I know that it has been answered before, but i also watched that movie the Zeitgeist. I started doing my own research. I saw that millions of people do not file for taxes though only 300 a year are indicted on criminal charges. If it income tax is legal then why aren't millions of people being charged? So you see all of these people who worked for the IRS and they found out this same thing, thus they resigned and they still dont pay their taxes. The IRS knows they dont but since the IRS knows that they know it is illegal they dont want to bother with it. To the 16th amendment, it didnt say or allow that the government has the ability to create an income tax. It states:
The Congress shall have the 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.
Ok got that but that didnt refute anything in article one:
Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 grants the federal government its power to impose taxes:
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.
The above section is limited by Article I, Section 2, Clause 3:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States….
And Article I, Section 9, Clause 4:
No Capitation, or other direct Tax, shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration.
Immediately after the Amendment was ratified, Congress enacted another income tax act similar to the 1894 Act. The new law was immediately challenged as unconstitutional. In 1916, the Supreme Court issued two decisions on the scope of the Amendment. These decisions were analyzed in a 1980 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report. The report, prepared by an agency of Congress, discussed the effect of the Sixteenth Amendment on the federal government’s power to tax:
The Supreme Court, in a decision written by Chief Justice White, first noted that the Sixteenth Amendment did not authorize any new type of tax, nor did it repeal or revoke the tax clauses of Article I of the Constitution… Direct taxes were, notwithstanding the advent of the Sixteenth Amendment, still subject to the rule of apportionment and indirect taxes were still subject to the rule of uniformity.
As stated by CRS, the Amendment did not authorize any new type of tax or repeal or revoke the existing clauses. Indirect taxes were still subject to the rule of uniformity and direct taxes were still required to be apportioned among the several States.
The 1980 CRS report also made the following statement concerning the nature of the income tax:
Therefore, it can be clearly determined from the decisions of the United States Supreme Court that the income tax is an indirect tax, generally in the nature of an excise tax.
An excise tax is a tax levied on the manufacture, sale, or consumption of a commodity or any various taxes on privileges often assessed in the form of a license or fee. In other words, it is a tax on doing something to property or on the privilege of holding some property or doing some act, not a tax on the property itself. The tax is not on the property directly, but rather it is a tax on the transaction.
From what i can tell, they can only taxed based on consumption, so if you spend all of what you earn then there is nothing to tax. This stuff is really confusing and i dont know if i make sense but please help. Because even when the commisioner of the IRS is questioned about the legality of the income tax she dodges the question. Some of this was pasted from my source. Thanks, and im a Republican btw.
http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/04/04/16/greenslade.htm
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