Being that the 16th amendment was never ratified, what does that mean for the American people & income taxes?

Question

Being that the 16th amendment was never ratified, what does that mean for the American people & income taxes?

Answer 1

It was ratified by 42 of the then existing 48 states, making it part of the constitution. And it states income from whatever source subject to being taxed as income.

I am surprised that people would believe the lies that the amendment was never ratified. Shows how guillible some people are...

Answer 2

it wasn't ratified we are being held up every april 15 at the end of a gun and with the threat of prison and our property being confiscated

Answer 3

Court cases have been raised in relation to the valid point you are making, but taxpayers have lost in court almost every time on that issue.

Answer 4

It means that anyone listening to you will be in prison along with the hundreds of others that were already convicted for not paying their taxes.  

Answer 5

Where does it say that the 16th amendment wasn't ratified? That's news to me.

Either way, I'd love to see it repealed and replaced with the "Fair Tax."

Here's a link that debunks the myth that it was never ratified.

http://www.politicalhobbyist.com/debunke...

Answer 6

The 16th Amendment was ratified. Judge Easterbrook explained the argument quite well:

"1. Thomas is a tax protester, and one of his arguments is that he did not [**3] need to file tax returns because the sixteenth amendment is not part of the constitution. It was not properly ratified, Thomas insists, repeating the argument of W. Benson & M. Beckman, The Law That Never Was (1985). Benson and Beckman review the documents concerning the states' ratification of the sixteenth amendment and conclude that only four states ratified the sixteenth amendment; they insist that the official promulgation of that amendment by Secretary of State Knox in 1913 is therefore void.

Benson and Beckman did not discover anything; they rediscovered something that Secretary Knox considered in 1913. Thirty-eight states ratified the sixteenth amendment, and thirty-seven sent formal instruments of ratification to the Secretary of State. (Minnesota notified the Secretary orally, and additional states ratified later; we consider only those Secretary Knox considered.) Only four instruments repeat the language of the sixteenth amendment exactly as Congress approved it. The others contain errors of diction, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. The text Congress transmitted to the states was: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever [**4] source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." Many of the instruments neglected to capitalize "States," and some capitalized other words instead. The instrument from Illinois had "remuneration" in place of "enumeration"; the instrument from Missouri substituted "levy" for "lay"; the instrument from Washington had "income" not "incomes"; others made similar blunders.

Thomas insists that because the states did not approve exactly the same text, the amendment did not go into effect. Secretary Knox considered this argument. The Solicitor of the Department of State drew up a list of the errors in the instruments and -- taking into account both the triviality of the deviations and the treatment of earlier amendments that had experienced more substantial problems -- advised the Secretary that he was authorized to declare the amendment adopted. The Secretary did so.

Although Thomas urges us to take the view of several state courts that only agreement on the literal text may make a legal document effective, HN1the Supreme Court follows the "enrolled bill rule." If a legislative document is authenticated in regular form [**5] by the appropriate officials, the court treats that document as properly adopted. Field v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649, 36 L. Ed. 294, 12 S. Ct. 495 (1892). The principle is equally applicable to constitutional amendments. See Leser v. Garnett, 258 U.S. 130, 66 L. Ed. 505, 42 S. Ct. 217 (1922), which treats as conclusive the declaration of the Secretary of State that the nineteenth amendment had been adopted. In United States v. Foster, 789 F.2d. 457 462-463 n.6 (7th Cir. 1986), we relied on Leser, as well as the inconsequential nature of the objections in the face of the 73-year acceptance of the effectiveness of the sixteenth amendment, to reject a claim similar to Thomas's. See also Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433, 83 L. Ed. 1385, 59 S. Ct. 972 (1939) (questions about ratification of amendments may be nonjusticiable). Secretary Knox declared that enough states had ratified the sixteenth amendment. The Secretary's decision is [*1254] not transparently defective. We need not decide when, if ever, such a decision may be reviewed in order to know that Secretary Knox's decision is now beyond review.

"

United States v. Thomas, 788 F.2d 1250, 1253-1254 (7th Cir. Ill.

1986)

It should be noted that the co-author of the book who discovered the alleged defects in the ratification process was criminally convicted and imprisoned for wilful failure to file income taxes, and he used his argument unsuccessfully in his defense.

Mick T you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Supreme Court is saying. When saying that the 16th Amendment gave congress no new powers they are saying that the power to tax income was already given to them by article I section VIII of the constitution. The 16th Amendment merely removed a distinction between direct tax (tax on profits from property) and indirect (tax on wages or professional receipts) for the purposes of income tax. Your assertion that income refers only to gains has no legal basis. Springer v. United States, 102 U.S. 586 (1881) upheld the basis for a federal income tax. Springer refused to pay the income tax on his professional earnings as an attorney arguing that it was a direct tax that violated the constitution. The Supreme Court said in Springer, which is still mandatory authority, "It is not a tax on the "whole . . . personal estate" of the individual, but only on his income, gains, and profits during a year, which may have been but a small part of his personal estate, and in most cases would have been so. This classification lends no support to the argument of the plaintiff in error." Springer v. United States, 102 U.S. 586, 603 (U.S. 1881).  They went on to conclude "that direct taxes, within the meaning of the Constitution, are only capitation taxes, as expressed in that instrument, and taxes on real estate; and that the tax of which the plaintiff in error complains is within the category of an excise or duty. Springer v. United States, 102 U.S. 586, 602 (U.S. 1881). The Pollock case which necessitated the 16th Amendment distinguished from Springer noting that the case dealt with a tax on professional receipts which would be considered an excise or an impost and is an indirect tax, where as Pollock was addressing tax on income from property, which the court recognized as merely being a tax on the property itself, making it direct. Thus even without the 16th amendment the government could tax wages without apportionment, but taxing profits from property (rents etc) would be prohibited.

Answer 7

More importantly the Supreme Court ruled on 8 separate occasions between 1918 and 1932 that the 16th amendment hadn't given the federal government the authority to tax our labor, and these decisions have never been overturned.  The term "income" has had an established definition in legal terms since the early 19th century.  In our constitution it refers to "gain", otherwise known as profit.  The Supreme court has, furthermore, held throughout its history that there is no profit in the equal trade of labor for money.  For some reason the government has ignored the Supreme Court on this issue.

Answer 8

The 16th Amendment was ratified.  This argument was tried and rejected almost 100 years ago.  Anyone who listens to you risks prison.  Your argument is specious.

Answer 9

It means that we've been taking it in the azz for 95 years

EDIT:..it was NEVER ratified !

http://political-resources.com/taxes/16t...

IRS special agent Joe Banister agrees with me...whole heartedly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90N-fPI38...

hear-hear "Mick T"