years, and I have not attended seminars on it as you probably have. But, I am guaranteed not to suffer the spoonfeeding you have that has turned you into a government agent, a shill for the IRS, and a supporter of their and the courts' high crimes and robbery of the people. And so, I do not gladly accept your efforts to educate me or set the record straight for the readers of Wikipedia pages because I consider you hopelessly ensnared in the crimes of the IRS and associated supporting judges and DOJ attorneys. You, for all your pretense to the contrary, are one of them, Famspear. You are the enemy of the people because you write like one, express yourself like one, and you never let up, almost as though Wikipedia is your full-time job and you do nothing else in life but poison its pages regarding income tax.

What a shameful waste of a good intellect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BobHurt (talk • contribs) on 25 August 2007

Well, I'm sorry you feel that way, Bob. In my posts I'm responding to your questions. You have been asking me questions on these talk pages off and on since the spring of 2006. Ask yourself: Why do you keep asking me tax questions? Sometimes I answer your questions. Other times I don't. When I don't answer your questions or comments, you attack me for that, as you did the other day when I did not answer your question about whether there is a Federal common law of crimes. When I do respond, as I did today, you say you do not gladly accept my "efforts" to educate you because you consider me "hopelessly ensnared in the crimes of the IRS and associated supporting judges and DOJ attorneys." Ask yourself why you are saying these things. Famspear 20:50, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why? Because you say so? What makes you the expert?

A bit of insanity seems to creep upon you when anybody challenges your cherished beliefs, doesn't it? An income tax is an excise. An excise is an activity tax. It taxes an income stream that comes from engaging in a taxable activity. Aside from the income tax on the privilege of working for the US Government detailed in Subtitle A (the "tax return" of government money back to the government, imposed upon the privilege of working in a cushy government job), Look at these activities upon which Congress imposes taxes:

26 U.S.C. §§ 4001, 4003, 4041, 4042, 4051, 4064, 4071, 4081, 4091, 4121, 4131, 4161, 4181, 4251, 4261, 4271, 4371, 4461, 4481, 4611, 4661, 4671, 4681, 4682, 4701, 4911, 4912, 4940, 4941, 4942, 4943, 4944, 4945, 4948, 4951, 4952, 4953, 4955, 4958, 4971, 4972, 4974, 4975, 4976, 4977, 4978, 4979, 4979A, 4980, 4980B, 4980C, 4980D, 4980E, 4981, 4982, 4999, 5000, 5001, 5041, 5051, 5701, and 5881.

Every one of those constitutes a taxable activity, contrary to your sophomoric assertion above.

I don't understand why you, a professional lawyer who sells legal services, cannot grasp the fact that the Constitution lets Congress impose direct taxes upon the states, but not upon the people. These words from the Constitution say precisely that:

...direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers. No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken. 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.

"No capitatiton or direct" and "apportioned among the several states" means Congress cannot collect personal-existence tax from the people. Congress does not crightly ollect excises from consumers (the people) - it collects it from people engaged in taxable activities. The entity doing the taxable activity pays the tax, then includes it in the price of the product. That makes it an excise - in effect, the government excises the tax from the stream of revenue paid by the consumer, but collects it from the producer, not the consumer. Thus, it constitutes an indirect (not a direct) tax.

The income is not an activity. It is a person's property. Since the foregoing provisions of the constitution put the income tax in the category of an excise, Congress may not collect the tax directly from the people.

Try to get this point, Famspear: our nation's founders 100% prohibited the direct collection of taxes by the federal government from the people because they hated that very practice by King George III. So they devised very practical ways for Congress to collect all the taxes it needed INDIRECTLY. It set the rule that Congress must apportion any direct taxes among the states ("State" does not mean "people"; it means "state government," and in this case that means "state legislature."). It did so by declaring that Congress apportions direct taxes among the state, and by putting income tax in the indirect category. The definition of "excise" meant then as it does now a tax on the producer, not the consumer, which the producer passes on to the consumer in the price of the product. And the Supreme Court has ruled that income tax is an excise.

The point: CONGRESS MAY NOT COLLECT TAX MONEY, WHETHER DIRECT OR INDIRECT, DIRECTLY FROM THE PEOPLE. It must collect direct taxes from the state legislatures and it must collect excises from the producers engaged in taxable activities.

Our present, scurrilous legislators allow the people to languish under an oppressive income tax scheme which (as I have shown) does not comply with the original intent of Congress, and it allows the Executive branch to send the IRS illegally into the states to steal people's property under color of law. They do not obey the Constitution's mandates regarding tax. Most of our legislators grew up under the indoctrination that everybody who works owes an income tax. Those who believe that do not belong in government. The belief constitutes a sad and terrible testament to the ignorance of the people in general, and the legislators in particular. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BobHurt (talk • contribs) on 26 August 2007.

Dear Bob. In answer to your questions "Why? Because you say so? What makes you the expert?" -- I am telling you what the courts have ruled. The law is not the law merely because some lawyer "says so." By contrast, you have repeatedly rejected the rulings of the court cases I have cited. Go back and read your own comments on this talk page ("BobHurt") and on your other talk page ("Bobhurt").

Again, I am not "insane" -- at least not yet. And this discussion is not about my "cherished beliefs." This is a discussion about income tax law. If anyone raising "cherished beliefs," it is you Bob, raising your own beliefs. Look at your rhetoric. Look at the way you write (example):

Our present, scurrilous legislators allow the people to languish under an oppressive income tax scheme [ . . . ] and it allows the Executive branch to send the IRS illegally into the states to steal people's property under color of law.

