Contrary to IRS opinion and media propaganda, the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which allegedly authorized the income tax) was never ratified. Bill Benson and Red Beckman spent an entire year and went to the 48 states’ legislatures and found out something very shocking. Their exhaustively researched treatise, The law That Never Was, Vols. 1 & 2, demonstrates unequivocally that the 16th Amendment was never properly ratified. It was simply declared to be “in effect” by president Wilson’s Secretary of State, Philander Knox, on February 25, 1913. Knox’s own memorandums to his Solicitor show how specious his rationale was for doing so. It has always been unconstitutional for the U.S. government to directly tax individuals in their property, wages, salaries, and earnings (see Article 1 & 9). Even if the 16th Amendment were deemed valid, the Supreme Court has held that it created no new powers of taxation:
“A proper regard for its genesis, as well as its very clear language, requires also that this [16th] Amendment shall not be extended by loose construction, so as to repeal or modify, except as applied to income, those provisions of the Constitution that require an apportionment according to population for direct taxes upon property real and personal. This limitation still has an appropriate and important function, and is not to be overridden by Congress or disregarded by the courts.” eisner v. Macomber, 252 US 189, 206
“Deceptive statements by IRS spokesman and other propagandist have created great confusion as to whether limitations on direct taxes are still in effect. Some incorrectly claim that the 16th Amendment (the income tax amendment) changed the constitutional limitations on direct taxes and authorized an income tax as a direct tax without apportionment. The judges of the U.S. Supreme Court rejected these claims in the case of Brushaber v. Ynion Pacific R.R. Co., 240 U.S. 1, when they rulled that the 16th Amendment ‘created no new power of taxation’ and that it ‘did not change the constitutional limitations which forbid any direct taxation of individuals’.” NCBA Bulletin (May 1988)
“The income tax is unconstitutional and was not part of the original intent of those who drafted our Constitution or government. I am supporting a resolution to repeal the 16th Amendment.” Steve Symms, former member of the U.S. Congress
I took the liberty of hotlinking your post to the column in question and cleaning up your title to make it clear what your post was about. No big deal, but if you’re planning on sticking around it might behoove you to become familiar with our conventions and ways of doing things here.
While I don’t know if you will find much sympathy for your ideas about taxation here, it’s always nice to hear other points of view. Carry on…
OK, first you claim the 16th Amendment was never ratified, then you quote someone who says he is supporting a measure to repeal the 16th Amendment. You can’t have your cake and eat it too…
The “eisner v. Macomber” clearly accepts the 16th Amendment as valid. That argument is that the 16th Amendment does not provide any legal justification for any other modifications to the Constitutional requirement for taxes to be apportioned to the States. In other words, it accepts the 16th Amendment as valid and states that it is a special case.
The “NCBA Bulletin” remark is incomplete and misleading. The Supreme Court did rule that the 16th Amendment did not create any new power of taxation or change constitutional limits on direct taxation. However, that same ruling also declared income tax as indirect taxation, and therefore not subject to apportionment. That ruling also declared the 16th Amendment valid.
The third quote is just an opinion. And as already stated, in order to be repealed, it must have first been enacted.
Since the OP made this argument, it is now incumbent on him or her to read through the entire Tax Protester FAQ.
There is a section debunking the argument that the 16th amendment was not ratified.
There are also sections debunking dozens of other equally absurd arguments. And yes, those absurd arguments really are just as silly as the one you make in your OP.
That site makes for difficult reading because it puts your arguments into a perspective that is hard to recover from, but at least you’ll understand why the rest of us fail to appreciate the subtle reasoning you try to present to us on this issue.
Well, a ratified Constitutional amendment cannot be unconstitutional, pretty much by definition. If the amendment conflicts with other parts of the Constitution, the amendment overrides the original–that’s what amendments are for.
Likewise with the ‘original intent’ complaint–of course this wasn’t the original intent of the framers, or they would have written it in & we wouldn’t have had to change anything. Again, that’s what amendments are for–the People decided that the framers overlooked something, or conditions have changed and new rules are needed.
I’m wildly guessing here, but I’m thinking that Symms’ resolution did not pass, or at least did not result in a new amendment repealing the 16th being properly ratified, as I don’t see one in the list.
The fundamental flaw in the argument that the income tax is just a big scam and that there’s no law saying you have to pay income tax is that it turns out not to keep you out of jail if you don’t pay income tax.
It’s one thing to claim that you SHOULDN’T have to pay income tax. It’s one thing to claim that our government has been hijacked by a cabal that has hoodwinked everyone into accepting the abomination known as the income tax.
But the fact is, if you don’t pay your taxes the government is going to put you in jail. Maybe they’re fascists for putting you in jail. But there’s no magic formula you can use that will prevent the fascists from jailing you for refusing to pay taxes. That’s the sort of thing fascists do, isn’t it? Putting people in jail unfairly and not caring what the law says?
If the fascists don’t care what the law says, then it doesn’t matter what the law says, you’d better do what the fascists say or they’re gonna fuck you up. When the gestapo comes knocking on your door you’re not going to be safe by pointing to the line in the constitution that shows that they’re not allowed to haul you down to headquarters and work you over with rubber hoses. The whole point of being the gestapo is that the law is irrelevant.
