Do Americans pay income tax out of patriotism, 'cos they sure don't have to by law?

Question

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-1656880303867390173&hl=en

This is a full feature film, but watch it if you hate paying income tax. You'll be surprised!!!

The Supreme Court ruled that the 16th Amendment did not introduce income tax for ordinary citizens. Watch the film.

Quote: If the Government can seize your possesions and put in jail for not paying, it certainly passes as a law.

No, that passes for fascism, which is why the film is called 'America: From Freedom to Fascism'

Answer 1

Enjoy your life with the fruitcake fringe.

Answer 2

You're clueless! The Supreme Court never made such a ruling!

What the court DID say was that the 16th Amendment did not create a NEW tax, but only changed the treatment of an EXISTING tax.

Income taxes have ALWAYS been legal. Prior to the 16th Amendment, the courts held that they were direct taxes and therefore were subject to apportionment among the several states. That was impossible to do in the 19th Century and the anti-tax groups won that round, effectively killing the income tax.

The only thing that the 16th Amendment did was remove the requirement for income taxes to be apportioned among the several states. THAT'S ALL! And THAT is what the court ruled. It NEVER said that the income tax was illegal, or applied only to businesses, or only applied to aliens, or any of the other crackpot rationale that the tax kooks claim. Try reading the actual decision and it will be clear to you. And it will then be clear that the clowns who made that movie were either idiots or liars. Take your pick.

If anything surprises me it's the fact that anyone would possibly believe the CRAP that the filmmaker is stating. But I guess there are plenty of rubes who will gladly believe anything instead of checking it out themselves.

Answer 3

Anything too good to be true probably is.

Dude, here it is from the IRS annual dirty dozen of stupid arguments and fraudulent schemes:
"12. Frivolous Arguments: Promoters have been known to make the following outlandish claims: the Sixteenth Amendment concerning congressional power to lay and collect income taxes was never ratified; wages are not income; filing a return and paying taxes are merely voluntary; and being required to file Form 1040 violates the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination or the Fourth Amendment right to privacy. Don’t believe these or other similar claims. These arguments are false and have been thrown out of court. While taxpayers have the right to contest their tax liabilities in court, no one has the right to disobey the law."

You nitwits dropped to #12. You'll have to do better. You are like the Devil Rays of tax protestors. Below foreign trusts even.

Answer 4

I've seen it already and guess what, I found it to be inaccurate and full of out-of-context quotes. Here are some points for you to consider.

There is an income tax law. It is Title 26 of the U.S. Code. That is prima facie law and is evidence of the positive law passed by Congress and signed into law by a President. The positive law can be found in the U.S. Statutes at Large. Specifically, the basis for current income tax law starts with the Income Tax Act of 1954 and the periodic amendments to that law since. All of them can be found in the U.S. Statutes at Large.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sup_01_26.html

The Supreme Court never said that the 16th amendment did not introduce an income tax for ordinary citizens. I'm not sure which case you are referring, but I can point you to one that many tax protestors misquote. In Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co., 240 U.S. 103 (1916), the court stated, "the provisions of the 16th Amendment conferred no new power of taxation..." and tax protestors stop there and assume that no new power of taxation means that the income tax was unconstitutional before the 16th amendment and therefore is not allowed after. The problem is, tax protestors don't read the rest of the sentence. The court continues in the same sentence, "...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..." So, the 16th amendment didn't give Congress a new power because CONGRESS ALWAYS HAD THAT POWER. You can read the entire decision at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=240&page=103

I suggest you go to http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html and lookup almost every point in the film. I also recommend that you try and verify different quotes from the film from RELIABLE websites.

BTW, the book, "The Law that Never Was" by Bill Benson has been completed refuted. Also, no court has EVER accepted any of the arguments brought forth in that book. Here is a court case that discussed the book. In U.S. v. Thomas, 788 F.2d 1250 (7th Cir. 1986), cert. den. 107 S.Ct. 187 (1986), the court stated,
[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. (Minnesota notified the Secretary orally, and additional states ratified later; we consider only those Secretary Knox considered.) Only four instruments repeat the language of the sixteenth amendment exactly as Congress approved it. The others contain errors of diction, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. The text Congress transmitted to the states was: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.” Many of the instruments neglected to capitalize “States,” and some capitalized other words instead. The instrument from Illinois had “remuneration” in place of “enumeration”; the instrument from Missouri substituted “levy” for “lay”; the instrument from Washington had “income” not “incomes”; others made similar blunders.

“Thomas insists that because the states did not approve exactly the same text, the amendment did not go into effect. Secretary Knox considered this argument. The Solicitor of the Department of State drew up a list of the errors in the instruments and--taking into account both the triviality of the deviations and the treatment of earlier amendments that had experienced more substantial problems--advised the Secretary that he was authorized to declare the amendment adopted. The Secretary did so."

