Talk:Tax protester arguments

Attribution

Material in this article was split out from the overly-long Tax protester article. The edit history of this material is contained with that article. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:16, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

More unsourced, unverifiable tax protester rhetoric

Dear fellow editors: An anonymous user has inserted the following tax protester rhetoric into the article, which has been removed for the reasons stated below:

However, the real thrust of most tax protesters' arguments centers around the IRS's inability to produce the law, in writing, that requires every individual citizen to pay the income tax. Numerous petitions and lawsuits have been filed by individuals and organizations against the IRS for this law, but the IRS repeatedly refuses to show the law, even though the Freedom of Information act guarantees this. This illegal government practice, not allowing the citizens to see or read the law with which they are being forced to comply, is the very hear tof the tax protester movement. Why would the govenrment repeatedly refuse something it should have the obligaiton to do unelss it cannot do it, unless there is no law. In a letter, Senator Daniel Inouye stated that "Based on the research...by the Congressional Research Service, there is no provisions which...reqire..an individual to pay an income tax." [ . . . ]

However, a recent court has recognized the legality issues of the 16th Amendment. In 2003, US District Court Judge James C. Fox sais, "If you...examined [the 16th Amendment] carefully, you would find that a suffiecient number of states never ratified that amendment." [ . . . ]

More importantly than the legality of the 16th Amendment is the actual powers it conferred. Two types of taxes, direct and indirect, are allowed by the constitution. Direct taxes must be apportioned, meaning divided equally among the people. Indirect taxes are excise taxes, taxes on goods or services that you choose to use. A gasoline tax would be an indirect tax because you coudl choose to ride your bicycle instead. The income tax falls under neither of these two categories and is only claimed to be legal through the 16th Amendment's creation of new govenrment powers and a enw form fo taxation. This claim has been refuted though, not onyl by protesters, but by the Supreme Court itself. In the case of Stanton v. Baltic Mining, the Supreme Court ruled "the provisions of the 16th amendment conferred no new power of taxation." Numerous other Supreme Court cases from 1916 to 1923 verified this decision, such as Stratton Independents v. Hogarth, Southern Pacific v. Lowe, Bowers v. Quervo Empire, Burnett v. Harmel, Doyle v. Mitchell. Time and time again the Supreme Court has found there to be no constitutional basis for this tax. The New York Times, on January 25, 1916, reported these finsings to the public, saying, "In substance, the court holds that the Sixteenth Amendment did not empower the Federal Government to levy a new tax."

This is the usual false information from tax protesters. Aside from violating the rules on Verifiability and Neutral Point of View, the materials are objectionable as follows.

The material repeats the usual false tax protester rhetoric about the “IRS's inability to produce the law, in writing, that requires every individual citizen to pay the income tax.” The IRS has cited the applicable statutes over and over, and some of the statutes are even listed in the IRS instructions for Form 1040. See Tax protester statutory arguments.

The statement that “the IRS repeatedly refuses to show the law, even though the Freedom of Information act guarantees this” is patently false. The Freedom of Information Act does not guarantee that the IRS must show tax protesters or anyone else “the law” that imposes the income tax, etc. And not only has the IRS cited the laws on innumerable occasions, the law is publicly available at local libraries, on government web sites, on the Cornell University Law School web site, etc., etc.

The verbiage about Senator Daniel Inouye and his “letter” is completely unsourced, violating Wikipedia rules on Verifiability. Further, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has never performed any research showing or concluding that there is no provision requiring an individual to pay income tax. Indeed, just the opposite. CRS has even published materials about the application of the Federal income tax laws.

The verbiage about direct and indirect taxes is the same old tax protester rhetoric. Please read Tax protester constitutional arguments and articles on Brushaber and Pollock and the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The statement “Time and time again the Supreme Court has found there to be no constitutional basis for this tax” is absolutely false. Since 1913, neither the Supreme Court nor any other Federal court has ever ruled that there is no constitutional basis for the Federal income tax. Indeed, every tax protester argument on this point that has been presented to the Federal courts has been rejected.

Regarding the supposed statement by The New York Times, on January 25, 1916, saying, "In substance, the court holds that the Sixteenth Amendment did not empower the Federal Government to levy a new tax” – The Times may well have said that, as the courts have said that over and over. That is a correct statement of the law. The problem is that the tax protesters have ignored the rulings in those cases as well as the rest of the text of those cases. The reason the Sixteenth Amendment did not empower the government to levy a new tax (specifically an income tax) is that the Congress has always had that power to levy income taxes. Go back and read the actual texts of the cited court cases – not some verbiage from a tax protester. Sorry. Have a nice day. Yours, Famspear 19:11, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

POV

Please review this article. Try to avoid opinion, limit yourselves only to facts and, for once, open your eyes.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fca neo (talk • contribs) .

Dear fellow user Fca neo: Please review this article and try to limit your comments regarding neutral point of view to something that actually points out or discusses neutral point of view. Vague references to "facts" and "opinion," without more, are less helpful than provision of specific examples. Also, the enigmatic statement "open your eyes" itself seems to evoke a non-neutral point of view.

The material in this and related articles has been extensively studied by many Wikipedia editors for many months, and is actually (in my opinion) in very good shape, both from a technical legal standpoint and from the standpoint of the Wikipedia concepts of Verifiability, Neutral Point of View, and No Original Research. You may want to consider reviewing those rules.

Also, you may want to consider signing your talk page (discussion page) posts using four tildes, like this: ~~~~, which will automatically add your signature. Thanks, yours, Famspear 12:48, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Text removed; some hair-splitting

I removed the following sentence:

"These are predomantly [sic] US based arguments that will not stand in most courts in other countries."

I removed it not because it is incorrect; indeed, I would agree it is basically correct. The reason I removed it is that it is arguably original research, or at least unsourced (unverifiable), or both, AND because (at least in my opinion) it's a bit off topic. Yes, the article is about tax protester arguments that are predominantly U.S. based, and that's because the article is about arguments about U.S. law. I don't even know if other countries have the phenomenon of tax protesters in the same way that the U.S. does. And the statement that the arguments will not stand in most courts in other countries, while probably correct, at least arguably misses the point that tax protester arguments never stand in U.S. courts either. Indeed, the arguments are so frivolous that this is essentially why the treatment of this kind of material has been limited in Wikipedia to articles specifically about tax protesters, etc. Yours, Famspear 16:02, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

That is a largely meaningless statement, but it brings up a question. Is this article about the United States specifically or about some universal tax protester concept? The current wording of the article implies that it is universal. The article should either be modified to make it clear it applies only to the United States, or modified to include arguments (if they exist) from other countries. — Mateo SA (talk | contribs) 16:07, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Dear editor Mateo SA: Hmmmm. Good point. By the way, I'm glad to see you back. I started editing here late in 2005, right around or shortly after the time you were contending with one or more "contributors" who were, in my opinion, seriously degrading the quality of the tax-related articles to put it mildly. As you well know, it's a seemingly never-ending battle to keep the crazy, unverifiable, non-neutral point of view stuff out of Federal income tax-related articles. There is something about Federal income tax that began pulling "certain people" out of the woodwork, beginning especially in the mid-1970s. I have been studying tax protesters and their arguments for years, and a bit more intensely in the past couple of years or so.

Anyway, I have never seen any reference to "tax protesters" (in the sense of people who make totally meritless, frivolous arguments about the validity of tax laws or the application of those laws) in a country other that the U.S., but if you want I will look around and see what I can find. If, eventually, nobody can find anything "non-U.S" on this, maybe we can figure out how the article should be reworded to be clear that it's talking specifically about a U.S. phenomenon, if appropriate. Yours, Famspear 16:41, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this is a US phenomenon, and have tried to reword the article accordingly LeContexte (talk) 22:10, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced, non-neutral POV, unverifiable commentary moved from article

The following commentary has been moved from the article to here:

The basic fact is, that the IRS does not assign liability for not paying the income tax. There is NO law requiring anyone to pay a income tax, stating that it is a mandatory tax that individuals are liable for, or assigning a panalty for not paying the tax. It is not sufficient for the IRS and legal system to say, pay your income tax or else.

If there is a LAW stating that the income tax is a mandatory tax, why is it not listed here? What section of the lawbooks is it under? Laws are stated clearly, and if they are not stated they have no effect as a result of being vauge or non existant. Therefor, I challenge any proponant of the income tax to clearly list the LAW here to prove that there is actually a LAW.

More explanation later. Yours, Famspear 18:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Post-script: Dear anonymous user at IP 75.72.81.229: The arguments in the above commentary, (which was posted by IP 75.72.81.229), have been covered over and over here in Wikipedia. Please read all talk (discussion) pages.

