Talk:Tax protester constitutional arguments

"Not a tax case"

I'm seeing a lot of statements in this article like:

No issues of taxation were presented to or decided by the Court, and the word "tax" is not found in the text of the Court's decision.

While certainly interesting, I'm not sure that's sufficient refutation of most of these points. The quotes seem to usually be used because they define terms in ways that cast doubts on tax legality, not because those cases explicitly said that the taxes involved were illegal. IANAL, so maybe there's some legal principle that means that such definitions only apply to the area of law considered in the case (and if that's true, you may want to explicitly mention it), but to a layman it seems a little strange. —Brent Dax 06:07, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

That isn't strange at all, and it is really not all that different from ordinary conversation. If you tell your eight-year-old that he cannot stay up past ten, that is not a promise that you and your wife won't stay up past midnight. If the court tells an employer that he has no right to tell his employees how to spend their money, that has no relevance to whether the government has the power of taxation, or to a case of guardianship.

Congress routinely defines words like "person", "income" and "interstate commerce" differently in one law than in another. There are whole sections of the United States Code devoted to telling you what these meanings are in different places. This can be frustrating for us laymen who try to understand the law, because our intuition leads us astray. In most cases, the reason for this seemingly odd behavior is a good one: it makes the law simpler to write. It is easier to make plurals and possessives out of "income" than out of "corporate gross income after deduction of the costs of materials."

In many of the tax-protester materials, this fact about the law and how it is written and interpreted is ignored. When a judge is talking about a personal injury case, he will use definitions and principles that are relevant, and will not worry about ones that are not. Robert A.West (Talk) 19:34, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Dear Brent Dax: From a legal standpoint, one of the most devastating things you can do to a tax protester is to say, about a particular case cited by a tax protester, that the case was not even a tax case. Under the U.S. legal system, we follow the rule of Stare decisis. See also Precedent and Ratio decidendi, and compare Obiter dictum. It is nonsensical, from a legal standpoint, for a tax protester to cite a particular court decision for a particular argument when that court decision did not even involve the subject matter at hand. To correctly point out that a particular case cited by the protester does not even mention the word "tax" is, from a legal standpoint, a complete refutation of the protester argument. Tax protester arguments suffer from a whole lot of other problems, but this is definitely one of the basic ones.

Another very devastating thing you can do to a tax protester is point out that, where the protester cites a particular case for a particular proposition, the case in question actually is a tax case and the ruling contradicts the protester's argument (you apparently saw some examples in the article).

The quotes in the cases do not "cast doubts on tax legality" from a legal standpoint -- and in law the legal standpoint is the only "standpoint" that counts. Taxation is a legal subject, and can be properly analyzed only by using principles of legal analysis.

We already have links to some of the relevant Wikipedia articles on proper legal analysis (see the discussion of the Stanton case). I'll take a look at the article and see if we can improve it. Yours, Famspear 20:36, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, now I see where editor Robert A West has beat me to the punch in the article (see the section on Stanton). Yours, Famspear 20:38, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I would also like to make two other points. First, although the information presented certainly does refute tax protester arguments, my view is that refutation or persuasion is not the purpose of this Wikipedia article. Questions about the legal validity of tax protester arguments cannot be decided in Wikipedia anyway. Legal questions are decided ultimately -- and only -- in court. Instead, the Wikipedia reader is (hopefully) provided with verifiable information on tax protester arguments both pro and con, and (hopefully) that information is presented with a neutral point of view -- and the reader is left to make his or her own conclusion, if desired. The reason the material in the article refutes tax protester arguments is that tax protester arguments are legally invalid; a learned person who elucubrates the matter properly is drawn inevitably to this conclusion. Second: The points about certain cases not even mentioning the word "tax" are simply icing on the cake. As mentioned above, lots of cases cited by protesters actually are tax cases -- it's just that the constitutional, statutory, and regulatory texts never really are what the protesters would like them to be, and the courts never rule on those texts the way the protesters would want them to rule. Yours, Famspear 02:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Dear Brent Dax: Here is a quote from the begining of the article on Perl:

Perl is a dynamic programming language designed by Larry Wall and first released in 1987. Perl borrows features from a variety of other languages including C, shell scripting (sh), AWK, sed and Lisp.

