April 13, 2000: We The People Foundation is back in D.C.

Tax Symposium of 1999: Read more and order CSPAN tapes

April 17th, your postoffice: Slogans for Tax Day signs

The All-County Taxpayers Organization (NY)

What do YOU think about the Income Tax? Tell the World

We the People Foundation for Constitutional Education

Panel Members: William Benson, Joseph Bannister, William Conklin, Lowell Becraft, Devvy Kidd, Daniel Mitchell.

Robert Schulz undertook to show a chain of what-ifs and even-sos that should at least introduce a reasonable doubt in most people's mind about the validity of the current income tax system. Starting with with the constitutional amendment that was required to set up the system, his guests present their research to substantiate the following claims:

• There is no legal income tax amendment (this kind of taxation therefore requires apportionment)
• The subject of taxation is vague...we're entitled to due process for an explanation of our responsibilities.
• Congress didn't require all people to pay the income tax--it is supposed to be voluntary.
• Even under the proported laws, due process is being denied to many.

Mr. Schulz concluded the symposium with an exhortation

[that foreshadowed 4/13/00's action. -Ed.]

Speaking: Bill Benson
The Sixteenth Amendment was never ratified and why that is important.

William Benson (the author of The Law that Never Was) led off the discussion. It starts with the fact that on February 25, 1913, Filander Chase Knox declared that the sixteenth amendment had passed. William Benson has spent the last thirty years collecting 17,000 documents trying to prove that it didn't.

It would have taken three-fourths of the states in the Union at the time to ratify the amendment. Eleven states failed to vote on it. It's still tabled, technically, however, there was a seven-year cap built into it, so it's too late to have more states vote now. Whether or not this Amendment passed has never been brought to a District court. The laws about the income tax may depend on this Amendment having been passed.

Direct versus Indirect Taxes

	From the Constitution:	By definition:
Direct taxes	must be apportioned,	are a tax on what you own (property)
Indirect taxes	must be uniform,	are supposed to be avoidable

Which kind of tax is the income tax? The sixteenth amendment attempts to establish an income tax as a uniform direct tax. The Federal appellate courts now mostly say that the income tax is a direct tax, but some say it is an excise tax (an indirect tax). On the other hand, most of the State appellate courts say that an income is property. Why? Because property rights are determined by State law, not Federal law. However, you have some State courts, such as Georgia, Idaho and New Mexico, which say income is NOT property.

[That's a dense paragraph, but important...reread it, if you're not already a tax historian. - Ed.]

In 1863, there was an attempt to establish an income tax, but it was overturned by the Courts as unconstitutional.

In 1894, an Income Tax Act was introduced. Its Constitutionality was questioned, and it was overturned in 1895. That was the last word for another fifteen years. The 16th Amendment was introduced. Thirty words that got around the Constitutional problem of assessing a direct tax that did NOT collect equally from the states as they were represented. At the time, it took thirty-six states to ratify an Amendment to the Constitution. Filander Knox claimed that thirty-seven reported back that they passed it, but...

Questionable States
Kentucky: In 1910, the senate's vote was 9 for, 22 against.
Oklahoma: they voted to keep apportionment in at least one house
California: there was passage of an act supposedly ratifying the 16th amendment, but it's not clear that it was the same as the thirty words of the actual amendment.
Minnesota: the state legislature didn't send the resolution to D.C., the Secretary to the Governor wrote to D.C. to say that it had passed.
Mississippi: Nobody's sure what the legislature did, but there were empty liquor bottles the next morning all around the building where they voted.

The two houses of the state's legislature had to pass the same version of the amendment. In order for a state to be counted in the total, the exact wording of the Amendment must be passed.

In 1910, Senator Luce asks, "can we modify the wording?" The answer was No!

You do the math.

So, do you have to pay?

If you question the IRS on the legality of the requirement for you to pay your taxes, you are most likely going to be shown the Lucky Report. (Note: it's not easily found on the web, not from Google, Altavista, www.irs.ustreas.gov, www.loc.gov, LawCrawler, or thomas.loc.gov.) This report was done for the Congressional Research Office, and asserts that indeed, paying taxes is required by law.

Not so fast, say the participants in the panel.