What is your authority, Bob? Your "authority" is nothing more than your own personal belief. You are simply putting forth your own interpretations -- interpretations that the courts have rejected in cases where both sides had the opportunity to present their cases.

Which interpretations of the law do the people of the United States follow? My personal interpretations, or Bob Hurt's personal interpretations, or the interpretations of courts of law? The people follow the interpretations found in rulings by courts of law, Bob.

I am not saying that you don't have a right to be angry; I am just telling you that the law is what the courts have ruled the law is, not what Bob Hurt argues the law is. That does not make me "insane." That does not mean I'm biased in favor of "the government" or whatever it is you believe about me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Famspear (talk • contribs) 16:08, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

Dear Bob: By the way, regarding your comments here: "Geographic uniformity means what it says. Don't like it? Change the Constitution" -- uh, Bob, I'm just telling you what the courts have ruled on what "geographic uniformity" means. You're the one that's disagreeing with the courts, not me. I like what it means. You're the one arguing for the concept of intrinsic uniformity -- which the Supreme Court rejected long ago. If you don't like what "geographic uniformity" means as interpreted by the courts, then you certainly are free ti write to your Congressman and you can try to get a constitutional amendment ratified by 38 states to change the meaning. Good luck. Personally, I'm perfectly happy with the status quo on this one. Yours, Famspear 16:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bob Responds Further, Explaining why Income Tax has become Obsolete

Famspear, I have suggested that we take this conversation private, but you have not given me your contact info or tried to contact me privately. I don't hide. http://bobhurt.com. If you want to discuss privately, let's do.

You think income an event. I consider it property. You think wages constitute an increase. I believe an exchange of labor or intellectual service for money does not constitute income because no increase occurred. You believe it okay for Congress to snatch taxes directly from the people. I have proven that the Constitution prohibits direct collection of taxes. You apparently think subtitle A of the IRC applies to everybody earning a paycheck. I think it applies only to federal government employees. I have shown you an evolution of law that justifies interpretation of modern IRC in accord with the meanings of taxable activity and income and direct/indirect tax and excise that I asserted. You cannot accept it, but show no proof why. You allege supreme Court rulings have meanings different from what I and many other reasonably well-educated students ascribe to them. I have explained the history related to direct collection of taxes from the people, and you know such collection always became abusive, just as it has become in modern times. You seem to ignore it. I ask you if a Federal common law of crimes exists, and you turn respond with wise cracks because, I believe, you can't face the truth your answer will lead to.

Sometimes genuine pursuits of truth become contentious, and ad hominems mar interactions. You accuse me of pandering nonsense, I accuse you of functioning as an IRS or DOJ shill. But you and I both know that the truth can withstand honest investigation, and you must intuitively know that the a proposition contains an amount of truth inversely proportional to the argument needed to support it. I look to the Constitution's clear language for a guide. You don't seem to care about that, preferring instead to suck up to non-unanimous court rulings by justices prejudiced by education and custom in favor of abusive direct taxes on property (incomes).

I appreciate sincerity in pursuing the truth. Frankly I don't think you interested in the truth when it might conflict with your existing IRS-aligned points of view. I simply do not trust you to cast the issue of income tax in a right light, in spite of your assertions of sincerity. You present a biased view of the whole affair. You seek to prejudice the ignorant and inquiring public against those who disagree with present implementation of direct taxation of people and property that the constitution prohibits. For those reasons, I disagree with Wikipedia's tolerance of you as apparently the sole editor of the income tax pages.

Regarding your comment about my questions, remember that I did not start our relationship by asking questions. I inserted material in the Wikipedia income tax page, and you removed it, then explained why. I argued against your position, but asked few questions other than rhetorical. The one main question I did ask, you refused to answer.

Till we managed to clear the air a little better, I moved the discussion to my personal user Wikipedia page. Maybe you could agree to put the tenets upon which we disagree on the main US income tax page without bias, and let the public decide whom they believe. That way at least you wouldn't be spoon-feeding the opinions of the IRS or our corrupt courts and DOJ to the public as though it constituted God's truth.

I believe you have wrongly removed information that ought to showcase on the main income tax page WITHOUT referring to opposing views as "tax protester" views. I don't protest taxes. I protest abusive and illegal taxation such as we suffer in America today at every level. And I protest the basis for such abuse.

Modern Federal Reserve Note-based money has a shifting value because of runaway spending, and because of introduction of the Euro and acceptance by OPEC countries of the Euro as payment for oil. Both cause a ferocious collapse of the dollar value. Congress has failed utterly to correct the problem. It could and should impose a new kind of precious minerals standard to stabilize the dollar, even if it had to nationalize certain precious mineral sources to do it.
The inflation consequent upon such mismanagement of our money has completely destroyed savings and incentives to save. It has also contributed to the decline of the American family by forcing both parents to work in order to maintain a decent standard of living, and that has caused a decline in the growth rate of the percentage of the population with average and high IQ (the real producers in America). Because personal "rainy day and retirement" reserves have fallen to such abysmal lows, people have become more dependent upon government, placing a bigger demand on public infrastructures.
The above-mentioned inflation, a realistic level of 6% to 10% a year normally, but significantly higher since the turn of the century, constitutes a serious, pernicious back-end tax on people's incomes, an unconscionable tax to which the people did not agree. In effect it taxes savings and property in a way the the government could never get away with in any up-front scheme of direct taxation. In my opinion, that de facto inflation tax has outmoded all other forms of income tax.