Structurally, Perl is based on the brace-delimited block style of AWK and C, and was widely adopted for its strengths in string processing, and lack of the arbitrary limitations of many scripting languages at the time.

Good grief. What in the world is a "brace-delimited block style"? What is "string processing"? What is a "scripting language"? And how are the other mentioned languages (such as "AWK" and "C") used? Why is Perl described as a "dynamic" language? Is there a language that's not dynamic? What does dynamic mean in this particular context? I use computers every day and I have no idea what these terms really mean. After reading the introduction, I (as a layman) still have little if any concept of what "Perl" is (beyond the fact that it's a programming language). My eyes glaze over, and I figure it's useless to even finish reading the article, if there's this much undefined computer-related jargon just in the first few lines.

I'll bet there are technical definitions somewhere for all those terms. (In fairness I should point out that some of the technical terms are linked to related Wikipedia articles.) As Wikipedia is used by the general public, the Perl article probably should define these technical terms (if the definitions are found further down in the article, I don't even know, as "mine eyes" are still in too much of a deep state of "glaze" and I stopped reading). So, your point about explictly mentioning a bit of the underlying legal principles in the article on Tax protester constitutional arguments is well taken. Just as computer tekkies may occasionally forget that non-computer people aren't familiar with lots of computer terms, lawyers can forget or lose sight of the fact that non-lawyers cannot know the underlying legal principles. Thanks, Famspear 16:15, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Original research

I believe this article should have more secondary sources. Right now, it is nearly all primary. --Benn Newman 00:24, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Dear editor Benn Newman: Regarding your point about secondary sources, the article is the result of many months of attacks on Wikipedia by tax protesters who have been inserting original research, non-neutral POV, unverified statements in tax-related articles. A decision apparently was made to concentrate the tax protester arguments, which are by definition legally frivolous and held by a small minority of people, into an article on tax protesters. That article gradually became too large and unwieldy, and was broken up earlier this year in to what is now: Tax protester; Tax protester arguments; Tax protester history; Tax protester constitutional arguments; Tax protester statutory arguments; and Tax protester conspiracy arguments.

I note the following Wikipedia rule regarding original research (with some bolding added by me):

Although most articles should rely predominantly on secondary sources, there are rare occasions when they may rely entirely on primary sources (for example, current events or Braunfeld v. Brown). An article or section of an article that relies on primary source should (1) only make descriptive claims the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable adult without specialist knowledge, and (2) make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims. Contributors drawing on entirely primary sources should be careful to comply with both conditions.[1]

Thus, I would argue that the Wikipedia rules on original research expressly recognize the example of Primary authority (which, I argue, is roughly analogous to Wikipedia's "primary source" concept) -- in the example given, an article on a court decision (Braunfeld v. Brown')-- as a way of providing the main support for an article on legal matters. Of course, we are always looking for additional Secondary authority materials -- sources roughly analogous to the Wikipedia concept of "secondary sources."

Much of the tax protester material that has appeared in Wikipedia has been copied and pasted from personal web sites, blogs, and so on -- hardly qualifying as proper sourcing for purposes of Wikipedia. Much of these materials cite actual court cases (primary authority). The problem is that the tax protesters nearly always misrepresent what the courts actually rule in the cited cases and, in some instances, actually include false "quotations" from the material. It would be virtually impossible to find secondary authority or secondary sources to illuminate the truth about every false entry or quotation. A better source, in this particlar kind of situation, is the actual Primary authority that is being falsely cited by the tax protesters. Yours, Famspear 18:24, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I see what you are saying. But that doesn't mean that they (the tax protesters) weren't right, right? *grin* More seriously: Taking what the court says and saying it is the "truth" (which it may be) is still not a neutral point of view. See also Wikipedia:Describing points of view. I think we can represent what the tax protesters' points of view(s) is(/are) and the courts' views are. --Benn Newman 21:31, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Dear editor Benn Newman: Well, if Einstein's theory of relativity is a correct statement of how the laws of physics work, then it is "true" for that reason -- and not because Einstein and 99% of all present-day scientists contend it's true, or believe it's true, or say it's true.

