MEMORANDUM OF LAW in re: Public Salary Tax Act

MEMO

TO: Clients of the Supreme Law Firm

Private Attorney General, 18 U.S.C. 1964(a)

DATE: January 3, 2004 A.D.

SUBJECT: scope of the definitions in the

Public Salary Tax Act of 1939

Dear Clients:

The Public Salary Tax Act (“PSTA”), like many Acts of Congress that we have examined in recent years, is worded and structured to mislead the public into making incorrect conclusions about the scope of people and places to which it applies. This memorandum takes a close look at the specific definitions which Congress included in the PSTA, and comes to a surprising conclusion that will surely expose conventional wisdom for being false and erroneous in this matter.

Because Title 26 of the United States Code has not yet been enacted into positive law as such, it is necessary to revert to the published Statutes at Large to locate the original statutes in question. The PSTA begins at 53 Stat. 574, dated April 12, 1939, where the following crucial paragraph is found:

Sec. 1. Section 22(a) of the Internal Revenue Code (relating to the definition of “gross income”) is amended by inserting after the words “compensation for personal service” the following: (“including personal service as an officer or employee of a State, or any political subdivision thereof, or any agency or instrumentality of any one or more of the foregoing)”.

[bold emphasis added]

It is obvious to any intelligent reader that the phrase “officer or employee of a State” is a controlling phrase in Section 1 above. Many who read this original statute interpret it to mean that Congress has here imposed the federal income tax on officers and employees of the several States of the Union, of which there are now 50 in number. Judges have also interpreted this phrase in the same way, but without doing the additional work required to confirm the applicable and controlling definition of “State”. When we do that additional work, however, we are forced to arrive at an entirely different conclusion.

By taking the added time required to read the entire PSTA from start to finish, it is immediately apparent that the controlling term “State” is simply not defined. Instead, at Section 206 of the PSTA, Congress repeats a very bad habit of referring the reader to a completely different Act of Congress, namely, Chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code, as follows:

Sec. 206. The terms used in this Act shall have the same meaning as when used in Chapter I [sic] of the Internal Revenue Code.

This is a very bad habit on the part of Congress, for several reasons. First of all, defining the term “State” here would require no more text than what we see in Section 206. Secondly, the reader is discouraged from making the “jump” to Chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code, without knowing ahead of time where, exactly, that Chapter can be located in the Internal Revenue Code. Finally, it will become more obvious, as we proceed through this analysis, that such obstacles are imposed on the reader for the purpose of obscuring the real meaning of “State” as that term is actually defined in the PSTA.

The reference to Chapter 1 above can be found at 53 Stat. 32 in the Statutes at Large, at Section 64 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, entitled “Definitions”:

Sec. 64. Definitions. For definitions of a general character, see section 3797.

Once again, instead of defining key terms where the reader would normally expect them to be, Congress again asks the reader to make yet another “jump” to Section 3797 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939. This Section can be found at 53 Stat. 469 in the Statutes at Large, as follows:

Sec. 3797. Definitions

(10) State ‑‑ The word “State” shall be construed to include the Territories and the District of Columbia, where such construction is necessary to carry out provisions of this title.

Here, we must pause and carefully examine all applicable evidence to assist us with understanding this definition. We do appear to have arrived at the definition of “State” that we have been seeking. However, any capable reader can see that the federal Territories and the District of Columbia are the only places that were expressly mentioned in this definition. None of the 50 States of the Union is mentioned. So, it is fair to ask if this omission was an intentional act of Congress, or not. On this point, confer also at the term “inclusio unius est exclusio alterius” in Black’s Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition (i.e. whatever was omitted or excluded was intended to be omitted or excluded).

In order to arrive at a definitive answer to this question, it is instructive to examine another definition of “State” in those sections of the IRC which concern Social Security. At IRC 3121(e), we find the following definition:

The term “State” includes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa.

A now famous letter from Congresswoman Barbara Kennelly provides us with very valuable insights into the meaning of the term “State” as defined by IRC 3121(e). After receiving an inquiry from an American Citizen, she referred his inquiry to experts in the offices of the Legislative Counsel and the Congressional Research Service. Both offices responded by confirming that IRC section 3121(e) actually limits the meaning of “State” to each of the places mentioned, and it does not also define “State” to embrace any of the 50 States of the Union in addition to those places that are mentioned.

Rep. Kennelly’s reply letter is so valuable for several reasons. First of all, it is apparent that Kennelly did not know the answer initially; that is why she found it necessary to refer the original question to the Congressional experts in statutory construction.

