Income Tax in the US..READ THIS!!?

Question

Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, an amendment proposed by Congress must be ratified by three-fourths of the states to become part of the Constitution. The Law That Never Was: The fraud of the 16th Amendment and personal income tax is a 1985 book by William J. Benson and Martin J. "Red" Beckman which claims that the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution — commonly known as the income tax amendment — was never properly ratified. Benson further claimed to have found documents suggesting that some states that had been certified as having ratified the Amendment never voted to ratify it, or voted against ratification. Benson claimed that no states, or only a few states (variously reported as two states or four states), had properly ratified the Amendment.

I know people who refuse to pay tax anymore because of this...research this a bit and let me know what you think

Answer 1

This has been refuted by many people and courts in the past.

Bill Benson claimed he spent a year researching the ratification of the 16th amendment. It took me all of five minutes to find that he misinterpreted the Tennessee Constitution as it was in 1909. The Tennessee State Constitution stated that the Tennessee legislature must wait until the next election of state legislatures for changes to the STATE CONSTITUTION. It says nothing waiting about proposed amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Most of his other arguments are concerning spelling, capitalization, wording and punctuational errors. Many earlier amendments, including the 14th amendment and many of the Bill of Rights, had the same types of errors. Those are considered ratified and are not challenged.

The following court case explains it best. In U.S. v. Thomas, 788 F.2d 1250 (7th Cir. 1986), cert. den. 107 S.Ct. 187 (1986), the court said,
[BEGIN QUOTE]
"Benson and Beckman did not discover anything; they rediscovered something that Secretary Knox considered in 1913. Thirty-eight states ratified the sixteenth amendment, and thirty-seven sent formal instruments of ratification to the Secretary of State...the Supreme Court follows the “enrolled bill rule.” If a legislative document is authenticated in regular form by the appropriate officials, the court treats that document as properly adopted. Field v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649, 36 L.Ed. 294, 12 S.Ct. 495 (1892). The principle is equally applicable to constitutional amendments. See Leser v. Garnett, 258 U.S. 130, 66 L.Ed. 505, 42 S.Ct. 217 (1922), which treats as conclusive the declaration of the Secretary of State that the nineteenth amendment had been adopted. In United States v. Foster, 789 F.2d. 457, 462-463, n.6 (7th Cir. 1986), we relied on Leser, as well as the inconsequential nature of the objections in the face of the 73-year acceptance of the effectiveness of the sixteenth amendment, to reject a claim similar to Thomas’. See also Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433, 83 L. Ed. 1385, 59 S. Ct. 972 (1939) (questions about ratification of amendments may be nonjusticiable). Secretary Knox declared that enough states had ratified the sixteenth amendment. The Secretary’ decision is not transparently defective. We need not decide when, if ever, such a decision may be reviewed in order to know that Secretary Knox’ decision is now beyond review."
[END QUOTE]

Additionally, an income tax (a tax on wages earned) has always been Constitutional. In Springer v. U.S., 102 U.S. 586 (1880), Springer argued that the Income Tax Acts during the Civil War were a direct tax that had to be apportioned and therefore unconstitutional. The court found that the income tax was a constitutional “duty or excise” and not a “direct tax.”.

In Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916), the court stated, “Nothing could serve to make this clearer than to recall that in the Pollock Case, in so far as the law taxed incomes from other classes of property than real estate and invested personal property, that is, income from ‘professions, trades, employments, or vocations,’ (158 U.S. 637), its validity was recognized; indeed it was expressly declared that no dispute was made upon that subject, and attention was called to the fact that taxes on such income had been sustained as excise taxes in the past. Id. p. 635.”

In Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co., 240 U.S. 103 (1916), the court stated, “the 16th Amendment conferred no new power of taxation, but simply prohibited the previous complete and plenary power of income taxation possessed by Congress from the beginning from being taken out of the category of indirect taxation to which it inherently belonged, and being placed [240 U.S. 103, 113] in the category of direct taxation subject to apportionment by a consideration of the sources from which the income was derived,-that is, by testing the tax not by what it was, a tax on income, but by a mistaken theory deduced from the origin or source of the income taxed”