Secular law (made made law) of the USA is a bit different. Under the rules of the U.S. legal system, the law literally is what courts rule that it is in an actual case or controversy. Some of the key concepts are Stare decisis and Ratio decidendi. Further, under our legal system, it is emphatically the province and duty of the courts to say what the law is, to paraphrase a famous Supreme Court case. To study the ontology of U.S. law, to understand what law really is, you study statutes, regs, treaties, and other sources as well -- but it's primarily a study of court decisions. Court decisions are where the rubber meets the road under our legal system.

I believe these articles do represent what the tax protesters' points of views are, and the courts' "views" as well. Further, the articles strive for neutral point of view, as they do not say "the courts are right" or "the protesters are right." There is a difference between saying "the court ruled in this case that the income tax was not unconstitutional, and this ruling contradicts the tax protester argument" (which is both verifiable and neutral) and saying "the court ruling in this case is correct." There is a nuance here. I don't think the articles say that "the courts are correct" (even though, by definition, the courts are correct).

The court's Ratio decidendi in any particular case must be determined using certain rules of legal analysis. The holding or holdings of each case can be broadly or narrowly stated, but under the rules of legal analysis there is simply no room for the tax protester argument (for example) that Merchants' Loan somehow stands for the legally frivolous idea that non-corporate income is not taxable as "income," as the Court in that case ruled that the income of a decedent's estate -- which is an example of non-corporate income -- IS taxable as income.

Any article on tax protester arguments that follows the Wikipedia rules (verifiability, neutral point of view, and no original research) will by definition leave most normally intelligent people with the correct impression that the tax protesters are incorrect -- because that is the actual state of the law. Tax protester arguments are a legal equivalent to the argument that the moon is made of green cheese. Wikipedia would do its readers a disservice if Wikipedia were to strain to try to provide equal weight to the tax protester argument. Indeed, by including tax protester arguments in Wikipedia, I would argue we are actually giving undue weight to them. Imagine Encyclopedia Brittanica giving substantial article space to the argument that the moon is made of green cheese -- comparing and contrasting scientific theories about the moon with the green cheese argument. Here you will have a good idea of the situation.

Please give us any suggestions you can on improving neutral POV, etc., on any of these related articles. Yours, Famspear 22:45, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the point on OR, since the article contains no claims not in the sources cited and makes no evaluative claims of its own. In a democracy, everyone is entitled to an equal opinion about what the law should be, but once the courts have spoken, that is the law. I am reminded of a story where a lawyer, arguing before the Supreme Court, was interrupted by the Chief Justice: "Young man, your argument is fascinating, but it is not the law." To this, the lawyer replied, "Well, it was until Your Honor spoke." Courts do change their minds, and higher courts overrule lower ones, but Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, and in any event there is no overruling the Supreme Court.

Famspear has replied convincingly to the OR point, and the rejoinder discussed NPOV, not NOR. Accordingly, I consider the OR claim dropped and have removed the tag. Robert A.West (Talk) 22:36, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Deletion of article text and replacement with material apparently copied from tax protester web site

On 16 November 2006, a new user called Bobbyppp deleted essentially the entire article and replaced it with material apparently copied almost verbatim from a page at the "We the People" tax protester web site at http://www.givemeliberty.org/RTPLawsuit/Update04-May-10.htm. Obviously, this violates copyright and numerous Wikipedia policies including Verifiability, Neutral Point of View, and No Original Research. Also, tax protester web sites are not suitable authoritative sources for "what the law is."