The statement that "the IRS does not assign liability for not paying the income tax" is nonsensical. The legal obligation for filing tax returns and paying the related taxes is imposed by statute, not by the IRS. The IRS is simply the government agency charged with enforcing the statute.

Regarding the IRS Tax Code, there is no such thing as a tax that is not "mandatory." There is no such thing as a "table of taxes you are liable for" -- taxes are not listed that way in the statute.

The whole voluntary - not voluntary argument has already been covered and explained.

And, for the gazillionth time, please read the Internal Revenue Code, including but not limited to:

26 U.S.C. § 1

26 U.S.C. § 11

26 U.S.C. § 6151

26 U.S.C. § 6651

26 U.S.C. § 6011

26 U.S.C. § 6012

26 U.S.C. § 7201

26 U.S.C. § 7203

26 U.S.C. § 7206

All this is covered in much more depth at:

Tax protester

Tax protester history

Tax protester arguments

Tax protester constitutional arguments

Tax protester statutory arguments

Tax protester conspiracy arguments

Please read all these articles in full. Then, if you have any questions, post your questions on the talk (discussion) page for the applicable article. Thanks, Famspear 18:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and regarding the comments by IP 75.72.81.229 challenging "any proponant [sic] of the income tax to clearly list the LAW here to prove that there is actually a LAW" -- aside from the fact that Wikipedia editors have done just that, over and over, I would point out that Wikipedia editors are not here as "proponents of the income tax." Neither are we here for the purpose of proving to you or persuading you that there "actually is a (Federal income tax) law." The obligations to file Federal income tax returns and pay income taxes are imposed by U.S. Federal law, and are easily verifiable by referring to the Internal Revenue Code, the regulations, and the case law, regardless of what you or I or anyone else says. We are here to edit Wikipedia. Yours, Famspear 19:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

EDIT: Interal Revenue Code is pointless unless it has basis in law; which it doesn't. Read up on the Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 240 US 1 (1916) case. thanks

fusionhalo —Preceding unsigned comment added by FusionHalo (talk • contribs) 04:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Dear new user: The Brushaber case has been analyzed to death here in Wikipedia. The Court in that case upheld the federal income tax. The statement that the Internal Revenue Code has no basis in law is called "tax protester rhetoric. It's frivolous nonsense, and I mean legally frivolous. Presenting that argument on a U.S. federal income tax return may now cost you up to $5,000 a pop. Presenting that argument in a court of law may cost you up to $25,000 in fines. Famspear (talk) 03:33, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Back to the fearmongering tactics used by the IRS. All I ask is for you to present to me a law that says I have to abide by that Internal Revenue Code. Am I allowed to make my own Internal Revenue Code? How does that work?-FusionHalo

US Code is not IRS code or any other agency code, it is US *LAW*, as authorized by Congress. Congress passes law, including tax percentages at income ranges, which are then codified into US Code. The ONLY argument made so far that is true is the half-truth in "IRS does not assign liability", they expect the taxpayer to report their liability. The rest of the argument is specious, as some appear to wish to reject the law in favor of their own wishes. Criminals do that as well, committing crimes thinking that they are entitled to violate the law. FusionHalo, go ahead and write your own code. Write one that legalizes murder as well, it'll not BE THE LAW OF THE LAND, as the CONGRESS did not pass into law whatever you write, hence your code will have no force of law.Wzrd1 (talk) 19:11, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

Tax protester arguments → Tax protester arguments in the United States This article deals almost exclusively about this phenomenon in the United States. Please discuss at Talk:Tax protester#Requested move. —  AjaxSmack  06:27, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Article Needs Correct Title

Tax Protester Arguments is NNPOV. The individuals who dare to stand up against the legal cult are tax freedom advocates. They're not protesting. They're standing up against a system of slavery that was instituted to replace the previous institution of slavery in this nation. They're not doing this by "protesting." They're doing this by refusing to participate in the "voluntary" gift of their legitimate property to an abusive state. 206.124.31.24 18:51, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Dear user at IP 206.124.31.24: The purpose of this talk page is for discussion of ways to improve the related article. The term "tax protester" is a legal term; it's use here is not "non-neutral point of view." Although term "tax protester" has negative connotations in the minds of some people, its use in the context of an encyclopedia article about tax protesters is both neutral and proper.

I understand that you feel there is injustice with respect to what you call the "cult," the tax system, the "abusive state," and so on. Wikipedia, however, is not properly used as a cyberspace soapbox for airing your grievances. The internet is a big "place." Please consider looking for an appropriate forum for airing your grievances. Yours, Famspear 19:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Of course it's a legal term. That's because your legal cult--backed by the same folks who think slavery is okay--thinks it is legitimate. The point was not that the title has a negative connotation. The point was that it's incorrect. These people are not protesters. These people are people who have been punished for keeping their property. As for your "soapbox" crack--were it not for your use of it as a soapbox and a media outlet for your cult, comment would not be necessary. Further, there was a call to action which you dismissed as a "grievance." It was not. 206.124.31.24 19:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not even sure what to say to that. This is an Encyclopedia. Would you expect to open Britannica and find "tax freedom advocates" as the primary title for such content? WP:TITLE discusses the manual of style for naming articles.

Article naming should prefer to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

This is justified by the following principle:

Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists.

I'm sorry but "tax freedom advocates" or a similar title is not what the general audience would most easily recognize for the topic content. While you don't consider these activities as tax protesting, the general audience does. Morphh ^(talk) 19:56, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Why assume the general audience is illiterate?206.124.31.24 03:52, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Dear IP 206.124.31.24: We don't need to assume, and we do not assume, that the general audience is "illiterate." Indeed, with respect to tax law and tax protesters, a literate, well-read audience is more likely to be aware that "tax protester" is a legal term. A literate audience will also realize that "tax freedom advocates" is simply a term dreamed up by a tax protester somewhere to try to avoid the use of the "tax protester" term. The problem for tax protesters is that this tactic wouldn't get them anywhere. If everyone started saying "tax freedom advocates," then eventually that term would acquire the same negative connotations that now adhere to the term "tax protester" -- which itself originally did not have negative connotations. As long as tax protesters do the things they do and say the things they say, they will continue to cause people to look at tax protesters in negative ways that result in negative connotations for the term "tax protester." And the reason it's a legal term is not that a "legal cult--backed by the same folks who think slavery is okay--thinks it is legitimate". Sorry, but the inclusion of accurate material in encyclopedia articles about legal matters does not convert Wikipedia into a "soapbox" or "media outlet" for the legal profession. Verifiability, Neutral Point of View, and No Original Research. Yours, Famspear 19:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I changed the title of the article to reflect the fact that these arguments are made not only by tax protesters, but also by tax resisters and people who pay taxes despite a refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the judiciary. There may even be more of these sorts of arguments made these groups than by tax protesters. Mpublius 17:21, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Dear Mpublius: We have been through this over and over. If an individual makes the arguments described in the article, that person is a "tax protester" -- by definition. For example, a "refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the judiciary" is, in the context of Federal income tax matters, an example of a very typical tax protester position. We have had many tax protesters post right here, in the talk pages of Wikipedia, statements to the effect that they do not recognize the legal authority of courts of law, complete with angry, blanket charges that the Federal judiciary is corrupt. (Incidentally, a refusal "to recognize the legitimacy of the judiciary" is a legally frivolous position, regardless of whether the refusal occurs in a tax dispute, a contract dispute, a property dispute, or any other kind of dispute.) The arguments described in this article are, by definition, tax protester arguments. They are well documented. Trying to recharacterize tax protesters -- as "tax resisters," or as "people who pay taxes despite a refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the judiciary," to avoid the term "tax protester" and to avoid the negative connotation that the term has acquired by virtue of these bizarre kinds of arguments -- gets you nowhere.

Your distaste for the use of the legal term "tax protester", and your repeated attempts to remove the term, are well documented in various articles and talk pages here in Wikipedia. As has been documented for you over and over, "tax protester" is a legal term. In response to your specific objections, we have even added documentation to a Wikipedia article showing how the use of the term has developed in our legal system over the years.

Yes, the term "tax protester" does indeed have certain negative connotations when used to refer to people who make legally frivolous arguments about the validity or application of Federal income tax laws. No, other Wikipedia editors are not going to agree to delete this term because of your personal beliefs or the excuses you have provided. And trying to delete the use of the term in Wikipedia would not change the fact that "tax protester" is a legal term that will continue to be used in courts of law -- whether you like it or not.