They say that all people are entitled to due process--we have a right to petition for redress of grievances. Of course, administrative due process always comes first. You must attempt to deal with the bureaucracy before you are entitled to a day in court. Unfortunately, when it comes to the court case, the government is always seen as the "white knight."

The Chaney Ferguson case: "You have a right to rely on public officials"

You have the right to know whether or not a law exists, don't you? If you can't get the answers to these kinds of questions, due process is violated.

Goldberg v. Kelly

This case tries to get at the bottom of the definitions in the tax code. (Thank goodness it's all hypertext now.) Becraft swiftly presented an argument that went something like (see the CSPAN video for his exact points). Section 63 points to 61. What is taxable income? 861 defines sources of income. Gross income versus taxable income. 911 sources: only defines OMB form 25-55 foreign earned income report. 3401.8A then makes an exception of remuneration paid by employers of gross income(?).

[Note: thanks to Cornell Law School for having all U.S. Laws online.]

Got that? Those passages are where some people get the argument that you only need to pay the income tax if you have foreign earned income. (Or if you work in D.C.)

Now, suppose you test that theory.

From people who should know

If you get a "notice of deficiency", that's not supposed to be the first step. There's an examination process that supposed to come first. Your W2 and 1099 are where your employer states your income for the IRS... HOWEVER, your W2's are provided by your company, and employers are not required to sign "under penalty of perjury," as you are when you fill out your income tax forms. So, the IRS violated your due process if they move beyond the examination phase without bringing witnesses about the actual amount of income you earned. IRS are scared to call witnesses, though. (The organization NITE will call it hearsay.)

more info: www.denialofdueprocess.com.
and www.nite.org.

So, you try to stand your ground. When you're in the middle of the administrative appeal, you still have the 1st, 5th and 6th amendments to protect you, don't you?

It is possible. Collectively, [the panelists and the people they have represented] have had notices of deficit removed, notices of liens removed, and also participated in anti-injunction, and the Taxpayer Bill of Rights I. (Need more details.)

$350-400 billion per year is collected in taxes, but 63 million people didn't file last year! (source?) There are only 40 million people filing. What's going on? Some people are getting harassed to the point of suicide, but some claim to have evaded paying, and say the rest of us should be able to, also. When a lein is put on your property, it's hard NOT to panic, though.

Speaking: Joseph Bannister
There are no laws which require you to file

Joseph Bannister, IRS agent, resigned on February 25th, 1999. He was in the Criminal Investigation Division, sworn in as a Federal Officer in 1993. He also administered Federal Asset Forfeiture. When looking for a career change, he had applied to both the FBI and the IRS--he wanted to serve his country as an 'accountant with a gun,' as he puts it.

In December of 1996, though, after he had started working at the IRS, he heard Devvy Kidd on Jeff Metcalf's radio show. She was talking about the Federal Income Tax, and claiming it was voluntary.

Now, Joseph wanted to know more about this. He didn't want to believe that it was true, and so he set out to prove them wrong. He got all the information, and researched it and researched it. What he found disturbed him, to say the least. Joe thought that the pillars supporting his career were firm, but he ended up finding so many questions that he wrote a report to his supervisors, and handed it in on February 8th, 1999, more than two years after he first started looking into the issue. He wanted to be sure, because he was staking his career on it.

He handed the report in to his supervisors, asking them to prove him wrong: to show him where any law requires Amercians to file income tax forms and pay taxes. From February 11th to the 17th, he heard nothing. On the 17th, Joe got a memo, asking him to take a week off, to "clear his head." By the 25th, Joe's supervisors still hadn't addressed his questions. Joe's a religious man, and could not violate the 9th Commandment (against bearing false witness)s, so he resigned from his job at the I.R.S.

More info: his 95-page report,
which has received 70,000 visits March 1st, 1999 to July 1, 1999.
www.freedomabovefortune.com
Update: Devvy Kidd reports that Joe is not paying his 1999 taxes.

Speaking: Bill Conklin
It's easier to file a lawsuit than pay your taxes

A former teacher, who has a masters in speaking, Bill has won in court six times on tax issues.

200 years ago, Thomas Paine published a pamphlet, and distributed 30,000 copies. Bill's getting the word out in the modern way: he's got a website, www.anti-irs.com and it gets 1,000 hits per day.