The material was also blatantly false, with phony descriptions of what the Supreme Court ruled in cases like Brushaber. For example, the following statement was included in the text dump: "However, in 1916, the Supreme Court brought the devilish action of Congress and the Executive branch to a screeching halt. The Supreme Court ruled in Brushaber (and the cases bundled with it), that wages are NOT income within the meaning of the 16th Amendment."

That statement is totally false.

The Court in Brushaber ruled that the Sixteenth Amendment removes the requirement that income taxes (whether considered to be direct taxes or indirect taxes) be apportioned among the states according to population. The Court also ruled that the Revenue Act of 1913, imposing unapportioned income taxes, is not unconstitutional. The Court further ruled that the Federal income tax statute does not violate the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against the government taking property without due process of law. The Court also ruled that the Federal income tax statute does not violate the uniformity clause of Article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. Neither in Brushaber nor in any other Federal court case has any Federal court ever ruled that "wages are NOT income within the meaning of the 16th Amendment."

Not only that, but the issue of whether wages are income was not even decided by the Court in Brushaber. That issue was not even presented to the Court in Brushaber. The terms "wage," "wages," "salary," and "salaries" do not even appear in the text of Brushaber. The material was twice reverted by Wikipedia editors. Yours, Famspear 12:52, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Copyright violation

I've deleted a set of bullet points from the section Arguments that the Sixteenth Amendment was never ratified (see my deletion here). Much of the text is a verbatim copy of arguments from the page http://www.givemeliberty.org/features/taxes/usatoday.htm and so is a copyright violation. It might be a good idea to include some of these claims in the article, but we need to describe them in our own words. — Mateo SA (talk | contribs) 19:38, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Still too long!

Geez, even this page is getting too long - any thoughts on a logical split? bd2412 T 05:57, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmmmm. This is just a preliminary idea, but maybe sections 11 and 12 (on the "labor" and "corporate profits" arguments) are similar enough to each other (and different enough from the rest of the "constitutional" material) that they could go in a separate article. I don't know. I gotta get to sleep, though. Maybe I can come up with an idea in my sleep. Catch you later! Yours, Famspear 06:21, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking that the arguments about the Sixteenth Amendment itself (whether it was ratified, whether it is effective, what it permits to be taxed) are distinct from the arguments stemming from other constitutional rights, and the Federal Zone argument. Whichever way it goes, we should aim for something that splits the material up fairly evenly, and is amenable to a reasonable title. bd2412 T 18:36, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I've reorganized this article into what I think are logical divisions:

1. Sixteenth Amendment ratification arguments
2. Sixteenth Amendment effectiveness arguments
3. Arguments using other constitutional amendments
4. Federal government authority arguments
5. Definition of "income" arguments
6. Taxing labor or income from labor

Maybe we could create a new series of article based on that structure. They might be as follows:

• Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments or Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment ratification arguments
• Tax protester arguments about the meaning of "income" or Tax protester arguments about the definition of "income"
• Tax protester arguments about taxing wages

I'm note sure if there's enough material in the Federal government authority and Arguments using other constitutional amendments to warrant separate articles. The article about the Sixteenth Amendment arguments could either focus on the ratification arguments or include both ratification and effectiveness arguments; again, I don't think the effectiveness argument section by itself is significant enough to warrant a separate article. Any thoughts? — Mateo SA (talk | contribs) 16:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

August 2006 decision in Murphy vacated

Because the August 2006 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in the Murphy case was vacated (rendered void) by the same court on 22 December 2006, I have removed the quotations from the opinion that had been used to support the now-voided judgment. Yours, Famspear 14:50, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Original research moved from article

The following text has been moved from the article to here, for discussion:

The Constitution Prohibits the Collection of a Direct Tax

This is the one argument which has constitutional traction. The Supreme Court has ruled on many occasions that the sixteenth Amendment did not alter the original taxing clauses of the Constitution. For example,