I respectfully suggest that you abandon your POV pushing on the whole subject of the use of the term "tax protester" in Wikipedia. Generally, you should not change the title of a Wikipedia article for the reason you gave, especially where consensus is clearly against your position. You have been unsuccessful in your efforts to persuade other editors that Wikipedia should avoid the use of this term. Yours, Famspear 18:55, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

More rhetoric moved from article

The following material has been moved from the article to this talk page:

More recently, data mining of the Internal Revenue Code and Code of Federal Regulations shows that claims of misapplication have merit. The data mining process can produce a list of taxable income which only lists foreign earned income as taxable, or income that is not exempt. (see What is taxed)

First, Wikipedia cannot take the position that "claims of misapplication have merit." We need neutral point of view here. Second, the reference to "lists of foreign income" is a reference to the "861 argument," which has been uniformly ruled by the courts to have no legal merit, and which is already addressed in the article on Tax protester statutory arguments. Third, this verbiage is unverified, unsourced. Yours, Famspear 22:58, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

POV material moved from article

The following material, which was inserted at the end of a quotation in the article, is being moved here:

Watch "America: Freedom to Fascism" for the TRUTH, not propaganda, regarding the Unconstitutional and Illegal Income Tax Fraud being perpetrated by the Federal Reserve and the American government.

This language is non-neutral point of view. Also, the article itself already contains at least one link related America: Freedom to Fascism. See the bottom of the article. Yours, Famspear 21:14, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, I see that editor Morphh reverted the material. Yours, Famspear 21:16, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Conspiracy theorists

An anonymous user deleted the reference to the fact that some conspiracy theorists promote tax protester arguments, on the ground that the reference was "irrelevant." I re-inserted the reference.

I'm not following the logic of the deletion. Irrelevant in what sense?

Some individuals who are "conspiracy theorists" do indeed push tax protester arguments. Not only that, but these people basically argue that the imposition of Federal income taxes in the United States is an illicit, malevolent "conspiracy" that has continued for over ninety years -- even specifically using the word "conspiracy." For example, see Irwin Schiff, one of the most prominent of tax protesters. If you read lots of tax protester literature, you may find that the putative "conspiracy" aspect is a very important focus for many (not necessarily all) people who push tax protester arguments.

I don't have a strong sense that the reference to the "conspiracy theorists" absolutely has to be in the article -- I just don't see the logic of deleting it on the grounds of relevancy. Any thoughts, anyone? Yours, Famspear 22:17, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Post-script: See also Tax protester conspiracy arguments. Yours, Famspear 22:18, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Post-post script: Perhaps what the anonymous user was implying was that "conspiracy" theorist is relevant only in the later section that specifically talks about conspiracy (??). If that's the case, then I think the proper argument would be not that the mention of conspiracy theorists in the earlier section is "irrelevant" -- but instead that the mention is "tangential" or "immaterial". On that basis, I guess I would not have a strong objection to removing the reference from the earlier section, as the anonymous user did. Yours, Famspear 22:29, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Apologies for not signing in before editing. I see no need to subjectively identify particular groups beyond the definition of "tax protester", of those people who can be attributed to the claims in this category. The inclusion of many other groups could be, but are not posited in this article. I do agree however, the proper argument would be that this inclusion is moreso immaterial or tangential than irrelevant. A conspiracy theorist may or may not agree with this section, and the mere addition of this language is distracting to the reader. Avery 22:49, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Dear editor Averykins/Avery: OK, and based on our discussion, I have reverted the article back to your version. Thanks, Famspear 23:38, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced verbiage

A new user changed the introduction to read as follows:

Tax protester arguments, more accurately called tax honesty arguments, are a number of theories that deny that an individual is made liable by the law, as written, to file a return or pay an income tax. Invariably, the federal government is unable to prove any such liability nor do they even make an attempt to do so. Tax honesty arguments are typically based on asserted beliefs that the government is administering the tax law outside the limits of the black-letter law and the original intent of the nation's Founding Fathers.

I reverted the material for the obvious reasons. No sourcing, lacks neutral point of view. Also, the statement that "[i]nvariably, the federal government is unable to prove any such [Federal income tax] liability nor do they [the government] even make an attempt to do so" is blatantly and hilariously false. After many years of reported tax protester cases, not one single tax protester theory has ever been upheld by a single Federal court.

As clearly documented in the various Wikipedia articles on tax protester arguments, no one ever even brought a tax protester argument to court in a reported case until after World War II, over 150 years after the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, over 80 years after the first Federal income tax in the 1860s, and over 30 years after the inception of the modern income tax in 1913. Tax protester cases did not really start in earnest until 1975, which was 186 years after the Constitution was ratified -- and 62 years after the enactment of the modern income tax in 1913. Famspear 20:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

And, by the way, all those tax protesters who refused to pay their taxes were held liable for their unpaid taxes and were required to pay them—plus penalties and interest. — Mateo SA (talk | contribs) 22:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

And, as far as the hilarious statement that "[i]nvariably, the federal government is unable to prove any such [Federal income tax] liability nor do they [the government] even make an attempt to do so" -- tell that to the members of all the juries who convicted the following present and former jail birds: Irwin Schiff, Charles Thomas Clayton, Bonita Lynne Meredith, Wayne Bentson, Richard Simkanin, William J. Benson, Robert Clarkson, Larken Rose, Kent Hovind, and on and on. I guess the members of all the juries in those cases just figured the government never "proved", and never made an "attempt" to prove, any Federal tax liability against all those defendants in all those cases -- but the juries just decided to send all those people to prison anyway. Famspear 23:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Tax protester/Request for comment

A request for comment has been opened on the general topic of tax protester theories, and whether the articles that address them are NPOV. bd2412 T 18:06, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The role of the judicial system section

Can someone please tell me how this section does not violate the copyright policy? The entire section contains a big copy paste of copyrighted text and nothing else. How is this not a violation of copyright? I would prefer to discuss this first before taking any action.JS747 (talk) 21:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear user JS747: Under U.S. copyright law, it is perfectly legal to reproduce sections of copyrighted text under the Fair Use Doctrine, as was done here with material that is simply a quotation from Mr. Evans' copyrighted work. Why did you think that merely quoting an excerpt would violate "copyright policy"?

By the way, I believe editor BD2412 has particular expertise in copyright law. Famspear (talk) 22:00, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I was not refering to US copyright law. Some of the reasons why I questioned this are as follows. I was referring to the copyright policies and guidelines of wikipedia which state in part:

Contributors' rights and obligations

If you contribute material to Wikipedia, you thereby license it to the public under the GFDL (with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts). In order to contribute, you must be in a position to grant this license, which means that either

1.you hold the copyright to the material, for instance because you produced it yourself, or

2.you acquired the material from a source that allows the licensing under GFDL, for instance because the material is in the public domain or is itself published under GFDL.''

In the first case, you retain copyright to your materials. You can later republish and relicense them in any way you like. However, you can never retract the GFDL license for the copies of materials that you place here; these copies will remain under GFDL until they enter the public domain.

In the second case, if you incorporate external GFDL materials, as a requirement of the GFDL, you need to acknowledge the authorship and provide a link back to the network location of the original copy.

It appears to me the this contribution does not meet either of these criteria.

If you use part of a copyrighted work under "fair use", or if you obtain special permission to use a copyrighted work from the copyright holder under the terms of our license, you must make a note of that fact (along with names and dates).

The contribution appears to fail to meet this criteria above as well.

What about fair use?

Under guidelines for non-free content, brief selections of copyrighted text may be used, but only with full attribution and only when the purpose is to comment on or criticize the text quoted

It also appears to fail to meet this criteria as well.

Acceptable use

Text

Brief quotations of copyrighted text may be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea. Copyrighted text must be attributed and used verbatim. Any alterations must be clearly marked, i.e. [brackets] for added text, an ellipsis (...) for removed text, and emphasis noted after the quotation as "(emphasis added)" or "(emphasis in the original)". Extensive quotation of copyrighted text is prohibited.

It also appears to violate this criteria

Unacceptable use

Text

1. Unattributed pieces of text from a copyrighted source.

2. Excessively long copyrighted excerpts.

3. An image of a newspaper article or other publication that contains long legible sections of copyrighted text. If the text is important as a source or quotation, it should be worked into the article in text form with the article cited as a source.

4. All copyrighted text poses legal problems when making spoken word audio files from Wikipedia articles, and should be avoided in such files, because the resulting audio file cannot be licensed under the GFDL.