Because of the illegal natures of that back-end tax and our "legal tender," inflation has made income tax obsolete.

--BobHurt 17:05, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bob, I am not trying to "hide." I am right here. I am here to edit Wikipedia, not to prove to you that you are wrong. Yes, I do answer some of your questions. Yes, I do not answer other questions. The rest of us are not here to prove to your satisfaction that you are wrong. Neither I nor any other editor in Wikipedia is under a legal duty or a moral duty to contact you at your own private email address. And you are under no legal or moral duty to come here and ask me questions about Federal tax law, even though you do so on an intermittent basis, sometimes leaving for months at a time and then returning with another question or with more personal attacks, or both. I usually to answer your questions. Recently, you asked me a question about Federal common law of crimes, and when I asked the reason for your question you clammed up and kept repeating the question. Ask yourself why you did that, Bob. The rest of us don't care.

I have never said that I "believe it okay for Congress to snatch taxes directly from the people." For me, this discussion is about the legality of the Federal income tax, not about whether the tax is OK or fair. For you, perhaps the discussion is one of fairness, but you are using your strong feelings about the fairness or unfairness of things to affect your belief system about legal validity. Legal validity and fairness are separate concepts.

I have not engaged in a personal attack on you. You, on the other hand, have repeatedly used the term "coward" to describe me and others. The record of our interplay here in Wikipedia is here for all to read.

I appreciate that you have strong views negative views about Federal income taxes, about employees of the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice, about Federal judges ("our corrupt courts", as you put it), about the Federal Reserve notes, and so on.

I obviously am not the "sole editor" of the income tax pages here in Wikipedia. Each article related to income taxes has an edit history. I edit heavily in this area; other editors make contributions as well. You are free to review the edit histories.

Your beliefs about how the Federal income tax laws work are completely at odds with what the courts have ruled. That's not merely my personal opinion. This has nothing to do with "the IRS" or with somebody being an "IRS shill." The IRS does not write the law, and the IRS is not a court. The IRS does not make the final determination of what the law is, and neither do you or I. The Congress enacts the statutes, and the courts interpret the statutes. You can wage personal attacks on me from now 'til doomsday, but your personal attacks will change nothing on that point.

The "obsolete" Federal income tax, as you call it, was the law yesterday, it is the law, it will be the law tomorrow, and the law will continue to be enforced by the IRS and the Department of Justice. I have no say in that matter, and there is little or nothing I can do about it. If you like, write your congressman. Yours, Famspear 18:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

More commentary

[excerpt from something Famspear wrote, on 18 July 2006:]

Regarding 26 U.S.C. section 7402 (section 7402 of the Internal Revenue Code), which you cited: Do you even know what section 7402 is about? If you did know, you might realize that there would normally be no regulations for "IRS enforcement provisions" under section 7402! And do you know why? If you don't know why, you might want to go look up section 7402 and figure out for yourself. The answer should be obvious to a lawyer who reads section 7402 (wouldn’t have to be a tax lawyer). Ask yourself: Why are there no "IRS enforcement" regulations under that section, hmmmmm? I am not going to spoon feed you on this one. (Actually, I’m saving you a little humiliation by not printing the answer right here.)

[Bob Hurt responds on 20 August 2007:]

Famspear, I don't feel at all humiliated by your efforts to correct my misunderstandings. I have not made a profession of income tax the way you have, I don't have affordable access to a lot of case law, and I have not studied all the case cites in detail. Please feel free to correct me. I appreciate it. However, also realize that I hold you to a very high standard of honesty and integrity, and an even higher standard of correctly explaining law. --BobHurt 23:40, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

[excerpt from something Famspear wrote, on 18 July 2006:]

However, there was a passing reference to the Internal Revenue Service in the Chrysler case in a footnote -- and it’s interesting. That’s because the Chrysler case is sometimes falsely cited by tax protesters for the ridiculous, totally laughable proposition that the Internal Revenue Service is not a government agency (or bureau) within the U.S. Department of the Treasury! Some protesters even claim the IRS is a Puerto Rican collection agency! Unfortunately, tax protesters pass this information around among themselves, but few if any apparently read the actual text of the Chrysler decision. In this case the Court specifically referred to the "Act of July 1, 1862, ch. 119, 12 Stat. 432, the statute to which the present Internal Revenue Service can be traced" -- to use the Court's own words. Nowhere in the case did the Court rule that the IRS is not a government agency.

[Bob Hurt responds, on 27 August 2007:]

Famspear, the court did not rule on it, but the DOJ attorney herself denied that the IRS is an agency of the United States government. Do you assert that the DOJ attorney lied? I admit it would not constitute the first lie if she did, but DOJ attorneys do not typically tell that kind of lie when answering requests for admissions. The court showed something that resembled roots of the IRS, but it did not assert that Congress created or authorized the creation of the IRS. In fact, no act of Congress that I can find authorized the creation of the IRS OR authorized the existing IRS to operate an office outside Washington DC as required by 4 USC 72. The logical and obvious conclusion to which one must arrive when examining that crucial evidence: The IRS is not a proper agency of the United States Government. The evidence does not support any judicial assertion the contrary. If the IRS does validly function as an agency of the USG, then it operates offices inside the union states in violation of 4 USC 72.