“The Sixteenth Amendment must be construed in connection with the taxing clauses of the original Constitution and the effect attributed to them before the amendment was adopted.”—Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189, 205 (1920)

Additionally,

“[B]y the previous ruling [Brushaber] it was settled that the provisions of the 16th Amendment conferred no new power of taxation, but simply prohibited the previous complete and plenary power of income taxation possessed by Congress from the beginning from being taken out of the category of indirect taxation to which it inherently belonged[.]”—Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co., 240 U.S. 103, 112 (1916)

Who took the power of Congress to tax “income” out of the indirect class? The Supreme Court, by its Pollock decision! The Sixteenth Amendment simply put it back. Stanton, supra, clearly shows that Article 1 has always restricted the definition of "income" to be only that on which an indirect tax can be laid and collected. Congress cannot define a direct tax as being an indirect tax just to enable it to pass constitutional muster. The class of a tax (direct or indirect) is not determined by now it is imposed but rather by its effect on the one who remits it to the government. If its burden can be shifted (as in a tax on manufacturing or on sales) the tax is indirect. If its burden cannot be shifted (as in a tax on property, including money), then that same tax is direct.

From these decisions and others one can determine that the “income” which Congress can tax is only that on which an indirect tax can be laid and collected. Since the main purpose of the Internal Revenue Code is to collect taxes within the States, any such tax imposed by the IRC, including the income tax, must be indirect to avoid conflict with Article 1. “The way they do it” is to bring the term “income” into the mix to create confusion. Regardless of its name, if a tax is indirect it is allowed by Article, and if it is direct it is prohibited by Article 1.

Stay tuned. Yours, Famspear 18:59, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, let's look at these arguments one by one. First of all, the statement that "The Constitution Prohibits the Collection of a Direct Tax" is both incorrect and, on its face, absurd. The Constitution specifically states: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises . . . . " Art. I, sec. 8, cl. 1. The only limitation on "Taxes" (i.e., direct taxes) was: "No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration . . . ." Art. I, sec. 9, cl. 4. As stated over and over again in the case law, all income taxes had been considered excises (not direct taxes) until the time of Pollock in 1895. In Pollock the Court ruled that a tax on income from one particular source -- namely property -- should, however, be treated as a tax on the property itself (a direct tax), and was therefore required to be apportioned. The Sixteenth Amendment, however, overruled Pollock by specifically stating that Congress has the power to tax incomes from whatever source without apportionment. The courts have always recognized that Congress had the power to tax incomes long before the Sixteenth Amendment -- indeed, that's why you see the language to the effect that the provisions of the 16th Amendment conferred no new power of taxation.

The statement "Article 1 has always restricted the definition of 'income' to be only that on which an indirect tax can be laid and collected" is from a legal standpoint nonsensical. Article 1 (Article I of the Constitution) does not define income and Article I places no restrictions on the definition of income. Indeed, the term "income" is not found in the taxing provisions of Article I.

The statement that "Congress cannot define a direct tax as being an indirect tax just to enable it to pass constitutional muster" is probably correct -- but misses the point. The Sixteenth Amendment means exactly what it says. The Amendment is not limited to income taxes that happen to be direct taxes or income taxes that happen to be indirect taxes. If it's a "tax on incomes," then it's covered by the language of the Sixteenth Amendment, and that means that Congress not only can impose that tax, but can impose that tax regardless of the source of the income without having to apportion the tax among the states according to population.

The statement that the "class of a tax (direct or indirect) is not determined by now [sic; should be "how"] it is imposed but rather by its effect on the one who remits it to the government" misses the point. The point is that the constitutional validity of an income tax has nothing to do with how it is imposed -- and the validity also has nothing to do with its effect on who remits it to the government. Nothing in the language of Article I or in the Sixteenth Amendment places these kinds of restrictions on the Congressional power to tax incomes.