And this one too. There were a couple of others as well but I'm having trouble finding them and I have to go out right now. I'll get back to them later.JS747 (talk) 00:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually there's an easy answer to the above concern. It happens that I personally asked Dan Evans if I could copy liberally from his FAQ, and he expressly authorized me to do so (so long as he was cited as author of the quoted content). I can probably dig up the email from Evans authorizing this use. bd2412 T 01:03, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

There is an easy answer to address one of the above concerns. Cite the permission in the proper manner as defined by wikipedia standards. However, this alone does nothing to address any of the other concerns.JS747 (talk) 07:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm the author of the quoted material in question, and I have no objection to its inclusion, but I question whether it is appropriate, for at least two reasons. First, the quoted material seems to be stylistically wrong, because it is providing an explanation instead of supporting an explanation. An encyclopedia should not be a series of quotations from other sources, but should represent a synthesis of sources. Second, the issue of the role and meaning of court decisions should really be addressed in a broader jurisprudential context, to which this article should refer, rather than creating a second (and perhaps redundant) explanation of what is meant by "law." Evansdb (talk) 13:27, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear Dan: On your first point, my sense is that in Wikipedia, your material as a secondary source (a Wikipedia term roughly analogous to "secondary authority," as opposed to "primary authority" in legal research) is actually to be preferred over what Wikipedia calls "primary sources") as providing the explanation -- with the primary sources being used to support the explanation. In effect, the Wikipedia concept turns the rule that we as lawyers are used to dealing with on its head. Whereas in law, the Primary Authority is preferred over Secondary Authority, in Wikipedia the Secondary Source is in some sense preferred over the Primary Source.

Parenthetically, I would point out that I don't particularly like this Wikipedia concept much myself, as the concept is difficult to implement in law-related articles -- where Primary Authorities (Wikipedia primary sources) are sometimes more readily available than Secondary Authorities (Wikipedia secondary sources). There does, however, seem to be a Wikipedia bias in favor of secondary sources as the main support for article material -- as a way of curbing the tendency of Wikipedia editors to engage in unwanted "original research."

I would like to address your second point as well - hopefully I can get to it this weekend.

In the meantime, any improvements to this article that you believe are needed based on your comments, or other changes based on any other concerns you may have, or any suggestions you may have, would be heartily appreciated. Thanks - and thank you for all the research you have done on tax protesters over the years. Yours, Famspear (talk) 16:13, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I deleted this section until it can be brought into compliance with wikipedia guidelines I stated above. I have no problem having this information itself included. The format by which it was included it what I have a problem with. 100% of the section was a literal copy-paste from another website. That alone is a violation of WP standards JS747 (talk) 14:31, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I'll work on redrafting the section from multiple sources. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:44, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Tax protester/Request for comment reminder

Just a reminder that I have proposed to call for a conclusion to this discussion on tax protester rhetoric on February 6. If anyone has anything more to add to the discussion, speak now! bd2412 T 16:57, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Peer-review notice

I think we're close to submitting Tax protester constitutional arguments for Featured Article status. Please help in the peer-review of this article to get it ready for submission. Thanks Morphh ^(talk) 19:24, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Tax protestor/tax resister?

Shouldn't there be a note that the USDOJ has begun to refer to those who do not believe there is a legal requirement to pay income tax as tax resisters, as "protesters" seem to imply they have a legal right to not pay taxes (something like that, anyway)? I'm not saying it warrants a page-move, but... —Micahbrwn (talk) 21:04, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Dear Micahbrwn: I believe that term mentioned by the DOJ in the quote in the article is "tax defier".

Using the term "protester" definitely does not now imply, nor has it ever implied, that someone has a legal right not to pay taxes. I think the distinction that the DOJ is making is that, for departmental purposes, they're starting to use the term "tax defier" as a synonym for what the courts and the DOJ (and, until 1998, the IRS) have been calling "tax protesters" for over 30 years.

In making that departmental terminology change, there is no implication that the term "tax protester" will now somehow apply to someone who has a legal right not to pay taxes. Indeed, there is no legal right not to pay taxes in that sense. I don't think there is an implication that the courts will necessarily stop using the term "tax protester" in formal court decisions.

What DOJ is talking about is, I think, restricting the department's own use of the term "tax protester" to a person who is refusing to pay taxes he or she legally owes only as a means of expressing opposition to how tax dollars are spent, etc. Such a person is not making a frivolous argument that the tax law is something other than what it really is, or that the tax law does not exist, etc.

Unfortunately, there is no legal right to refuse to pay taxes as a means of expressing opposition to how those tax dollars are spent. In fact, as noted in this or another article, one of the very earliest cases where the term "tax protester" was used was one where the guy was protesting the Vietnam War (early 1970s). He was convicted, and his conviction was upheld on appeal. Even if your motives for "protest" are pure, you're still legally guilty if your conduct and mental state go beyond simple speech, etc., and you get into actually refusing to pay or refusing to file tax returns.

"Tax protester" is the generally used legal term -- and it has been used by the courts for over 30 years. "Tax defier" is not really even a "new" term -- just an alternative term.

In short, the only change at this point is a departmental one, within the DOJ. The DOJ is going to refer to "tax protesters" (as that term has usually been used by the courts) as being "tax defiers". Famspear (talk) 21:27, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

You're right, I was thinking of the term "tax defier". not "tax resister." Still, don't you think what you said above (somehow) should be included in the article somewhere? —Micahbrwn (talk) 02:34, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Failure to pay US federal tax: a criminal offense

Regarding a recent edit that was reverted: Yes, even willful failure to timely pay a U.S. federal tax is a separate federal criminal offense. It's a felony or misdemeanor, depending on the statute under which the offender is convicted: 26 USC 7202 (felony), or 26 USC 7203 (misdemeanor). There are very few prosecutions for this, though.

Willful failure to timely pay is a separate crime from (1) willful failure to timely file a return, (2) separate from willful filing of a false tax return, and (3) separate from attempted tax evasion (also known as simply "tax evasion"). Yours, Famspear (talk) 00:49, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

It's a fair point, but there's a big difference between "willful failure" and inability to pay. People who are genuinely unable to pay their taxes are neither prosecuted nor imprisoned. Refusal to pay is rarely prosecuted because the government can always file civil actions to seize assets, but more often, "refusal" involves fraud or concealment of assets. I'll reword it and try again. Simishag (talk) 05:40, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, section 2702 refers to people who "collect, account for, and pay over any tax." This refers to employers and merchants who act as tax collectors. It does not refer to individuals who are ultimately responsible for paying the tax. Simishag (talk) 05:51, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Dear Simishag: Here is the text as worded before you made your first edit to the article:

Some tax protesters argue that an income tax is enforced upon threat of imprisonment, and is akin to "government sanctioned extortion", in which a citizen is forced to give up a percentage of their income in exchange for not being put in prison.

Here is your first edit:

Strictly speaking, however, this argument is false, as failure to pay unpaid taxes is a civil matter rather than a criminal one. The government may seize assets, file liens, garnish wages and pursue other civil legal actions to satisfy the tax debt, but persons may not be jailed simply for failing to pay taxes. Instead, criminal charges arise from closely related actions, such as failing to file a tax return, filing a false tax return, concealing income or assets and certain other actions considered to be illegal tax evasion.

Thus, the distinction you made in your first edit was between failure to pay and various separate problems such as (1) failure to file a return, (2) filing a false return, (3) concealing income, etc. I’m arguing that the first edit was misleading; a reader might erroneously conclude, from the context of the three listed items, that “persons may not be jailed simply for failing to pay taxes.”

My point is that “simple failure to pay” is indeed a criminal offense – provided that the person failed to pay at all (or at least failed to pay by the deadline) and the failure was willful.

As you correctly recognized from reading my comments, you do also have the element of “willfulness” and the element of “timeliness” to consider. But that’s not the distinction your first edit was making – which was why I reverted it.

You recognized the distinction between section 7202 (such as willful failure to timely pay by people like employers withholding taxes) and section 7203 (such as willful failure to timely pay federal income tax by individual taxpayers). But the distinction between those two is not material to the problem I identified regarding the first edit. I made the reference to both code sections because both deal with criminal penalties for failure to pay (and in fact 7202 is more serious -- it's a felony).