--BobHurt 18:51, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Bob: I think what you're referring to was in another case, not the Chrysler case. There was a case where a Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney denied that the Internal Revenue Service was an "agency" of the government. I'll look and find the name of the case for you. However, I think that was on a sovereign immunity issue. The DOJ attorney was wrong. And second, the court in that case did not agree with the DOJ attorney. The court did not rule that the IRS was not a government "agency." I'll look it up and get back to you on this. I'm thinking it may not have been the Chrysler case, but I'll check.

The IRS is both a government "bureau" and a government "agency," and is part of the United States Department of the Treasury. I'll get you the citations on that as well. Yours, Famspear 19:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and the "4 USC 72 argument" is a tired, old argument, and has never worked either. Go back and read that provision. Tax protesters misread the statute as though it were worded as follows: "All government offices shall be exercised in the District of Columbia, and not elsewhere, except as otherwise expressly provided by law." That's not what the statute says. Here's the actual statute:

All offices attached to the seat of government shall be exercised in the District of Columbia, and not elsewhere, except as otherwise expressly provided by law.

This provision relates only to "offices attached to the seat of government," not to Federal government offices in general. An office in Topeka, Kansas or Lubbock, Texas obviously is not an office "attached to the seat of government." The "seat of government" is in the District of Columbia, not in Topeka, Kansas. There is no legal requirement in 4 USC 72 that Congress must authorize a government agency to operate an office outside Washington DC before that agency can validly do so. And there is nothing in 4 USC 72 that says that a government agency cannot operate "inside the union states." Read the law. Famspear 19:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Still more commentary

[Famspear wrote:]

You are falsely accusing other people of lying. The article is a statement of well-settled law. Please do not accuse other people of lying merely because you disagree with what they write or because you believe they are incorrect. It is even more infantile to do so when (as far as I can tell) you, BobHurt, do not claim to have any formal training in law or accounting. The vast majority of the cases you have cited are cases that are cited over and over by tax protesters on the internet – and many of the arguments made by tax protesters about theses case have already been discredited right here in Wikipedia! None of the courts in these cases ruled what the tax protesters falsely imply that the courts ruled. The tax protesters are simply cutting quotes out of the cases and then falsely claiming that the quotes mean something other than what the courts ruled.

[Bob Hurt wrote:]

Famspear, I have falsely accused nobody of lying. But I have accused you of lying, and I do so again. You know the Constitution requires Congress apportionment of direct taxes among the states. In effect, Congress cannot directly tax the people at all. It can merely decide upon a tax for each person to pay, and then go levy the tax proportionately upon the states. The states have no requirement to collect those taxes from the people. The people could empower the state government to operate a lottery, gambling casinos, or scheme to import cheap labor from Mexico to work in factories that compete against the businesses of other states, or many other kinds of businesso raising the money to pay that tax. Therefore, the Congress CANNOT DIRECTLY TAX PEOPLE. You lie when you assert otherwise, and you have done so repeatedly and voluminously. Your statements seem couched to deceive people into thinking it okay for the IRS to come and steal their bank accounts, wages, cars, boats, houses, and real estate to pay taxes they cannot possibly owe. And you know they cannot possibly owe such taxes because they constitute DIRECT (not indirect) taxes in most cases.

Some people rightly believe 26 USC Subtitle A imposes an indirect tax upon the wages of federal government employees because working for that government is indeed a privileged activity, and the government has entitlement to a kickback (tax "return" of part of the income) for that privilege. I guess Congress did not consider that an occupation of common right. But that subtitle cannot apply to plumbers, electricians, doctors, lawyers, or retirees, for none of them are engaged in a taxable activity, except those employed by the Federal Government.

Taxable activities traditionally consist of activities intrinsically harmful to the nation or its people, such as the importation or manufacture of alcohol, tobacco, or firearms. You can corroborate this by reviewing the list of activities upon which Congress has imposed an income tax.

--BobHurt 22:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

[Famspear wrote:]

Worse, in some cases Wikipedia editors have caught tax protesters falsifying quotes or even falsely claiming that a court ruled one way when the court actually ruled the opposite.

You have to understand that much of the ACTUAL TEXTS of the material cited by tax protesters is easily available to a lot of people who don’t have a “tax protester” axe to grind. Protesters who don’t do their homework or (worse) deliberately falsify things long enough are eventually going to get caught. Therefore, when you copy and paste from tax protester web sites, you yourself can get caught up and embarrassed, even though you did not personally intend to deceive.

[Bob Hurt wrote:]

Most so-called tax protesters, even those who post false information, have no interest in falsifying quotes or anything else. They simply do not have the talent, or resources, or time to dig for that information. You probably would not dig for it either if you did not specialize in tax law.

--BobHurt 22:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

[Famspear wrote:]

You say:

I don't know or care who wrote the article, but I intend to see it corrected so as accurately to reflect the truth. The neutral point of view must not include siding with the government or the IRS. QUITE OFTEN, the government is DEAD wrong. By that I refer to judges, U.S. Attorneys, legislators, and agents of the executive branch, individually and collectively. The Neutral Point of View demands that Wikipedia present those areas of wrongness evidentially, for they have every bit as much validity as the government view.

Well, the article is not necessarily presenting the "government’s" position about what the law is – although I can tell you the government’s position is certainly in consonance with the article. Look, tax lawyers who represent the Internal Revenue Service and tax lawyers who represent taxpayers AGAINST the Internal Revenue Service take contrary positions on lots of issues. Sometimes the IRS wins. Other times the taxpayer wins.