The law does not care whether the burden of the income tax "can be shifted (as in a tax on manufacturing or on sales)." The law also does not care whether the income tax is considered direct or indirect. In other words, the source of the income (which was the key consideration in Pollock in deciding whether the income tax was direct or indirect) is legally irrelevant after the Sixteenth Amendment with respect to the apportionment rule. If it's an income tax, the apportionment restriction simply does not apply.

The statement: "Since the main purpose of the Internal Revenue Code is to collect taxes within the States, any such tax imposed by the IRC, including the income tax, must be indirect to avoid conflict with Article 1" is another nonsensical statement, from a legal standpoint. With respect to the apportionment rule, the law does not care whether a particular income tax "conflicts" with Article I. The Sixteenth Amendment means what it says.

The only remaining constitutional restriction on income taxes found in the text of the constitution itself would be the unformity requirement for indirect taxes (excises). Excises must be imposed with what the courts have ruled is geographical uniformity. That basically means that the Congress could not impose an income tax, for example, just on incomes of people living in New York and Montana.

There are other possible restrictions, but they relate more to what the definition of "income" should be for purposes of the Constitution. Also, there's a requirement that taxing measures (not just income tax measures) originate in the House of Representatives, and so on.

The text I have been discussing is objectionable because it is unverifiable and is original research (incorrect research at that). There is simply no Federal court decision where any court has ruled the arguments in the text to be legally valid. Citations to tax protester web sites are not reliable for purposes of Wikipedia. Yours, Famspear 20:02, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

Tax protester constitutional arguments → Tax protester constitutional arguments in the United States This article deals almost exclusively about this phenomenon in the United States. Please discuss at Talk:Tax protester#Requested move. —  AjaxSmack  06:28, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

"Explaination of Brushaber Ruling"

The Brushaber case was about the right of Congress to tax the income of Corporations.

Union Pacific Railroad was a Corporation ("person") that owned property. That property was used to produce "income" which was taxable. The 16th Amendment was brough about to address the fact the the U.S. Supreme Court in the Pollock case had classified a tax that was long thought to be indirect, as direct. It's main directive was to prevent other Courts from doing what the Court in the Pollock case did: reclassifying an income tax as direct, when it is actually indirect.

The 16th Amendment did NOT do away with the requirements for apportionment for a direct tax, thereby creating a new power to directly tax incomes without apportionment, as so many people falsely believe. In the Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co. case, the U.S. Supreme Court held that "But, aside from the obvious error of the proposition, intrinsically considered, it manifestly disregards the fact that by the previous ruling [Brushaber] it was settled that the provisions of the 16th Amendment CONFERRED NO NEW POWER OF TAXATION, but simply prohibited the previous complete and plenary power of income taxation possessed by Congress from the beginning from being taken out of the category of indirect taxation to which it inherently belonged, and being placed in the category of direct taxation subject to apportionment by a consideration of the sources from which the income was derived,-that is, by testing the tax not by what it was, a tax on income, but by a MISTAKEN THEORY deduced from the origin or source of the income taxed." [emphasis mine]

The 16th Amendment DID NOT give the Congress the power to directly tax income without Apportionment. This is evidenced by the fact that 1:2:3 and 1:9:4 of the U.S. Constitution are still intact, and have never been overturned by Amendment to the Constitution (c.f. "Prohibition" Amendment XVIII, and "Repeal of Prohibition" Amendment XXI of said Constitution). In order for the income of sovereign men and women to be taxed, there must be apportionment. IRS readily admits that incomes of individual people are not taxed according to apportionment requirements. Congress has NEVER had the power to levy a direct tax in disregard to the rule of apportionment, and they never will.

