Time: Fri Nov 14 06:31:33 1997
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Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 06:21:17 -0800
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From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: Tax Con (fwd)
<snip>
>
> The Constitutionality of the Income Tax:
>
> Unresolved.
>
>
> Jack Rifen
>
>
>The constitutionality of the income tax, as applied to the wages/salary of a
>non-government (private) individual has never been adjudicated. The IRS
>will adamantly tell citizens that they are required to pay income taxes if
>they received more than the threshold "income" declared in 26 USC 6012, but
>has such taxation ever been held by the courts to not be an improper
>imposition on your Constitutional rights? I believe not -- but let us
>examine what the IRS, government and courts have written:
>
>Congressional Research Service report No. 84-168A, `Some Constitutional
>Questions Regarding the Federal Income Tax Laws', updated September 26,
>1984, is a convenient place to start. It avoids major constitutional
>questions except for the Fourth and Fifth Amendment issues, which are
>grossly distorted. It does not address the question of whether a citizen
>has or does not have a secured federal right under the clause of "Liberty"
>to make a living (earn a salary/ wage) without being compelled to "return"
>part of that earning to the government. It avoids any concise statement on
>the specific nature of the indirect tax; i.e., is it an excise, a duty, or
>an impost? It suggests the tax is in the nature of an excise but declines
>to identify any privilege on which an excise tax must be levied. "In the
>nature of an excise" is far short of declaring an excise tax.
>
>The report does come close to constitutional issues during discussion of
>question No. 5: "Are wages taxable as income?" where it reads, "The fallacy
>of this argument (that wages are not taxable as income)is that the taxation
>of wages had never been found unconstitutional and therefore an amendment
>to the Constitution was not necessary to permit this type of taxation."
>
>The discussion correctly points out that income taxes on wages and salaries
>has never been affected by the 16th Amendment. The Amendment was legislated
>specifically to reverse the holding of the two Pollock (157 US 429, (1895))
>decisions. These two decisions clearly delineated the income tax into two
>areas; one area of wages and salaries, and another area of income derived
>from capital investments. It was only the issue of taxes on capital
>investments (rent from property and dividends from bonds) that was before
>the Pollock court and was subsequently held to be an unconstitutional, non-
>apportioned direct tax. The Pollock court reiterated that the wage and
>salary question wouldn't be adjudicated by the court even though the court
>voided the entire law because the imposition of the tax on wages and
>salaries would then become the sole surviving tax whereas Congress had
>intended it to be a minor component.
>
>While the quoted statement is correct, the first part of the quotation is a
>pregnant statement. Neither has the taxation of wages and salaries been
>declared to be Constitutional! The Pollock court, by separating the income
>tax into two areas, avoiding any issues concerning wages and salaries but
>mentioned that these issues had been previously found by the court to be in
>the nature of an excise. It is Springer v. U.S., 102 US 586 (1881), to
>which the court alludes but declines to identify.
>
>The Springer court declared that if any law was unconstitutional, it was for
>the people, or for Congress, to change the law. This may appear improper in
>looking at recent legislation having been declared unconstitutional by the
>court, but the setting of 1881 must be taken into consideration. It was the
>established policy of the Court to not declare any law unconstitutional, and
>that practice remained in place until the landmark case of Hurtade v
>California, 110 US 516 (1884). It was only after Hurtade that the court
>accepted the responsibility to void legislation on constitutional grounds.
>Text books discuss this change as the development of substantive due
>process.
>
>Therefore, Springer did not adjudicate constitutional impropriety at all.
>The statement in Springer (that the tax must be in the nature of an excise,
>duty, or an impost) is a mere observation that such must be the intent of
>Congress or the law would conflict with constitutional restrictions relating
>to direct taxation. To contend that Springer "held" such a point would be
>contradictory with the self-imposed restriction that a constitutional
>challenge was being avoided.
>
>The tremendous import of the implications must not be overlooked. If
>Springer did not hold that the income tax on wages and salary is an excise,
>duty, or impost, then who did? The report acknowledges the 16th Amendment
>is not relevant. The Pollock court seperated the income tax into two areas
>and definitely did not adjudicate wage and salary issues. The statement on
>page 3 of the report: "The Pollock Court held that although income taxes
>are generally indirect taxes in the nature of excises. . . " is a most
>ingenious example of arranging phrases in a manner that completely contorts
>their real meaning. Pollock definitely did not hold income taxes "to
>generally be excise taxes." Any comment in Pollock on income from wages and
>salaries is a recitation of prior adjudication, i.e., of Springer.
>
>In 1909, Congress passed a Corporate Tax and, in addition, the 16th
>Amendment was submitted to the states for ratification and is alleged to
>have been ratified in 1913. The Corporate Tax was merged with the income
>tax in 1914. A multitude of subsequent adjudication involves corporations,
>but not individual rights. The report goes to great length to leave the
>impression that taxation of an individual ws adjudicated as constitutional
>by Pollock, which it certainly was not. No other authority is even
>suggested by the report as adjudicating rights of individuals. Have rights
>of individuals been adjudicated elsewhere?
>
>The Court has held that during the 1930's that federal and state employees
>and recipients of government funds are suitable objects of an income tax in
>the nature of an excise tax. If the government wishes to consider
>recipients of government money to be receiving a privilege on which they may
>levy an excise tax (read "return"), it may jolly well do so. John Q.
>Public does not receive that privilege.
>
>It is interesting to note that in 1939, Congress legislated that government
>workers and officers of the government's courts are similarly subject for
>the income tax. The fact that lawyers authorized to practice before the bar
>are legally considered officers of the court and are also subject to the
>income tax is most appropriate. John Q. Public is not a privileged officer
>of the court.
>
>Constitutional questions that have not been adjudicated by the Court center
>on basic fundamental rights of individuals that were secured for We the
>People when we formed the Union. The rights secured include the right to
>pursue a livelihood, to make a living, and to provide for a family and
self.
>These rights existed long before the government was formed; they will exist
>long after the government has passed. They were established by gifts of the
>Divine Creator and were secured within the Constitution by the clause of
>Liberty in the Preamble, the Fifth Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment.
>Corporations, as creatures of the states, do not have these rights.
>
>The courts have innumerable citations that taxation is a matter of
>sovereignty, and that over which the government is not sovereign is not a
>suitable object for taxation. Government sovereignty does not exist over
>what has been recieved as a divine gift. The forms of government wherein
>political elements have control and sovereignty over the pursuit of
>livelihoods are not known as a Republic that was secured for us in Article
>4, Section 4 of the Constitution.
>
>The courts have declared that if the authority to tax exists, the courts
>will not intervene if the tax destroys the object on which the tax is
>levied. It is only principles and rights that are adjudicated; the degree
>of damage by the imposition is irrelevant to the court. "The mere chilling
>of a constitutional right by a penalty on its exercise is patently
>unconstitutional." Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 US 618, (1969). To allow a tax
>on a divinely given right is to deny a gift that has been given to you by
>God.
>
>This defense has been discussed in patriot circles for years and has usually
>been comingled with other unrelated defenses. A direct confrontation of
>this defense has been -- must be -- and will be (if at all possible) --
>avoided by the courts. To uphold the income tax as not infringing
>constitutional rights would repudiate 200 years of constitutional case law
>and would reestablish the feudal society fractured by the Magna Carta.
>
>
>[Reprinted from `Freedom League Newsletter', Aug/Sept. 1986; from Justice
>Journal]
>
<snip>
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