I note that you have now changed the article to read as follows:

Some tax protesters argue that an income tax is enforced upon threat of imprisonment, and is akin to "government sanctioned extortion", in which a citizen is forced to give up a percentage of their income in exchange for not being put in prison. Strictly speaking, however, this argument is false. A genuine inability to pay taxes is not a crime (although "willful failure" to pay taxes is a crime), and for the most part, unpaid tax bills are settled through civil actions rather than in the criminal courts. The government may seize assets, file liens, garnish wages and pursue other civil legal actions to satisfy the tax debt, but persons may not be jailed simply for failing to pay taxes. Instead, criminal charges arise from closely related actions, such as failing to file a tax return, filing a false tax return, concealing income or assets and certain other actions considered to be illegal tax evasion.

I like your revised material better – although I would quibble about the reference to “this argument.” Here's why.

The tax protester argument is certainly false, as your text states – but not for the specific reason you are giving (at least the way I am thinking about it). Although genuine inability to pay is not in and of itself a crime, that’s not the reason the protester argument is false.

The fact that mere inability to pay is not a crime is not the fact that makes the tax protester’s argument false. (Also, the protesters are not arguing that “mere inability” to pay” is a crime.)

The reason the protester argument is false is that the protester argument irrationally attempts to equate an immoral (and illegal) act – namely extortion – with a legal act called governmental imposition of an income tax. The mere fact that taxation is by definition by force (which it is, of course) does not in and of itself make taxation illegal or immoral. Indeed, if the tax protesters were right, then virtually all criminal laws would be immoral, by definition.

Your thoughts? Famspear (talk) 19:15, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I see your point. The argument about morality is a value judgment so we can't really say that it's "false" for that reason. The legality seems clear in this case, but I think the various legal arguments have been covered above. Anyway, I don't really disagree with anything you've said here, but I think the original text before my edits was a bit misleading in 2 ways. First, the US does not imprison tax debtors solely for inability to pay, and second, most people who are charged for crimes for "not paying taxes" are in fact charged with other crimes. Simishag (talk) 21:33, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Foreign countries

I think there actually are some foreign analogs to the U.S. tax protester movement. In Australia, for example, it has been asserted that "the Australian constitution is invalid" based on rather sketchy interpretation of English common law and the various documents establishing Australian independence. The conclusion they reach is, of course, that all acts by the Australian parliament (including assessment of taxes, but also covering regulation of contracts and many other areas) are invalid. The argument is specifically made here that "the first Commonwealth Income Tax Act was passed in 1936 and amended in 1942 to take over all income tax from the States. By the time these tax laws were passed the Constitution had been null and void for 17 year and any domestic law dependent on it is "ultra vires" i.e. without legal force". bd2412 T 05:10, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Interesting! I have therefore deleted the applicable sentence in the article. Maybe we can fashion a way to refer, in the article itself, to this Australian example (????). Famspear (talk) 06:09, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to give it undue weight, though. I need to research and find out if this is a "lone nut" or a substantial movement. bd2412 T 06:13, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll hang back. Happy Holidays! Famspear (talk) 06:22, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've found a law review article by one Kenneth H. Ryesky posted as a .pdf here which states: "Interestingly enough, many of the same frivolous arguments used by tax protesters in the United States have been put to analogous use by tax protesters in other countries" and cites the following in a corresponding footnote:

Cf. e.g. O’Toole v. Commr., 84 T.C.M. (CCH) 471 (2002) (rejecting petitioner’s claim that the IRS assessment was invalid because it omitted the apostrophe in his name) with Commr. of Inland Revenue v. Boyton, 2001 NZDCR LEXIS 170, D.C. REG. 1126 (Dist. Ct. Upper Hutt, 2001) (rejecting defendant’s argument that the New Zealand Inland Revenue assessment was invalid because it spelled his name “Craig Gordon Boyton” instead of “Craig-Gordon: Boyton”(with hyphen and colon as indicated)); cf. e.g. Lister v. U.S., 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 20430 (9th Cir. 2003) (rejecting tax protester’s arguments that the Federal Income Tax is unconstitutional) with Matchett v. Dep. Commr. of Taxn., [2000] NSWSC 975, 2000 NSW LEXIS 350 (rejecting Australian tax protester’s arguments that the Australian Income Tax Act is unconstitutional); cf. e.g. Marsh v. Commr., 79 T.C.M. (CCH) 1327 (2000) (rejecting tax protester argument that native Hawaiians are not obligated to pay taxes), aff’d, 2002 U.S. App. LEXIS 1354 (9th Cir. 2002); Avery-Carter v. Commr., 66 T.C.M. (CCH) 1596 (1993) (same, African-American); Hill v. Commr., 70 T.C.M. (CCH) 13 (1995) (same, Native-American) with Kaihau v. New Zealand Inland Rev. Dept. [1990] 3 NZLR 344 (Highcourt, Auckland, 1990) (rejecting tax protester’s argument that he is exempt from New Zealand taxation because he is a Maori).

Hard to tell whether the foreign assertions are inspired by U.S. tax protester practices, or simply a matter of convergent evolution. bd2412 T 09:08, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Also, the last four cases cited bring to mind the question, do we have coverage of the "I am a member of X minority group, and therefore do not have to pay taxes because of past discrimination and/or lack of U.S. sovereignty of my group" type of argument? bd2412 T 18:33, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Supreme Court Case of 1916

I would like to know why the page was reverted from an edit I made regarding the 1916 Supreme Court Case of Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 240 US 1 (1916)?

Thanks

(still new to using wiki so maybe I'm missing something? Sorry if I'm not doing things right but I figure discussing is better than just undoing the revert)

fusionhalo —Preceding unsigned comment added by FusionHalo (talk • contribs) 04:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The error in the interpretation of Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad is well documented and is covered in that article. It is one of a number of discredited tax protester theories that is, I believe, also addressed in one of our articles. I'm sorry, but whoever told you that Brushaber stands for the proposition that we don't need to pay income tax is either a complete moron who knows nothing about the law, or a shyster who does know better and is trying to con you out of something. Listening to idiots like that will do you no better than listening to people who "interpret" the instructions on a lead paint can to believe that eating lead is healthy. The wrongness of these argument is so well-established that we had a community discussion on them resulting in a consensus that they be reverted on sight. bd2412 T 05:36, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

There was no interpretation involved by an individual, regarding the 16th amendment giving no new rights of taxation to congress was the Supreme Courts interpretation. A direct quote from the official transcript:

"The various propositions are so intermingled as to cause it to be difficult to classify them. We are of opinion, however, [240 U.S. 1, 11] that the confusion is not inherent, but rather arises from the conclusion that the 16th Amendment provides for a hitherto unknown power of taxation; that is, a power to levy an income tax which, although direct, should not be subject to the regulation of apportionment applicable to all other direct taxes. And the far-reaching effect of this erroneous assumption will be made clear by generalizing the many contentions advanced in argument to support it, as follows: (a) The Amendment authorizes only a particular character of direct tax without apportionment, and therefore if a tax is levied under its assumed authority which does not partake of the characteristics exacted by the Amendment, it is outside of the Amendment, and is void as a direct tax in the general constitutional sense because not apportioned. (b) As the Amendment authorizes a tax only upon incomes 'from whatever source derived,' the exclusion from taxation of some income of designated persons and classes is not authorized, and hence the constitutionality of the law must be tested by the general provisions of the Constitution as to taxation, and thus again the tax is void for want of apportionment. (c) As the right to tax 'incomes from whatever source derived' for which the Amendment provides must be considered as exacting intrinsic uniformity, therefore no tax comes under the authority of the Amendment not conforming to such standard, and hence all the provisions of the assailed statute must once more be tested solely under the general and pre-existing provisions of the Constitution, causing the statute again to be void in the absence of apportionment. (d) As the power conferred by the Amendment is new and prospective, the attempt in the statute to make its provisions retroactively apply is void because, so far as the retroactive period is concerned, it is governed by the pre-existing constitutional requirement as to apportionment." —Preceding unsigned comment added by FusionHalo (talk • contribs) 06:25, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

So your point is that the Sixteenth Amendment was unnecessary because Congress had the power to tax income before there was a Sixteenth Amendment. That is exactly what the Court says in Brushaber. bd2412 T 06:29, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

No my point is that the Amendment was unnecessary because it gave Congress no new powers to tax. It only ever had its previous powers of taxation granted to it from the constitution, which required taxes be uniform (of which the income tax is not).

After having read the article you gave me a link to... it is the article that was "interpreted" as per the authors design and agenda... there were no direct quotes in there whatsoever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FusionHalo (talk • contribs) 06:37, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Let me put it to you this way. Your argument is about whether Brushaber in some way shows that there is no power to tax non-uniform or unapportioned income. If the Supreme Court in fact said in Brubasher that non-uniform or unapportioned income could not be taxed, then Frank Brushaber, whose income was undisputedly unapportioned and the taxation of which non-uniform, should not have been required to pay the income tax assessed by the government. Here is the actual text of the decision. Did the Supreme Court require Brushaber to pay the income tax assessed or not? bd2412 T 06:45, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Dear FusionHalo: The statement that the Amendment was unnecessary "because it gave Congress no new powers to tax" is illogical. All Amendments have a purpose, and are "necessary" to achieve that purpose. The purpose of the Amendment was, as everyone who studies tax law knows, to overrule the effect of the Pollock decision. And, from a legal standpoint, the Amendment was "necessary" if that purpose was to be achieved (unless the Supreme Court itself were to reverse Pollock). That's the way it works. Famspear (talk) 14:01, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

FusionHalo, as you quoted from the Brushaber decision, I thought you might appreciate this quote from that same decisions. I'll refrain from posting others, but the point is made several times.

"It is clear on the face of this text that it does not purport to confer power to levy income taxes in a generic sense,-an authority already possessed and never questioned, -or to limit and distinguish between one kind of income taxes and another, but that the whole purpose of the Amendment was to relieve all income taxes when imposed from apportionment from a consideration of the source whence the income was derived."

Sorry, but Burshaber does mean exactly what Famspear, BD2412 and others say. You can also get that from the Wikipedia article on the case, or from a multitude of other sources. Ravensfire2002 (talk) 21:35, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, FusionHalo, I think we're all in agreement that the Court meant exactly what the Court said in Brushaber, when the Court said that the Amendment gave Congress no new powers to tax. In order to best understand what that means, we need to state openly what many tax protesters infer from that language -- namely, the false assumption that the Congress somehow had no power to impose income taxes prior to the Amendment. It's easy to see the fallacy once you actually state it. For, as every scholar of U.S. federal income tax law knows, Congress has always had the power (since about 1789 or so) to impose income taxes of any kind. The purpose of the Amendment was instead to remove the requirement -- which had been imposed by the Supreme Court in 1895 -- to treat income taxes on dividends, interest, and royalties as "direct taxes" and as therefore taxes that were required to be apportioned. There was nothing in the 1895 decision (Pollock) that prohibited income taxes per se, but rather the Court had only required that legal analysts look to the SOURCE of the income that was being taxed. If the source was "property" (namely, property generating income in the form of dividends, interest or royalties), then the related income tax was required to be apportioned. If the source was anything else (such as compensation for services), then the related income tax was not required to be apportioned.

The Sixteenth Amendment simply did away with the "source" restriction (i.e., the apportionment restriction for taxes on dividends, interest and royalties) that had been imposed by the Court in Pollock, and provided that Congress could impose income taxes on all incomes from whatever source derived without having to apportion the tax.

For the tax protesters, much of the trouble with understanding Brushaber and the Amendment stems from these problems: (1) reading only the first part of the sentence ("Congress shall have power," etc.) and not really understanding the latter part of the sentence, about "source" and "apportionment" and "census" and "enumeration"; (2) not being aware that Congress has always had the power to tax incomes; (3) not being aware of the 1895 Pollock decision, and the fact that the apportionment restriction in Pollock applied only to income taxes on interest, dividends, and royalties; and (4) not realizing that the purpose of the Amendment was simply to overrule the Pollock decision, so that those kinds of taxes no longer had to be apportioned. In other words, the Amendment put us back to the rule that existed from 1789 to 1895: no income taxes were required to be apportioned.

It is the "Congress shall have power" language that confuses the scammers into (A) first thinking that the Amendment GRANTED the power to tax incomes to Congress, (B) then after discovering from the language of Brushaber that the Amendment did NOT grant that power, jumping to the incorrect conclusion that they are the first people to "discover" that the Amendment did NOT grant that power (when in reality legal scholars who study federal taxation have always known this); (C) not realizing they are making the false assumption that Congress must not have had that power prior to the Amendment, when in reality Congress ALWAYS had that power. The protesters then run around, all over the internet, proclaiming that they have "discovered" something that they believe is somehow "hidden" from the experts -- and they try to "teach" the rest of the world what they think they "know".

Indeed, the main reason the scammers began claiming that "the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified" was that they were simply anti-tax, and were looking for rationales to end the tax. The tax protesters incorrectly assumed that without the Amendment, the income tax would be ruled unconstitutional. So they created the stories and did the alleged "research" supposedly showing that the Amendment had not been ratified. See The Law that Never Was for some of the background on the scam. Had the scammers understood the constitutional process of ratifying amendments (which they obviously did not), and had they understood that doing away with the Amendment with a court ruling (65 or 70 years after the Amendment!!??!?), of all things -- even if that were remotely legally possible -- would not have made the federal income tax on compensation for personal services (such as wages, salaries, etc.) unconstitutional, maybe they wouldn't have wasted so much energy on fruitless, frivolous litigation. Or, maybe they would have wasted their time, anyway. Who knows?

Sadly, what the tax protesters got for their effort was years and years of federal courts repeatedly shooting them down, the effect of which was to create a huge body of legal precedent UPHOLDING the Amendment -- and thereby making the tax protesters' plight even worse. Indeed, for tax protesters, that is one of the problems with bringing legally frivolous arguments into court: the more you do it, the more you dig yourself deeper into the hole, as the legal precedents pile up against you. Famspear (talk) 05:54, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Alright guys thanks for all your feedback. I took the case to a private investigator who was a friend of my fathers'. He replied tonight after having read the Brushaber case. He's agreed with the fact that the case did grant Congress the right to tax without apportionment.

So now that its clear that Congress has the right to make such an Income Tax, does anyone know where I can find the law that makes it so? --FusionHalo 08:08, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

This is covered in Tax protester statutory arguments. bd2412 T 09:44, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

No judge has ever ruled that the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified.

I note that Paraplegicemu has asserted in a recent edit summary that "a judge in several cited cases has mentioned that it was not properly ratified" ("it" presumably being the Sixteenth Amendment). This is, of course, a rather ridiculous lie, ridiculous because it is so blatantly false that nobody could be expected to be taken seriously after uttering it. Whoever told Paraplegicemu this is either a scam artist successfully peddling lies to the gullible, or a moron incapable of reading a legal case properly. bd2412 T 05:23, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I have cited the actual court transcript of the comment made by Judge James C. Fox, here: [1] And is discussed ad nauseum here: http://webskeptic.wikidot.com/income-tax-james-c-fox http://www.ram-v-irs.com/blog_wp/irs/2009/sullivan-v-usa-and-the-16th-amendment/ http://www.libertyforlife.com/constitution/us-16th-failed-ratification.htm http://whatreallyhappened.com/content/sullivan-versus-uinited-states

Who the hell are you to call me a moron? I am neither of the things you assert me to be, and the fact that you are accusing me as such shows your narrow mindedness. It is obvious that this article is skewed to inherently make it seem like tax protester arguments are ludicrous, and that defeats the purpose of Wikipedia as a whole. The fact that you pay taxes and may be upset about the fact that the law used to justify it may not even be "properly ratified" as you so tastefully put it is the only reason you would react in this way. This is a wikipedia article about arguments which are reasons people assert they don't have to pay their taxes. You are the very thing that keeps wikipedia back and discourages people from making edits. I know your response will be something along the line of "I don't want you to make edits, so it is okay," but let it be known that a Circuit judge has made a comment in one of this decisions that the sixteenth amendment was NOT properly ratified in his research, and the fact that it has been around for such a long time and enforced so many times has made that a moot point because it is enforced as if it was really ratified, and the sources I referenced have mentioned that, and you most likely did not even read them. One of the sources even was against the "tax protester arguments," and I was trying to present two points of view that asserted the same thing. You, my friend, are the moron. I will continue to not pay my taxes and use public services that you are under the ruse your income taxes pay for. Paraplegicemu (talk) 05:44, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

On the specific source that Paraplegicemu cited, I found the comment that he made on page 23 at the top. This isn't a ruling in any sense by the judge. It's a comment. That's it. It's got absolutely no legal weight whatsoever. For that reason alone it goes against the RFC and does not belong in this article. A comment by one judge does not counter the ruling by many other judges. See the Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments article for the cases on this issue.

Paraplegicemu, that theory has been totally discredited by the courts. It's considered legally frivolous and will get any person trying to raise it as a defense against paying taxes fined by the courts. The arguement has been examined in court and dismissed.

Also, this is a general article, outlining the tax protesting in general and the types of theories used in tax protestor arguements. The sub articles go into more detail on specific theories, including the Sixteenth amendment claim. The article I linked to would probably be a better place for a discussion on this.

Based on the above, I will be removing the POV tag. Ravensfire (talk) 15:23, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Paraplegicemu, I didn't call you a moron, I specifically said that whoever told you that is either a scam artist a moron (which they are). Even granting that the judge said that (and by the way, the judge to whom the comment is attributed is a District judge, and not to a Circuit judge, as you ignorantly claim), it would carry no more legal weight than if that judge were to comment during a colloquy, "I think it's legal for an adult to have sex with a six-year old". By the way, you should be aware that you have just stated your own liability for a crime. If it happens that the IRS has people glancing at this page from time to time (and I'd be surprised if they do not), you should not be under any illusion that the WMF will protect your identity. bd2412 T 19:33, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your newfound concern, bd2412. I am legally exempt. On top of this, I have seen a figure that somewhere between 50-75 million people do not "voluntarily comply," and the current prison population at a conservative estimate is around 1 million. I will take my chances. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paraplegicemu (talk • contribs) 00:42, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

You have apparently "seen" quite a few things "somewhere." Unfortunately for you, neither the law, rational inquiry, nor Wikipedia work by reference to what you think you've seen somewhere. If you can't deal with that, go somewhere else. — Mateo SA (talk | contribs) 02:51, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Neither Judge Fox nor any other judge has ever ruled that the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified. Every single court that has decided the issue has rejected the argument that the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified. No exceptions. Famspear (talk) 03:11, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Are we giving too much coverage to fringe theories?

Forgive me if someone's asked this already, but: I see that we have, besides this article, five lengthy articles about the various arguments used by tax protesters in the United States. Has anyone considered that by covering these arguments in so much depth, we are effectively giving undue weight to fringe theories? As I understand it, no serious American lawyer disputes the fact that the federal government has the right to collect income taxes from its citizens; all these arguments are completely spurious and none have ever stood up in court. Why, then, do we need to give them so much attention? I fear that the sheer amount of information there is on Wikipedia about tax protester arguments may suggest to some readers that they have some kind of legal validity, and may even induce them to try using them themselves. Even if they are all spurious, are we being irresponsible by giving people the 'legal ammunition' they can use to fight the federal government? Robofish (talk) 12:06, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. As I've always understood WP:UNDUE, it's more about "points of view" than "inclusion worthiness" - and in determining whether to cover and what extent to cover fringe views and frivolous arguments with regards to taxation, I think we should turn to WP:Notability first and foremost. I feel like it's essentially a matter of fact that in discussing taxation, the irrational, paranoid, fringe views of taxation's legality and feasibility (including the downright frivolous arguments used by tax protesters) are extremely notable. Less common do people protest against tax protesters and debunk their arguments, because it's quite unnecessary to do so since their arguments fall by the wayside in courts anyway. So although the tax protester arguments are out on the fringe, they're rather notable in the discourse on taxation. So, I think the most appropriate approach to take is: represent all of these arguments to the fullest extent (because they are notable), but represent them from the point of view that they are indeed legally frivolous and colloquially unaccepted by the mainstream (so that we don't give less weight than is due to the mainstream view). John Shandy` • talk 16:51, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

This very subject has been discussed fairly recently in some depth, here: [2]. I agree with John Shandy'. Famspear (talk) 00:00, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Non-U.S. materials

I noticed that some non-U.S. material has been removed from the article. I really don't see why we couldn't include discussion of comparable behavior in other countries. bd2412 T 12:24, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

• The opening sentence of the article says: "Tax protester arguments are arguments made by people who contend that United States tax laws are unconstitutional or otherwise invalid." If you want to broaden the scope of the article, then you would have to re-write it a fair bit. As it stands, the sections I commented out don't fit. I have no objection to broadening the article, but am not willing to do it myself. Ground Zero | t 16:43, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
  • If this is not the place for it, then perhaps we need an article on tax protester arguments in Canada. By the way, the actual removed material seems to relate more to tax evasion than to tax protest. bd2412 T 16:50, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
    • There are tax protesters in Canada and other countries. This would seem to be the place for their arguments since the article is entitled "Tax protester arguments". If the article were renamed "Tax protester arguments in the United States", then limiting its scope would make sense. I think the Canadian cases cited had to do with tax protesters who were convicted of tax evasion. One man's tax protest is a taxman's tax evasion. Ground Zero | t 01:35, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
    • I see that this issue has been discussed above and at Talk:Tax protester too. Both articles are guilty of addressing only U.S. tax protesters, while tax protesters exist in other countries too. I'm just not interested enough in doing the research to expand the articles to include other countries. Ground Zero | t 01:39, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

I've been studying the topic of tax protesters for over 14 years (and I've been editing the tax protester articles in Wikipedia since late 2005, as my old friend editor BD2412 can verify), and it's still overwhelmingly a U.S. "phenomenon." This issue of what the articles should be titled and how much non-U.S. material should be in the articles been beaten to death in Wikipedia discussions over the years. The problem is that the "phenomenon" is still not really that notable in other countries -- not yet. It is growing in Canada. Over at quatloos dot com, we study tax protesters, and separate threads for other countries have developed in the past few months.

One thing I think that needs to stop is the repetitive changing of the title of the main article, from "Tax protester" to "Tax protester (United States)", then back to "Tax protester" -- and now someone is proposing to change the title back yet again, to make it U.S.-specific. I'm not sure what the answer should be, but my thought would be: Let's go slow, and think it through and develop some consensus. Famspear (talk) 03:00, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

I think the solution is to phrase it very much like that - this is primarily a U.S. phenomena, but a comparatively small number of cases involving these types of arguments have begun to occur in other countries (the Canadian article is an eye opener). bd2412 T 03:14, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree with not changing the article title, especially if the article has been subject of a number of title changes already. I don't agree with leaving it as a U.S.-only article if the phenomenon exists in other countries, even at a more modest scale. I propose to modify the introduction to broaden the discussion to "the United States and other countries", put the existing text under a "United States" heading, and then have a second heading for "Other countries", which for the time-being would have only one sub-section, i.e., "Canada". I would be willing to provide some text based on Canada Revenue Agency notices ([3] and [4]), the above-linked National Post article and other sources I might find, despite what I wrote earlier about not wanting to get involved. The Tax protester article would also need a similar adjustment. Comments? Ground Zero | t 04:35, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

I think the existing headings can work as they are, as they lay out fairly broad classes of arguments. The "constitutional" arguments are liable to be more U.S. based (although I gather that come tax protesters in other countries are beginning to cite their national constitutions as eliminating their need to pay), but statutory and conspiracy arguments (i.e., "prove Canada is a country") are ubiquitous. bd2412 T 12:18, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem I have with that is that every paragraph (except for the first two in the "Other arguments" section) refers to the U.S., or a U.S. organization or court proceeding. I don't think the existing text can be internationalized very easily. I think those headings would work well as sub-headings for the Canada and other country sections if there is enough material to warrant subheadings. I haven't started writing the Canada section, but intend to summarize the key points in a few paragraphs if possible, with reference to the Canadian constitution, Canadian court rulings and Canadian tax authorities. I think it would be easier to follow both the U.S. and Canada arguments if they were split out rather than mixed in, although there are indeed parallels. Ground Zero | t 12:51, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

"Tax protester"

The scope, topic, and naming of Tax protester is under discussion, see Talk:Tax protester -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 06:05, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Constitution Prohibits Arrogation of Federal Power

Constitutional Record points to a changing of the delegated power of "enumerated" "consensual" "apportioned" taxation (Article 1 Section 2 paragraph 3 and Section 9 paragraph 4) limited to collecting taxes under the [welfare clause] for two things only, [national debt] and [national defense] as defined in the [Virginia Ratifying Convention] 6-16-1788, and original [Constitution], into a unenumerated un-consensual taxation (Amendment 16) and is an arrogation of power; arrogating power beyond the scope of the very limited delegated powers is expressly prohibited in that Virginia Ratifying Convention 6-16-1788. [6]; Arrogating such powers, being outside the delegated powers, therefore cannot be ratified "by any means" as presented by [Edmund Pendleton] and others within the [Constitutional Conventions] of 1788. Review this limitation of powers also in the [Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions] 1789, also on Constitution.org — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:5B0:2940:9CE0:562:2FFC:37DD:5D76 (talk) 06:01, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

No. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution limits collecting taxes under the welfare clause to "national debt" and "national defense" matters. And the "constitution dot org" web site, while containing some legitimate material, also contains some tax protester nonsense. This talk page is not the proper place for posting this kind of stuff. Famspear (talk) 11:34, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Virginia Ratifying Convention 6-16-1788

Yes, there is.

Regarding the Welfare Clause and Limit of Power and Taxation to only TWO THINGS; Debt and Defense: — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:5B0:2940:A100:7C41:3E50:EA53:D2A7 (talk) 19:44, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

No. Go take a course on constitutional law. Famspear (talk) 01:14, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Here is the actual text:

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 [ . . . ]

You're reading it as though it were to say: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises in order to pay the Debts and in order to provide for the common Defence of the United States [ . . . ]" or: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises for the purpose of paying the Debts and for the purpose of providing for the common Defence of the United States [ . . . ] That is not what the actual text says, and that is not what the text means. Famspear (talk) 01:22, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

What the federal courts have ruled is that the Congress has the power to tax for the purposes (1) of paying debts, (2) of providing for defense, and (3) of promoting the general welfare. The Congress also has power under this provision to SPEND (to authorize the appropriation of funds from the Treasury and the spending of those funds) for the purposes (A) of paying debts, (B) of providing for defense, and (C) of promoting the general welfare. What the Congress does NOT have the power to do is to regulate for the purpose of promoting the general welfare. The regulatory powers of Congress are more limited, and are listed in more detail in Article I of the Constitution.

But, I digress. I am straying from the purpose of this talk page: to discuss ways to improve this article. If you want to continue this discussion, feel free to post at my talk page. Famspear (talk) 02:31, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 7 August 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No move. While there was no consensus to move the main Tax protester article to a US-specific title, it seems there's consensus *against* moving this article at present. Future developments here as regards the name will probably depend on what happens with Tax protester. Cúchullain ^t/c 13:51, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

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Tax protester arguments → United States tax protester arguments – tax protesters are not solely a U.S. phenomenon. This article, by its very intro, is rstricted to the U.S.; taxation arguments are necessarily different due to different laws and heritage in different places in the world. The current title fails WP:AT in not properly describing the scope and content of the article; it is not wP:PRECISE enough. There is WP:SYSTEMATICBIAS in assuming that the world is the United States. -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 05:58, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support I am the nominator -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 05:58, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. It is primarily a US phenomenon, but it is (IMO, unfortunately) growing in other countries. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:06, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose per Arthur Rubin. bd2412 T 19:19, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

• Support. The article is only about the U.S. Tax protester arguments will be different in other countries because of different laws, constitutions and jurisprudence. It would be better to keep this about the U.S., and allow articles about other countries to be created, rather than try to load every argument in every country into one article. Ground Zero | t 19:28, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Can you provide an example of a significant tax protester argument from a country other than the U.S., that hinges on a different law or jurisprudence? bd2412 T 20:12, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
    • Links provided in the discussion below. Ground Zero | t 10:30, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose, as per Arthur Rubin and BD2412. As of yet, this is overwhelmingly a U.S. phenomenon. That might change some day, but as of now I see no compelling reason to make any change. Famspear (talk) 20:47, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

• Support per nom as reflecting the current scope of the article. As an aside, I prefer the phrasing "Tax protester arguments in the United States" but am fine with the proposal as worded for now. —  AjaxSmack  01:58, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. The fact is "tax protester" is an American concept. If such a thing existed outside the U.S., the content would be in this article already. Calidum T|C 04:18, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
• Support rename to Tax protester arguments in the United States per AjaxSmack. I do not know how prevalent tax protesters are in other English-speaking countries but this article presents arguments based on the United States Constitution and other American-centric concepts that would be irrelevant in Canada, the United Kingdom, etch. The title has to reflect the content. Dimadick (talk) 05:36, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

It appears to be true that "tax protestor arguments" started in the US, but the change would leave nowhere to discuss Canadians using US Constitutional arguments. Furthermore, some of the arguments "based" on common law are as relevant to Canada and to the UK as they are to the US (that is, not at all). — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:42, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Then we would need to sift through and identify which arguments are valid for Canada and other countries and which are not. I think it would be easier to follow a separate article that lists only the arguments that are relevant to Canada, and include those that are unique to Canada, along with jurisprudence, etc. Incorporating all of that into this article, and then adding in other countries would make this article a juggernaut. Tax protester arguments in Canada could be discussed in Taxation in Canada, Income taxes in Canada, or a new article. Ground Zero | t 20:01, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Again, what you would end up with are teeny-tiny articles on the "tax protester" phenomenon in countries other than the United States. To give you an idea of the imbalance, here is a link to the Tax Protester FAQ by attorney Daniel B. Evans: [5]. Try creating a PDF of that web page. It runs to hundreds of pages.

And, check out the massive number of tax protester articles in Wikipedia:

Tax protester

Tax protester arguments

Tax protester constitutional arguments

Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments

Tax protester statutory arguments

Tax protester administrative arguments

Tax protester conspiracy arguments

Tax protester history in the United States

Tax protester 861 argument

Cheek v. United States

Arthur Porth

The Law that Never Was (William J. Benson)

Joe Banister

Wayne Bentson

Edward and Elaine Brown

Anson Chi (subject is a tax protester, but that's not the primary thrust of the article)

Robert Clarkson

Tom Cryer

Arthur Farnsworth

Kent Hovind (not exclusively about tax protesting)

Embassy of Heaven (not exclusively about tax protesting)

Gordon Kahl

Eddie Ray Kahn

Vivien Kellems

Glenn Unger

Aaron Russo

America: Freedom to Fascism

Irwin Schiff

Robert L. Schulz and We the People Foundation

Richard Michael Simkanin

This is virtually exclusively a USA-phenomenon, at least as far as has been documented. Some day, perhaps articles for Canada or the United Kingdom might be justified, but I don't think we're there yet. Good luck finding anything close to this volume of material with respect to non-USA countries. Famspear (talk) 21:27, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

By the way: In the period from about 2005 to about 2007 or so, Wikipedia tax related articles were being assaulted by tax protesters. The tax protesters were trying to insert frivolous, unsourced nonsense into tax related articles such as Income tax -- trying to use Wikipedia as a soapbox. Because of the fringe and crank nature of their posts, the material was being moved by experienced editors to a single article called "Tax protester," and balance was added to clarify that the tax protester theories are not mainstream. Eventually, that article became too large, resulting in the arrangement you see here. I'm sure that veteran editors BD2412 and Arthur Rubin remember those days. Famspear (talk) 21:43, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

And, legal commentator Daniel B. Evans has a web site called "Tax Protester Dossiers" (to which I also contribute from time to time): [6]. Again, if you peruse that site, you will see that it is 99% or even 100% about a "USA" phenomenon. As of yet, there just isn't much that would document the existence of a similar phenomenon outside the USA.

Full disclosure: I have been studying the tax protester phenomenon almost every day for about sixteen years. Yes, I know, I know. I need to get a life! Famspear (talk) 21:49, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

"This is virtually exclusively a USA-phenomenon..." This is true but the term "tax protester" is a sufficiently vague/generic descriptive that the country should be included in the title to define the scope of the article. Wikipedia has many articles limited by country (e.g. with "XXX in the United States") that have no parent article (e.g., Professional and working class conflict in the United States, Cousin marriage court cases in the United States). —  AjaxSmack  01:58, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

The name changing has gone back and forth so many times over the past nine years or so that I have lost track. If we were to change the titles of some or all of the tax protester articles to include the words "United States," then based on past history, someone is going to come along -- in a year or two or three -- and just start a new discussion on why the titles need to be changed back. I would argue that there is really no net benefit to this. Famspear (talk) 02:32, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

A consensus registered here would allow for a quick reversion of such a move per WP:RMUM. —  AjaxSmack  02:38, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

"This is virtually exclusively a USA-phenomenon..." -- No, it isn't. The "freeman" or "detax" movement exists in Canada, and has received some mainstream media coverage: CBC National Post Times-Colonist The British Columbia Law Society has issued "practice tips here. Here is the main "detax" site. It is enough of a problem that the Canada Revenue Agency has issued a warning about tax protester schemes here. Ground Zero | t 16:44, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Nevertheless, the degree to which this phenomenon primarily occurs in the United States would make it WP:UNDUE to move the current article in favor of a stub on its occurrence in a handful of other places. bd2412 T 17:15, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Dear AjaxSmack: No, you are citing a Canadian exception. I'm well aware of the exceptions. I didn't say it was exclusively a USA-phenomenon. I said it was virtually exclusively a USA-phenomenon, which is a correct statement. I've been following this on almost a daily basis for over 16 years. If the occurrences in Canada and the UK grow to a certain level, then it won't be virtually exclusively a USA-phenomenon any more. Famspear (talk) 20:10, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.