The Pollock ruling damaged Congress' ability to filch money from the people. In light of that fact, Congress created the Corporate Excise Tax Act of 1909. That Act taxed, via an excise -or "privilege"- tax, doing business as a corporation. The value of the privilege of doing business as a corporation was determined by the amount of income the corporation produced, minus deductions. By passing the Corporate Excise Tax Act of 1909, Congress now has effectively sidestepped the Pollock ruling, and once again is filching money from the people by deceiving them into believing they are required to file a 1040 income tax return form (which form, consequently, bears an OMB number which makes it the WRONG form for an individual man or woman to report income on). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 162.84.117.14 (talk • contribs) 12:58 17 January 2007 (UTC).

Dear anonymous user at IP 162.84.117.14: Your analysis is partly correct and partly incorrect. In Brushaber the U.S. Supreme Court ruled as follows:

1. The Sixteenth Amendment removes the requirement that income taxes (whether considered to be direct taxes or indirect taxes) be apportioned among the states according to population. The Revenue Act of 1913, imposing income taxes that are not apportioned among the states according to each state's population, is not unconstitutional.

2. The Federal income tax statute does not violate the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against the government taking property without due process of law.

3. The Federal income tax statute does not violate the uniformity clause of Article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.

Those are the issues that Frank Brushaber litigated. He lost on those issues. The Court ruled against him.

Your comment -- that the Sixteenth Amendment's directive was to prevent the reclassification of an income tax as direct, when it is actually indirect -- is basically correct.

The argument that the 16th Amendment did not do away with the requirements for apportionment for a direct tax, thereby creating a new power to directly tax incomes without apportionment is incorrect, and has been uniformly rejected by the courts. No Federal court has ever upheld this argument. Indeed, the courts have uniformly ruled that income taxes, whether considered direct or indirect, are not required to be apportioned. Not only that, but even before the Sixteenth Amendment the Congress had the power to tax incomes in the form of wages, salaries, etc., without any apportionment requirement. Even the Pollock court indicated that. All this has been covered in Wikipedia articles and talk pages.

Specifically, no Federal income tax has ever been apportioned, and yet every court since 1913 ruling on the the direct tax-indirect tax-apportionment issue has ruled that Federal income taxes on wages, salaries, interest, dividends, corporate profit, etc., etc., etc., are constitutional, even without apportionment. Some of the cases are cited in the article. The statement that the amendment did not give Congress the power to directly tax income without apportionment is incorrect.

The statement that the provisions of Article I are “still intact” is, in the sense you are intending, incorrect. The provisions of Article I have indeed been overturned (modified, partially repealed, etc.) by the Sixteenth Amendment, but of course only with respect to income taxes. Your reference to the 18th and 21st amendment is nothing more than a reference to the incorrect “the 16th amendment does not contain the word repeal” argument. That argument is totally incorrect from a legal standpoint. Indeed, I believe the 21st amendment is just about the only amendment that does contain the word “repealed.”

One of the repetitive tactics of tax protesters is to invent a non-existent rule of law in order to try to pretend that a real rule of law does not exist. Under U.S. law, there is simply no rule that says that a constitutional amendment must contain the words “repeal” or “repealed” to change (modify, amend, repeal, or partially repeal) something in the original seven articles of the Constitution. The United States follows the doctrine of implied repeal. This means that many constitutional amendments change (modify, amend, repeal, or partially repeal) something in the original seven articles, yet do not contain the words “repeal” or “repealed.” If your argument were correct, each state legislature would still be electing the members of the U.S. Senate from that state, and slavery would still be constitutional, and presidential inauguration day would be held in March instead of January, and presidents would still be able to serve an unlimited number of terms, etc., etc., etc.

Now let’s look at this statement:

By passing the Corporate Excise Tax Act of 1909, Congress now has effectively sidestepped the Pollock ruling, and once again is filching money from the people by deceiving them into believing they are required to file a 1040 income tax return form (which form, consequently, bears an OMB number which makes it the WRONG form for an individual man or woman to report income on).