No honest and competent tax lawyer representing a taxpayer, however, is going to take the ridiculous positions or argue the silly arguments put forth by tax protesters. Know why? Not only are tax protester arguments legally incorrect, they’re WORSE: the arguments are LOSERS. Tax protester arguments are, by definition, by and large legally frivolous. That usually means that not only have the arguments lost in court, but they have lost in court OVER AND OVER AND OVER. Do you have any idea how many times tax protesters have lost on the arguments using the cases you cited above?

[Bob Hurt wrote]

You have merely illustrated the cause of attorney cowardice. True, arguments of alleged tax protesters lose in court. Many lose not because of an invalid nature, but because of faulty procedure, government ringers in the jury, corrupt judges, and profoundly corrupt, iniquitous DOJ attorneys and IRS agents.

You private attorneys should start filing criminal complaints against Judges and DOJ Attorneys and IRS agents for civil rights violations (18 USC 241 and 242), and for fraud, extortion, and racketeering. Instead, you kowtow to the judges, let them, the DOJ, and IRS get away with their crimes, and let the client go to the hell of federal prison. You actually play along with them rather than stand up against them.

If we had just one generations of private attorneys that lived up to their zeal and ambitions when in law school, we would not have so many criminals in government.

Seek not to find for whom the bell tolls, Famspear. It tolls for thee.

--BobHurt 22:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

[Famspear wrote:]

Next, I’m sorry but neutral point of view does NOT demand that Wikipedia "present those areas of wrongness" evidentially, as you put it. Neutral point of view does mean presenting competing but meaningful alternative viewpoints without taking a Wikipedia position as to whether any one viewpoint is correct. However, under the rules Wikipedia is NOT required to give EQUAL weight to minority viewpoints. Please read the rules.

[Bob Hurt wrote:]

When you admitted that the Wikipedia article on income tax supports the government view, you admitted it does not express neutrality. You thereby admitted the article operates as a lie. I believe you do it intentionally to deceive the reader. What other motive could you possibly have?

--BobHurt 22:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

[Famspear wrote:]

Also, the tax protesters’ view cannot possibly have every bit as much validity as the government view. The government says the Federal income tax law is valid and is being properly applied. Tax protesters say the Federal income tax law is either invalid or is not being properly applied. One side is correct and the other side is incorrect. One argument is valid and the other is not. One side WINS IN COURT EVERY TIME and the other side LOSES IN COURT EVERY TIME. You are quite wrong.

[Bob Hurt wrote:]

You have written falsely above. What makes YOU qualified to claim the tax protester's view relatively invalid? income tax law can be both invalid (owing to its obfuscatory nature - not even the judges in the appeals courts can agree on whether income tax is direct or indirect) and to its improper application (the IRS fails in multiple areas to function lawfully, and its agents routinely lie, and they routinely falsify, alter, and destroy records that prove their crimes).

And let us not forget about the criminal behavior of DOJ attorneys and IRS agents in court cases - they fail repeatedly and typically to present any evidence of the specific law that makes people liable for or subject to an income tax for revenue purposes (based on their activities of course), they violate the rules of evidence with the judge's assistance right from the beginning, they fail to prove in personam and subject matter jurisdiction (remember the Federal Zone limit of Congress' authority also limits the courts, and remember that no proper IRS districts exist, and Congress never authorized IRS offices to operate inside the states as required by 4 USC 72), and federal judges don't live inside their districts, which means inside the federal zone territory of the counties from which the district derives, and the people harassed by the IRS don't live in federal zone territory, generally).

No, you don't want to argue the above issues because the obvious conclusions paint a government corruption picture of mindboggling evil and size. And you work right in the thick of it, helping, in effect, people to learn how to compliment the king on his nice clothing while folks like me clamor about the king's nakedness.

--BobHurt 22:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bob Hurt on Brushaber

Brushaber wanted the Supreme Court to overturn the income tax statute because he did not want the railroad company, in which he owned stock, to pay tax on its income, and thereby diminish his stock dividends. He offered a lot of constitutional challenges many of them alleging the 16th Amendment unconstitutional altogether. The Court smashed all the challenges to bits, affirming the lower court's ruling against Brushaber.

The Brushaber court rejected ([240 U.S. 1, 11]) the proposition that the 16th amendment conferred a new power of taxation, one by which Congress could impose a direct tax without obeying the rule of apportionment.

"The various propositions are so intermingled as to cause it to be difficult to classify them. We are of opinion, however, [240 U.S. 1, 11] that the confusion is not inherent, but rather arises from the conclusion that the 16th Amendment provides for a hitherto unknown power of taxation; that is, a power to levy an income tax which, although direct, should not be subject to the regulation of apportionment applicable to all other direct taxes. And the far-reaching effect of this erroneous assumption will be made clear by generalizing the many contentions advanced in argument to support it, as follows..."

"...the proposition and the contentions [240 U.S. 1, 12] under it, if acceded to, would cause one provision of the Constitution to destroy another; that is, they would result in bringing the provisions of the Amendment exempting a direct tax from apportionment into irreconcilable conflict with the general requirement that all direct taxes be apportioned."

"instead of simplifying the situation and making clear the limitations on the taxing power, which obviously the Amendment must have been intended to accomplish, would create radical and destructive changes in our constitutional system and multiply confusion."

Justice White went on to explain that the Pollack ruling had tossed out an income tax act that attempted to tax incomes directly.

