I heard this fellow on the radio recently.
http://www.paynoincometax.com/all/Default.htm
He seems to have a reasonable argument for not paying income tax. Would Cecil care to comment?
Link to the original column:http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_127.html
Here’s a working link: Is U.S. income tax invalid because Ohio wasn’t legally a state when the 16th amendment was ratified?
This is an interesting guy, mainly because he’s turned a constitutionalist arguement to profit. Most of these guys tend to keep to themselves, but this character wrote a book.
It always makes me suspicious when someone claims to want to save me money, but won’t tell me how unless I pay him $38. Has anyone on this board actually tried to pull this scheme on the IRS? Did they accept the arguement?
“If you prick me, do I not…leak?” --Lt. Commander Data
I suspect that none of the posters here have tried this idiocy. We did have a nice discussion about it a few weeks ago, in which we concluded that his method is not simply wrong, but that he had gone to prison over it.
HERE’s a working link: Is U.S. income tax invalid because Ohio wasn’t legally a state when the 16th amendment was ratified?
Sorry Saltire! 
I think it’s funny that this guy claims that the IRS is not an enforcement agency. What constitutes an enforcement agency? The IRS is one of the five biggest Federal law enforcement agencies, measured by the number of officers with powers of arrest.
This is one of those really annoying “Can you produce the law? Can you? Huh? Huh? No you can’t so I’m right!” things that I see all the time. The first couple of times I saw them, I went to the trouble of producing the law, executive order, or decision. I could do that in this case - go and look up that part of the Federal tax code which requires you to pay taxes. And I’m not going to, because if I did, I would still have less than a 1% chance of getting this guy to apologize for spreading ignorance and misinformation.
Hopefully, I can convince you to accept “hopefully” as a disjunct adverb.
Frankly, I would be lying if I said I were confident.
Perhaps this subject is simply too complex for me to explain.
Unfortunately, I would be lucky to explain my way out of a paper bag.
Thanks, Arnold. I guess I’m getting too old to operate these new-fangled gizmos. I can feel my synapses hardening day by day.
By the way, congrats on reaching 2500 posts. A milestone, to be sure.
“If you prick me, do I not…leak?” --Lt. Commander Data
In case anyone is interested, here is a link to Idiot Legal Arguments: A Casebook for Dealing with Extremist Legal Arguments. It specifically addresses the argument that the IRS is not a proper government agency.
Morgan,
great link, thanks - I’ve been trying to find a source for this sort of material for a while.
Thanks for doing your bit to advance the cause of human knowledge.
– Cecil Adams
My personal favorite crank argument is the one about the phantom 13th Amendment. Now that’s someone who spent some time researching a spurious argument.
That is a good one. I like the assertion by proponents of the phantom 13th that all attorneys go through some secret ceremony that confers the title “Esquire.” Apparently, the ceremony is controlled by the American Bar Association, which is an arm of the International Bar Association, which was created by King George III.
It looks like you have some explaining to do, DSYoungEsq!
Yeah, the overwhelming irony of these ULs / crank legal arguments is the amount of time and energy people spend creating them, while still not seeing the big picture. Militia Watchdog is a great site, because they had the energy to debunk these ULs.
I got tired of debunking paranoid political legends after reading about all the dictatorial powers supposedly held by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, conferred on them by various Executive Orders. I read the EOs, and it turns out they have nothing to do with the powers they are quoted as having. After that I got bored.