I hope this does not come as too much of a shock, but the Corporation Excise Tax of 1909 has not been in effect for many years. Nothing in that Act, when it was in effect, had anything to do with taxation of individuals or filing a Form 1040. The Form 1040 filing requirement was brought in after the 1913 Act, not the 1909 Act. The 1913 Act was passed several months after the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment.

Your reference to “OMB” is a variation on the incorrect “OMB control number” argument. Some tax protesters argue that Form 1040 does not contain an OMB control number (even though it most certainly does), and that therefore – somehow – the filing of income tax returns and payment of income taxes is not required. That argument is incorrect.

By contrast, you are arguing that because Form 1040 DOES contain the OMB control number, that somehow that makes it “the WRONG form for an individual man or woman to report income on.” That argument is also incorrect.

The presence or absence of an OMB control number on a tax form has nothing to do with a person’s legal obligation to file a Federal income tax return or pay a Federal income tax. Those obligations are imposed by statute. No tax protester has ever won in court on these arguments. For background on OMB control number arguments, see Tax protester statutory arguments.

This highlights one of the problems for tax protesters. They can’t even agree among themselves. And the more they litigate these issues, the more the losses keep piling up. The more the losses keep piling up, the more precedent is set against them. Yours, Famspear 01:58, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Verbiage regarding section 6702 penalties

Regarding the following unsourced verbiage recently inserted in the article:

It should be noted a court cannot assess a penalty under 26USC6702. Only an administrative agency (Internal Revenue Service) can assess such a penalty because a violation of 26USC6702 is a Civil penalty and addresses a knowing or consenting filing of a return of tax by a person (nontaxpayer) with a duty to act on behalf of a tax shelter (taxpayer) that purports a violation of 26UCC6700 and 26USC6701 (See 26USC6703).

It is correct to say that the IRS, and not the court, "assesses" penalties, as the term "assessment" is used in the Code. Assessment of taxes, penalties and interest is an administrative function, not a judicial function. This has nothing really to do with the fact that a section 6702 violation is a civil penalty, etc. The verbiage seems to have very little to do with the discussion in the article. At any rate, where a taxpayer contests the assessment of a section 6702 penalty in court, the court decides whether or not the penalty will be upheld. The court does this by way of a judgment. That's a judicial function.

The verbiage regarding "nontaxpayer" and "taxpayer" is nonsensical, from a tax law standpoint. In short: Unsourced, tangential, partially incorrect verbiage. Yours, Famspear 16:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Dear fellow editors: I should also point out that the appeals court in the Lovell case (see the article) specifically stated that the taxpayers "appeal from a district court order granting summary judgment and assessing a $500 frivolous return penalty under 26 U. S. C. A. §6702(a)." In other words, the appeals court was saying that the district court "assessed" the penalty. However, in this case the appeals court was using the term "assess" in a more general, colloquial non-technical sense, and not with the formal statutory meaning in which the IRS, as an administrative agency, "assesses" a tax or penalty by recording it on the books of the U.S. Treasury. Nevertheless, I went ahead and changed the verbiage in the article from "assess" to "uphold." Lots of legal terms, like lots of other terms, have more than one meaning. Yours, Famspear 16:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Promoted to GA

Yes you meet the standards: well-written, accurate and verifiable, broad and not losing focus (ie. not wandering outside the scope of the title), neutral (not advocating taxdodging, not pro-government), stable - good collaboration on talk (and may a thousand flowers bloom, may a hundred schools of thought contend), THERE ARE NO IMAGES but lack thereof is not fatal to attaining GA. FA-status requires that style standards must be upheld, that the writing is compelling or brilliant, that the coverage is comprehensive. Meditate upon it. My view is that your writing and coverage, especially the latter, do meet the FA-standard. Now I propose that I might steal an image from United States Supreme Court or the article on the 16th Amendment to place here. Paying taxes buys civilisation (my view) - schools, hospitals, rubbish removal, police, roads .. even courtrooms! Don't be late for April 15.BongHitz4Musa 02:27, 7 April 2007 (UTC)