Finally, the 16th amendment was passed in 1909 and ratified in February 1913. The Federal Reserve Act wasn’t passed until December 23, 1913. Last time I checked, 1909 occurred before 1913 and February is earlier in the year than December. Regardless, both the Federal Reserve and IRS operate in accordance to laws passed by Congress. The Federal Reserve isn't some evil private corporation either. It is setup similar to a private company, but is controlled by a PUBLICALLY APPOINTED Board of Governors. Each member of the Board of Governors is appointed by the President and approved by the Senate. The Federal Reserve Banks aren't "owned" by private individuals or banks. Member banks ARE REQUIRED to subscribe to shares in their district bank and the amount of the subscription is set to a percentage of their capital. Excess earnings of the Federal Reserve is returned to the U.S. Treasury. This can clearly be seen in the INDEPENDENTLY AUDITED financial statements of the Federal Reserve Banks.
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/rptcongress/annual06/pdf/audits.pdf

Links to reference cases -
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=102&invol=586
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=157&invol=429
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=158&invol=601
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=240&invol=1
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=240&invol=103

Website refuting many tax protestor arguments -
http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html

Answer 2

Willian Benson, author of the book, is not a credible source.

Mr. Benson himself was convicted of tax evasion and willfil failure to file tax returns. His defense included the research from his book. The court rejected his argument:

From the court records (BEGIN QUOTE)

Benson argues that he did not need to file tax returns or pay income taxes because the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified. ...

As the district court noted, we have repeatedly rejected the claim that the Sixteenth Amendment was improperly ratified. [ . . . ] One would think this repeated rejection of Benson's Sixteenth Amendment argument would put the matter to rest. [ . . . ] we specifically examined the arguments made in The Law That Never Was, and concluded that "Benson . . . did not discover anything." We concluded that Secretary Knox's declaration that sufficient states had ratified the Sixteenth Amendment was conclusive, and that "Secretary Knox's decision is now beyond review." [ . . . ]

(End Quote)

The book argues that many of the state ratifications didn't count for reasons like Illinois misspelled the law when they ratified it and that Ohio really wasn't a state at the time. These arguments, however creative and novel, have never been successful argued in court as a basis for not paying taxes.

for more info, check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_protester_constitutional_arguments#Sixteenth_Amendment_ratification_arguments

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_127.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Law_that_Never_Was

http://www.answers.com/topic/the-law-that-never-was

Answer 3

Indeed. The Income Tax Amendment, the 16th, was passed after the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 in the same year and spearheaded by the same person: Senator Nelson Aldrich. His daughter married John D. Rockefeller, the Standard Oil Company tycoon who hooked up with JP Morgan to form the Chase Manhattan Bank, and later JP Morgan Chase. So its easy to see why a fiat currency system would have benifited Nelson and his colleagues. Nelson's grandson became Vice President under Ford.

Most uneducated folk say there is no connection between Income Tax and the Federal Reserve. However, when I look at two seperate pieces of legislation passed in the same year and created by the same legislator, I become suspicious.

Answer 4

I have to disagree with you even though I do pay a lot of income taxes. Your right to vote should not be eliminated because of your economic status. If you disagree with the current tax system let it be known by voting for candidates who share you belief that the tax system is wrong and needs to be fixed. Also contact your congressman and senator and let them know your view. I do not mind paying my taxes. I do not mind paying more if I earn more. What I do mind is people who want to demonize me for my success. A flat tax or a national sales tax would be a much better system than the current tax code. To start it would be a simple code instead of the thousands of pages in the current code. Second it would close the loopholes in the current system that allow some rich to avoid paying taxes. Third and most important it would mean every one would have some skin in the game. Finally if we all had to pay an equal % in taxes how many people who currently do not pay taxes would not agree with the idea of higher taxes

Answer 5

The reality is the United States does have an income tax. The supreme court ruled it was properly ratified. If your friends are not paying there tax sooner or later the treasury dept will find them. Good luck , If your not paying your taxes you'll need it.

Answer 6

It's been brought up in court so many times it's a wonder why people who are going to prison keep argueing the point....they always lose the arguement...it's been declared as an excise tax on ownership of funds.
The IRs collects the tax..not congress...loophole.

Answer 7

Keep researching and it gets worse, it makes you angry to find out how much people in power have manipulated the people. My favorite is the federal reserve being a privately owned company that makes interest on nothing, being that we no longer use the gold standard.
anyway....
They will jail and seize property for not paying taxes, but their is a large movement of people bringing this problem to the surface. The IRS is a lie and not legal....
Watch "Freedom to Fascism" it is a movie free on the internet,,,,,

Answer 8

and most of them wind up in jail.

Benson and Beckman are making a lot of money off very gullible people.

Answer 9

My luck is if I refuse to pay, I would find my happy butt in prison for tax evasion.

Is it really such a hardship that one can't pay something so our country can have some money?????

Answer 10

No court in the United States has ever agreed with that argument. If you can cite a case where they did, then please post it. Otherwise, pay your taxes.