Secondly, Kennelly got the same answer from the experts in both offices ‑‑ the Legislative Counsel and the Congressional Research Service ‑‑ giving much added weight to their answers. Then, Kennelly simply reiterated their answers in her written reply to the Citizen’s original question, without so much as doubting their answers in any way, or for any reason.

Finally, using published rules of statutory construction, we are justified in applying those very same rules to the definition of “State” in the PSTA, with results that are identical to those provided to Rep. Kennelly by experts in the offices of the Legislative Counsel and the Congressional Research Service.

Accordingly, when it was first enacted in 1939 A.D., the meaning of “State” in the Public Salary Tax Act was limited by Congressional intent to the federal Territories and to the District of Columbia. That meaning was subsequently amended when Alaska and Hawaii later joined the Union. The pattern of changes that occurred in Section 3797 above is rather conclusive, chiefly because the “Territories” are no longer mentioned in the present definition at Section 7701(a)(10) of the Internal Revenue Code, to wit:

The term “State” shall be construed to include the District of Columbia, where such construction is necessary to carry out provisions of this title.

Alaska and Hawaii were included in that definition of “State” because they were both federal Territories before they joined the Union. Thus, Alaska and Hawaii only fit this special definition of “State” before they joined the Union, but they were dropped from this special definition after they joined the Union. The controlling definition had to be changed because Alaska and Hawaii were both defined in the PSTA as “States” before admission to the Union, but not afterwards. This apparent anomaly is perfectly clear, once the legal and deliberately misleading definition of “State” is understood.

A detailed analysis of these Code changes is found in Chapter 5 of “The Federal Zone.” The precise history of changes to the Internal Revenue Code is detailed in Appendix B of that book. The changes made to the United States Code when Alaska joined the Union were originally assembled in the Alaska Omnibus Act. The changes made to the federal Codes when Hawaii joined the Union were assembled in the Hawaii Omnibus Act.

In summary, therefore, the meaning of “State” in the Public Salary Tax Act is presently governed by the definition found at IRC section 7701(a)(10). The bulk of verifiable evidence already published in Chapter 5 of “The Federal Zone,” supplemented by the further analysis we have done above, now makes it abundantly clear that the word “State” is presently limited to the District of Columbia and does not embrace any of the 50 States of the Union.

If Congress had intended to include the 50 States of the Union in its definition of “State” in the PSTA, it could and it should have done so, as it has done so in other statutes. For example, at IRC section 4612(a)(4)(A), Congress has expressly mentioned the 50 States in so many words, when it defined the “United States” there as follows:

In General. ‑‑ The term “United States” means the 50 States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, any possession of the United States, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

[bold and underlined emphasis added]

In conclusion, therefore, when the Public Salary Tax Act uses the term “officer or employee of a State”, that Act is not referring to any of the officers or employees of any of the 50 States of the Union that presently correspond to the 50 stars on the American flag.

On the contrary, using well established rules of statutory construction, the legal advice of experts in statutory construction, and evidence from changes in the PSTA when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union, we are fully justified in concluding that the phrase “officer or employee of a State” refers only to officers or employees of the District of Columbia.

The PSTA further clarified this matter at Section 210, which is published in the Statutes at Large at 53 Stat. 577, as follows:

Sec. 210. For the purposes of this Act, the term “officer or employee” includes a member of a legislative body and a judge or officer of a court.

Once again, the rules of statutory construction require us to conclude that the term “officer or employee” as used in the PSTA includes only a member of a legislative body whose compensation originates in the District of Columbia, and a judge or officer of a court whose compensation originates in the District of Columbia. These officers and employees, therefore, refer only to voting members of Congress, federal judges, and to the other officers who are employed by the federal judiciary. That’s it!

The Public Salary Tax Act does not impose the federal income tax upon any of the officers or employees of the 50 States of the Union.

Further elaboration of the several points discussed above can be found in the documents located at the following Internet URL’s:

“31 Questions and Answers about the Internal Revenue Service”

http://www.supremelaw.org/sls/31answers.htm

“The Federal Zone: Cracking the Code of Internal Revenue”

http://www.supremelaw.org/fedzone11/index.htm

“Congresswoman Suspected of Income Tax Evasion”

http://www.supremelaw.org/press/rels/irc3121.htm

APPLICATION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION against IRS

http://www.supremelaw.org/cc/erath/injunction.htm

APPLICATION FOR ORDER DISSOLVING THE IRS

http://www.supremelaw.org/cc/giordano/dissolve.irs.htm