Although Thomas urges us to take the view of several state courts that only agreement on the literal text may make a legal document effective, 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.
[END QUOTE]

A few sentences later in the same decision, the court continues, "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 OF CASE]

Judge Fox's statement was in the context of giving an example. He was not making a statement of fact. Here is a larger portion of the transcripts where that quote was made.
[QUOTE]
"I will say I think, you know, colonel, I have to tell you that there are cases where a long course of history in fact does change the Constitution, and I can think of one instance. I believe I'm correct on this. I think if you were to go back and try to find and review the ratification of the 16th amendment, which was the internal revenue, income tax, I think if you went back and examined that carefully, you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that amendment...And nonetheless, I think it's fair to say that it is part of the Constitution of the United States, and I don't think any court would ever...set it aside."
[END QUOTE]
The comments made by Judge Fox were made in passing, without judicial review, and in a case that had nothing to do with the 16th amendment. In the end, the Judge also said that he didn't think any court would ever set it aside.

As I have pointed out in other answers, the Federal Reserve act was properly passed by Congress and does not require a Constitutional amendment. While the Federal Reserve Act was passed on Dec. 23, 1913, according to the Congressional record, the bill passed the house by a count of 298 to 60. 358 members voted out of 435, that's pretty good attendance. That's probably better attendance than the current House of Representative gets on most days. The Senate passed the bill with a vote of 43 to 25. That's 68 members voted out of 96. Again, that is good attendance.

Finally, the quote by Woodrow Wilson that the film says he made in 1919 is false. First, there is no record anywhere that Woodrow Wilson said the first part of that quote. The rest of the quote is taken from Woodrow Wilson's book, "The New Freedom". However, "The New Freedom" was published in 1913! Also, the book is actually a compilation of speeches he made on the campaign trail during 1911 and 1912. He was really discussing corporate monopolies and not the Federal Reserve (which didn't exist yet) or the banks. You can read "The New Freedom" for yourself at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14811/14811-h/14811-h.htm

I don't have the space here to go through the rest of the film.

Answer 5

This is a misconception. The government is too big and powerful and so is the IRS. When you don't pay your taxes..they'll come after you and freeze your accounts, paychecks and even take your home and assets till you do.

Not something I want to deal with so we pay our taxes as usual. Besides this country is built and maintained along with security by our taxes. So we do benefit unlike most other countries.

Answer 6

If the Government can seize your possesions and put in jail for not paying, it certainly passes as a law.

Answer 7

Yes, I watched the film "Freedom to Fascism". As a liberatarian and a person who loves documentaries, I was hoping for great things.

But I was very disappointed. I found the film to be intellectually dishonest and a vehicle for the filmmaker to further his political beliefs with blatant misformation.

But don't take my word for it. From the NY Times:

"Facts Refute Filmmaker’s Assertions on Income Tax in ‘America’"

"...examination of the assertions in Mr. Russo’s documentary.. shows... they ... collapse under the weight of fact."

"Many of the reviews in major newspapers have accepted as having some factual basis the film’s main contention, ... even though every court that has ever ruled on these issues has upheld the constitutionality of the income tax.

"... Mr. Russo says ...that the Internal Revenue Service has refused every request to show any law making Americans liable for an income tax on their wages. ... Yet among those thanked in the credits for their help in making the film is Anthony Burke, an I.R.S. spokesman. Mr. Burke said that when Mr. Russo called him asking what law required the payment of income taxes on wages, he sent Mr. Russo a link to documents, including Title 26 of the United States Code, citing the specific sections that require income taxes be paid on wages. Title 26 says on its face that it is law enacted by Congress."

"..Arguments made in court that the income tax is invalid are so baseless that Congress has authorized fines of $25,000 for anyone who makes them..."

"... Mr. Russo says in the film that the 16th Amendment was never properly ratified and thus a tax on wages is unconstitutional. This claim has been made in various forms by thousands of tax protesters since 1913, and so far their batting average with the courts is .000.
To buttress the claim that the 16th Amendment is invalid, the film displays a quotation from a federal district judge, James C. Fox. But the transcript from which the judge’s words were taken shows that while he spoke those words, they were in the context of laying out issues and that the conclusion he reached was the opposite of the words quoted."

(ref: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/movies/31russ.html?ei=5088&en=05c0d0988f58fc50&ex=1311998400&partner=rssnyt&emc=rs )

Those pesky income tax laws the filmmaker could not find? Check out:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/Income_tax
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sup_01_26_10_A.html
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sec_26_00006012----000-.html
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sec_26_00000001----000-.html
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sec_26_00000003----000-.html
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode26/usc_sec_26_00006651----000-.html

Answer 8

Actually the consittutional amendment gives the COngress the right to levy and collect taxes; it's a weak argument

Answer 9

Actually by US Constitution, Income tax is a valid source for taxes... yes, the US can force people to pay it... the question is what is the limitations to it...


BTW, income tax is the best form of tax as it is the easiest to track....

Answer 10

Hey i couldn`t get on that link. I have payed more taxes then i can count. I will keep trying that link.