So in order to avoid going to jail for not paying your taxes, you’d have to convince a judge that the 16th Amendment wasn’t properly ratified, and even if it was that still wouldn’t make income tax legal. The problem with this approach is that it never works. No judge has ever agreed that the 16th Amendment wasn’t ratified. No judge has ever agreed that the income tax is illegal. Therefore, you’ll go to jail if you try to make those arguments. Since the cops, the courts, the government, the media, and the American people have all agreed to pretend that the 16th Amendment is valid and authorizes an income tax, and ignore anyone who argues otherwise, then it behooves anyone who believes differently to act AS IF the income tax is legal unless they are prepared to go to jail for their beliefs.
If you’re ready to go to jail rather than pay the fascist income tax, well, more power to you. But you’re not to avoid jail by pointing out that the income tax is fascist. So either pay the taxes and avoid jail, or refuse to pay and go to jai. Your choice.
Except that there is no pretending to it. As Irishman and Exapno Mapcase have already pointed out, the argument that the 16th Amendment is somehow invalid is just flat wrong.
RR
I think maybe Lemur866 was just being a teeny little bit sarcastic.
A useful quotation for considering arguments such as that made by the OP: “Some people believe with great fervor preposterous things that just happen to coincide with their self-interest.” Coleman v. CIR (7th Cir. 1986), 791 F.2d 68, 69.
Well yeah. Of course it’s wrong. But there are plenty of tax protestors who refuse to believe that it’s wrong.
My point is that suppose we stipulate that they’re correct. The 16th Amendment is a vast fraud, the income tax is unconstitutional, and so on.
What happens when they try to point out the truth in a courtroom? The courts will ignore the truth, the media will ignore the truth, the cops will ignore the truth, the banks will ignore the truth, the American people will ignore the truth. It doesn’t matter what YOU say, what matters is what the guys with the guns and handcuffs say.
The tax protestors for some reason can’t figure this out. They have the idea that all they have to do is fill out the right form, or refuse to sign away their rights, or say the right magic words, and the fascist authorities will be impotent. But fascists don’t care about such things, they’ll send you to the camps willy-nilly. You’ve got the form that proves your a sovriegn citizen and not a corporate entity? The fascists don’t care. You’ve got the form that proves that the fascists didn’t ratify the fascism amendment correctly? The fascists don’t care.
The point is, it doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong about the 16th Amendment. If you try to argue the validity of the 16th Amendment in court, you’re going to jail. It doesn’t matter whether that’s because the 16th Amendment was correctly ratified, or because the judge will wrongly act as if the 16th Amendment was correctly ratified, you’re still going to jail.
Well, except that we have a history in this country of accepting legal arguments that at one time or another seemed untenable, and using them to do things like overturn previous seemingly legal actions. So it’s not the case that you can say to those who are protesting that they do so for no good reason, because they’ll simply be ignored.
Now, that logical argument may have more meaning if the person who is protesting is doing so not on the grounds that there is some legal flaw with the tax so much as on the grounds that it is all a big conspiracy by jackbooted thugs to shake us down. Obviously, if that’s the case, then yes, protesting is doing nothing but saying: I’m not gonna go along and you can just take me away! But if so, if the income tax really were a fascist plot to steal from us, then that’s exactly the action we would WANT citizens to take! Peaceful non-compliance is the hallmark of how you get the jackbooted thugs to end their theiving attempts.
Lawful or not, you will be made to submit, that’s true enough.
Seems like the tactics used for tax enforcement against non-violent protesters would be more appropriate to going after murderers.
Could be that if enough people got the idea they could just not pay taxes without having to worry about armored men with automatic weapons breaking in one night to kneel on your wife’s back while they shoot the dog, more people just wouldn’t pay taxes. Couldn’t have that. Those guns and armor aren’t cheap, y’know.
Seems kind of an odd situation to be in in a representative democratic republic, don’t you think?
Jackbooted thugs breaking into your house at 4am with machine guns will, of course, not be the IRS’s first response if you fail to pay your taxes. You’ll get some politely-worded letters, then some sharply-worded letters, then an invitation to visit the IRS offices to sit down with a tax examiner, and then an order to do so, then an indictment and a summons, before Uncle Sam resorts to the rough stuff. But any nation-state reserves the right to use force when confronted by deliberate and sustained violations of the law; at least in a representative democracy the laws are passed by the people’s duly-elected representatives, as the Internal Revenue Code has been.
“The income tax is unconstitutional and was not part of the original intent of those who drafted our Constitution or government. I am supporting a resolution to repeal the 16th Amendment.” Steve Symms, former member of the U.S. Congress
Really should be “abandon the 16th amendment” since an unratified amendment would not need to be repealed.
Seems kind of an odd situation to be in in a representative democratic republic, don’t you think? control
That’s because we are not, we have a ruling class making all the decisions for us. Why? Because we lack the courage to abandon them. They dangle carrots and we go where they say.
Strange. I thought we just had an election between two sides with very differing perspectives on taxation. You must have heard about it. It was in all the papers.