"Concluding that the classification of direct was adopted for the purpose of rendering it impossible to burden by taxation accumulations of property, real or personal, except subject to the regulation of apportionment, it was held that the duty existed to fix what was a direct tax in the constitutional sense so as to accomplish this purpose contemplated by the Constitution. ( [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=157&invol=581 157 U.S. 581.) Coming to consider the validity of the tax from this point of view, while not questioning at all that in common understanding it was direct merely on income and only indirect on property, it was held that, considering the substance of things, it was direct on property in a constitutional sense, since to burden an income by a tax was, from the point of substance, to burden the property from which the income was derived, and thus accomplish the very thing which the provision as to apportionment of direct taxes was adopted to prevent."

Thus, the Brushaber court recognized the direct nature of the income tax on both property and income (a form of property, not an event). However, the court also recognized that Congress had the power to tax incomes from all kinds of sources, and it proclaimed that past courts had ruled that income taxes were indeed excises.

"Nothing could serve to make this clearer than to recall that in the Pollock Case, in so far as the law taxed incomes from other classes of property than real estate and invested personal property, that is, income from 'professions, trades, employments, or vocations' (158 U.S. 637 ), its validity was recognized; indeed, it was expressly declared that no dispute was made upon that subject, and attention was called to the fact that taxes on such income had been sustained as excise taxes in the past. Id. p. 635."

When I read such nonsense, I realize that the courts had corrupted our language well before Pollack. Without seeking for the very first instance of tax abuse by the courts I consider Pollack's and Brushaber's blithe countenance of that abuse addle-pated at best. They ruled that income taxes rightly, in their opinion, lay in the class of excises, when everybody else knew they had a direct tax nature. By "direct" I mean that the king or Congress sent its agents to people and demanded direct payment of the tax. The Constitution's framers intended to halt such abuse, and therefore they TWICE (not once, but TWICE) asserted that Congress must apportion direct taxes among the states by percentage of population.

So, what does our greedy Congress do? It forgets the lessons of history, follows the addle-pated asides of Justice White, changes the function of the word indirect to mean direct, and instead of rightly seeing income tax as a tax not upon income, but upon a taxable activity, then it sends its agents to collect the tax directly, in abject violation of the Constitution's principles. We have the Pollack and Brushaber courts, and the lunacy of precedent to thank for that crime against liberty and common sense.

Justice White then went on to explain why the Pollack court had ruled the income tax act unconstitutional: it had functioned unfairly by taxing investors less than laborors. Congress could not possibly have intended that, could it?

"The whole law was, however, declared unconstitutional on the ground that to permit it to thus operate would relieve real estate and invested personal property from taxation and 'would leave the burden of the tax to be borne by professions, trades, employments, or vacations; and in that way what was intended as a tax on capital would remain, in substance, a tax on occupations and labor' ( id. p. 637),-a result which, it was held, could not have been contemplated by Congress."

Justice White did not finish there. He reiterated the text of the Amendment and explained what it actually accomplished.

"...the whole purpose of the Amendment was to relieve all income taxes when imposed from apportionment from a consideration of the source whence the income was derived...[and] determining whether a tax on income was direct not by a consideration of the burden placed on the taxed income upon which it directly operated, but by taking into view the burden which resulted on the property from which the income was derived..." ("and" added to show conjunctive nature of context).

He clarified his position by saying the proposition about contentions mentioned above conflict with the amendment, so they cannot have validity.

"all the contentions which we have previously noticed concerning the assumed limitations to be implied from the language of the Amendment as to the nature and character of the income taxes which it authorizes find no support in the text and are in irreconcilable conflict with the very purpose which the Amendment was adopted to accomplish"

In other words, complainers did not understand the meaning of the the 16th Amendment. Instead, the Amendment forbade the removal of the income tax from the indirect to the direct class, and left it subject to the rule of uniformity along with other excises.

"... the command of the Amendment that all income taxes shall not be subject to apportionment by a consideration of the sources from which the taxed income may be derived [240 U.S. 1, 19] forbids the application to such taxes of the rule applied in the Pollock Case by which alone such taxes were removed from the great class of excises, duties, and imposts subject to the rule of uniformity, and were placed under the other or direct class."

Justice White made it clear that the 16th Amendment:

"was drawn with the object of maintaining the limitations of the Constitution and harmonizing their operation"

He then set about to explain the implementation of the 16th Amendment through the statute of which the plaintiff complained. The plaintiff did not like the retroactive effect of taxing only part of a year's income, but White declared that complaint invalid, saying Congress had to implement the taxation immediately upon the passing of the 16th Amendment into the Constitution. White wrote:

"...there can be no dispute that there was power by virtue of the Amendment during that period to levy the tax, without apportionment"

White cited a number of cases to support his view that the graduated income tax statute did not violate the rule of geographical uniformity required of the excise tax known as the income tax, it did not violate the 5th Amendment's due process protections, and it did not amount to a confiscation of property or arbitrary abuse of power. He supported the income tax by alleging precedents:

"...in the very early history of the government a progressive tax was imposed by Congress, and that such authority was exerted in some, if not all, of the various income taxes enacted prior to 1894 to which we have previously adverted..."

White refused to address the inherent wrongness of the statute or 16th Amendment, claiming those issue "beyond judicial cognizance." And, he seemed to poke fun at the plaintiff for implying that the court ought to overturn the income tax act because it was just plain bad law. And he ended the opinion by asserting that Congress had the right to delegate power of tax collection to the Secretary of Treasury.

In the end the Supreme Court's Brushaber ruling allowed Congress to impose a direct tax on the property (income) of the people by claiming that income tax is an excise even though applied against one's income, as though income functions as an activity or event rather than as one's property.

I contend that the income tax cannot possibly tax income because income is a kind of property. The 16th Amendment allows the taxation of incomes, but Congress can only constitutionally achieve such a tax by applying it against the taxable activity that produced the income, and using the income as a way of measuring the tax due. If it had any other meaning, the states would have required language in the Amendment that repealed the apportionment requirement for direct taxes. The Amendment repealed nothing.

I contend that every time Congress ever taxed income prior to 1916 it did so unconstitutionally because income tax is a direct tax upon the property of the people, and it always has operated as such because the tax collectors have always extracted it directly from the people, even though for convenience they have for nearly a century extracted it from employers.

The Supreme Court has an utterly corrupt nature to allow Congress to impose such an unconstitutional tax upon the people.

--BobHurt 00:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I petition you

Petition of Florida State Bar Assn., 40 So. 2d 902 (Fla. 1949) seemed to me to be a copy of a legal judgement. As such it is source material and should be published in Wikisource (if copyright permits). For Wikipedia, we write a short article about the petition, explaining its context and its significance. A simpler title of Petition of Florida State Bar Association, 1949 will probably be better. I have e-mailed you your text. -- RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 06:42, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your NPOV hate rant has been deleted. You and your JAIL4Judges friends like Nancy Jo Grant are suing the FL Supreme Court and are trying to to Florida Supreme Court page as a dumping ground, something you admit to in your own emails. http://groups.google.com/group/Lawmen/browse_thread/thread/2fba73af47606638 You've been blocked and banned before Bob. Behave. 91.193.130.16 (talk) 19:17, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Bob: For the record, this is what you apparently posted at the internet page referred to by the user at IP 91.193.130.16:

You can complaint [sic] against government (if you do it the right way) at Wikipedia. I have written lots of complaints at the US income tax discussion pages, and much of the content is still there. I just added a complaint against the judicial oligarchy formed by Florida Supreme Court's integration of the Florida Bar in 1949. See these pages:

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Florida_Supreme_Court (note the controversies topic)

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Talk:Florida_Supreme_Court

Truly and sincerely,

-- from posting by Bob Hurt at [1].

No, Bob. Wikipedia's discussion pages are not the proper place to air your complaints against the government. (Wikipedia article pages are not the proper places for such things either, for that matter.) And there is no "right way" to abuse Wikipedia for those purposes.

Wikipedia editors are well aware of your past efforts to use Wikipedia pages to push tax protester rhetoric in the form of your "complaints at the US income tax discussion pages," under the user names "BobHurt" and "Bobhurt." You have also posted some tax protester rhetoric in actual articles in the past as well.

Based on the above quoted material, Wikipedia editors might reasonably conclude that you are now trying to incite other internet users to come to Wikipedia and use Wikipedia discussion pages to post their complaints against the government, including perhaps complaints against what you call the "judicial oligarchy" in Florida.

I urge you again to read and adhere to the Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Famspear (talk) 21:02, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To my Detractors - I petition you for common sense

A statement of fact (such as the above petition to the Supreme Court of Florida by the Florida Bar Association) might and might not become complaint-worthy. But whether it justifies complaining has nothing to do with the factual nature of Wikipedia articles. SOME of you, like Famspear, seem to believe that my opinions expressed in discussion pages deserve denunciation and censure just because YOU disagree. And some of you may have economic, not truth, motives for such censure. For example, Famspear edits Wikipedia income tax articles to omit anything with which he personally disagrees, and why shouldn't he disagree? He earns his living as a tax attorney, so the IRS is his biggest economic friend, without which he'd have to find another legal practice. He claims that he does good for his clients against the IRS. In reality, he serves the IRS more than his clients, for he buys, lock, stock, and barrel, their arguments about the legitimacy of their efforts to pillage the wealth of America through wrongful and unlawful tax collections. Many thousands of Amercans disagree with Famspear and the IRS, as well as with America's crooked courts on the interpretation of the Constituion. Doesn't that justify some fair treatment of the points of disagreement?

Note that a complaint only remains a complaint until the complainer wins in a battle of some kind. Then the matter of right of the ex-complainer becomes history of the righteous prevailing against evil. And history has not become a fait accompli on the subject of income tax. I agree that people should not use wikipedia as a soap box for pet beliefs. But it should illuminate the truths in the sides of serious disputes like income tax and the judicial oligarchy that has reigned over Florida for the past 59 years. The FACTS DO MATTER to Wikipedia readers, and censors like Famspear do them a grave disservice by refusing to let the truths supported by those facts come to light.

I do acknowledge Famspear for attempting to show people their errors of belief regarding taxation, but I do not agree with some of his analyses of court cases, nor of the meaning of the 16th Amendment, and many others, apparently including numerous Supreme Court Justices, agree with me.

Now I cite a case in support of my assertion that a statement of fact that you can construe as destructive when in fact it constturcts, and therefore it deserves treatment on wikipedia. If you read my report on Loyalth Oaths in Florida you will see what looks like a complaint and recommendations as to how to obtain remedy. In the year 2000 or thereabout, some official in the first Jeb Bush administration removed the jurats form election related forms and replaced them with penalty of perjury statements. That set up everybody executing those forms to violate numerous laws:

4 USC 101 and 102 (loyalty oath laws derived from the very first Act of Congress, documented in 1 Stat 23)
Florida Statute 876.05-10 (candidate and public employee loyalty oath laws)
Florida Statutes 99.021 and 105.031 (candidate oath laws requiring loyaty oaths and other qualifications for candidates)
Florida Statute 876.10
Florida Statute 837.12 (false swearing, 1st degree misdemeanor perjury)
Florida Statute 839.18 (taking office before qualified, second degree misdemeanor),
Florida Statute 843.0855 (obstruction of justice by impersonating a public officer, 3rd degree felony)

For years, elected officials thought they complied with the law when they swore all those election-related oaths, but in reality they did not. I complained vociferously about this to Florida State Department attorneys, and they did their best to argue against me, claiming the officers had "de facto public officer" status. After about a year, the Division of Elections head Amy Tuck ordered all the election related forms on the state department web site modified to remove the POP statement and restore the jurat.

So, you see from my effort, NOW HISTORY, that my complaint had justification which the State Department officials heeded, and they implemented my recommended change.

That has not, however, corrected the problem that Florida now suffers governance by a bunch of unconvicted criminals, many of whom have graduated from law school, practiced law for several years, and practiced as judges for many years. Of all people who have zero excuse for not obeying the law, those bar members have the least.

The courts might convict anybody else who commits misdemeanors and a felony crime, innocent or otherwise, but in this case NO prosecutor in the state will file any criminal charge against any of the bar members, not even against Jeb Bush (the governor at that time) or Katherine (the secretary of state at that time) who perpetrated this massive fraud against the People of Florida. So the courts will let those criminals walk free while damaging the family finances of people who speed a little or fail to wear seat belts. Were the people injured by the missing jurats? Yes, judges scoff at the law daily in the conduct of court proceedings, routinely stomping on the constitutional rights of litigants, and any lawyer who seriously fights such abuses will surely get disbarred. Witness the case of Jack Thompson whom the Florida Bar and the Florida Supremes seem to want to toss out of the Bar. Why shouldn't judges scoff at the law when they don't get in trouble for violating state and federal laws regarding loyalty oaths?

Yes, I encourage people to write truthful articles on Wikipedia, for there facts of history get recorded. And I encourage all Wikipedia editors to show more impartiality when judging whether an article consists merely of a rant, or the expression of a different and unusual view of relevant and salient facts that readers ought to know.

I don't waste my life researching the law and its violations by criminals in government. Obviously some people in Florida government agree, for they have started changing their errors:

In June-July 2007 Amy Tuck of the state department restored the jurat to election related forms, including loyalty oath forms.
In October 2007 the Office of State Courts Administrator director of personnel Gary Phillips services caused the judges throughout the state to swear and get notarized brand new loyalty oaths.
In April 2008 Florida Chief Justice R. Fred Lewis agreed to have senior judges start swearing loyalty oaths at the beginning of their terms (which they had NEVER done before).

So you see, I have wrought good results from researching the law and practices of government, communicating statements of facts (sometimes lodged as complaints demanding corrections), my legal analyses, and my solution proposals to government. Some they reject as extreme, but some they act on intelligently and with good purpose as they should. And all this got done without lawsuits.

I therefore encourage you, my detractors, to start using common sense and allow the historical facts like those above to see the Wikipedia light of day. People need to know that our governments have in many ways disintegrated into oligarchies, and that they can activate to bring about improvements without resorting to talk about rebellion, revolution, and so on that occupies a lot of brain energy in the so-called "patriot" community.

I do appreciate the work of you sincere folks in helping me to understand how to write contributions to Wikipedia that will survive your editorial swords. I do not believe turning them into meaningless pabulum or lies constitutes the way to make Wikipedia a valuable and honest information resource.

In the meanwhile, I encourage you not to threaten to block me for posting valuable, salient, truthful, constructive content. For example, my tiny article on the the Florida Supreme Court making the judiciary into an oligarchy was 100% factual, backed by the actual pleading and ruling in the Supreme Court in 1949, and it has resulted in the members of the judiciary (bar members) invading every branch of government in violation of the separation of powers doctrine.

To see the hypocrisy of the Supremes in this issue of separation of powers, look at the Florida Supreme Court ruling of 1995 in Times Publishing Company v. Ake. There the St. Pete Times wanted access to court records under Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes, the Sunshine laws, supported by Article I Sections 23 and 24 of the Florida Constitution. The Supremes denied access, stating that Chapter 119 could not apply to judicial records without violating the very separation of powers doctrine which they had ignored in absorbing and integrating the Florida Bar as the "official arm" of the Supreme Court. The wrote their Rules of Judicial Administration to replace Florida Statues with respect to the Judiciary. Rule 2.420 deals with public records access. That rule and the Chief Judges of the 20 circuits conspire to deny access to the CourtSmart audio and video recordings of court proceedings at the whim of Chief Judges, and to charge outrageous fees for copies of public records. The other day the 6th circuit public information officer Ron Stuart charged me $15 to mail me the recently signed loyalty oaths for two judges, and neither needed redactions of exempt information. Public employees elsewhere in the state always have emailed or faxed such documents to me free of charge. Stuart invoked the Rule 2.420. Thus, the chief judges deny the People equal protection of the law. AS I said, Floridians live under a judicial oligarchy that has little respect for Constitutional rights.

I know you will not allow such an inflammatory statement in the main articles, but I wonder why not, when it is plainly, factually true, and the Supreme Court of Florida said as much when it claimed it does not have to obey laws enacted by the Legislature, or when it can pick and choose which laws to obey.

Florida's Constitution allows the Legislature to overrule Supreme Court rules by 2/3 supermajority. Now how much work will the People of Florida have to go through to make that happen when it is impossible reliably to obtain an audience with legislators?

BobHurt (talk) 20:25, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]