If 100 million people simply refused to pay income taxes, we'd have an easy, peaceful revolution. Because, paying taxes is voluntary! Every reference in the laws are to voluntary payment of taxes, as long as none of your income is derived from foreign sources. (Note: some of the sections mentioned as including the words 'voluntary' or 'voluntarily' do not seem to be in the Code any more, e.g., 6200, 6210, and 6810.)

The I.R.S. audited Bill for years for speaking up. He fought 6 cases, for 20 years--at one point, it took him 5 years to get a written opinion--but finally, he's left alone.

About pleading the fifth amendment

The fifth amendment only applies to compelled testimony. If filing taxes is mandatory, you should be able to plead the fifth (the guest mentioned he is seeking ways ways in which an attorney could file for you, anonymously, to preserve your fifth amendment rights).

Bill notes that the Privacy Act Notice, found on the cover of the tax booklets, is a type of Miranda warning, i.e., a warning that you have rights, and anything you disclose may be used against you. It is certainly one way to interpret the statement: look at April's tax booklet for yourself. So, that should correspondingly mean that you have a right to plead the fifth? And, how can the IRS can file returns for you if you don't voluntarily file them?

In the end, he was fined $6,000, and the case was dismissed from the Supreme Court a certiori. He notes--

It's easier to file a lawsuit than file your taxes!

Speaking: Larry Becraft
The current tax system is a monumental due process problem

Larry and Devvy Kidd participate in the Wallace Institute, which is named after their hero, William Wallace (whom you may remember from the movie Braveheart).

Devvy works on the Project on Winning Economic Reform (POWER), selling booklets, She's distributed an amazing 2.1 million of her first booklet, Why a Bankrupt America? (order your free copy) and 150,000 of the second, Blind Loyalty ($3 each).

History--backtracking

In 1789, the Constitution defined the power of the government to levy two types of taxes: direct vs. indirect taxes. About a hundred years later, the 1894 Federal Income Tax was ruled unconstitutional. In 1895, the stock market was down, and an attempt was made to put an income tax in place--it failed. It was found unconstitutional. In 1909, a proposed amendment to the Constitution was passed by the Senate and Congress, repealing apportionment for an income tax. It then went to the states to ratify.

(Larry reiterated the states which did not pass the Amendments.)

It's a due process problem!

Larry speaks of "Sinnitor" Eli DuRoot, who in 1938...(oops, need details)... which, um, exemplified a due process problem. :-)

Ferguson trial set for 1985, same thing. A due process problem!

The questions we get to are, "Is the tax a direct property tax (levied by the state, and therefore apportioned), or a federal excise tax, indirect, and therefore avoidable?" The State and the Federal courts don't agree about which type of tax it is. (If the 16th Amendment hadn't been passed, those would be the only two choices.) Uncertainty in the law is a due process problem!

In another case, when he asked who is responsible for explaining where in the law the tax is made non-voluntary, the court pointed to Congress, and vice versa! Avoiding legitimate questions is a due process problem!

Speaking: Dan Mitchell
One Alternative

Dan first wanted to welcome all tax symposium participants to the work-free drug zone that is D.C.! (applause and laughter)

Trafficant and Townsend recently introduced a National Sales Tax proposal. Dan believes you should tax anything only once, and only at one rate. This avoid confusion, promotes fairness, and in the end, is mostly avoidable. Even better, is what it's NOT. A National Sales Tax is not

• 17,000 pages of code
• 5.5 million words
• 567 different forms

One option is to have a 20% tax on all final consumer goods and purchases. Everything would be taxed, including services. Dan believes that the tax shouldn't be hidden into the price as it is in Europe, and it should be obvious to the buyer how much of what they are paying is for the tax. It would be great if the taxes could be even lower: Dan just picks the number 20% to make calculations easy, and to overestimate the number. [Could we shoot for 1%, in time, and just have it on goods excluding food, clothing and shelter? -Ed.]

The Supply-siders were right!

With higher taxes, there is more incentive to hide business from the government. With lower taxes, the benefits of avoidance drop--it becomes easier to just pay the tax.

Dan cautions that you should never not file a return without a lawyer. You need to make a statement that "according to counsel, I have filed all required forms". That language will help keep you out of trouble. He would also recommend that you don't file a W4 if you don't plan to pay your taxes.

Some of the money we could save by not having an income tax: