A wonderful resource for those who don't understand US federal income taxes.

http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html

-- jpdonohue (jpdonohue@bellsouthips.com), May 11, 2000

Answers

Good website there, jp. Now all one needs to do to debunk the tax junk is post that URL.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), May 11, 2000.

Evans legal services makes biased statements in defense of the IRS.

That is how evans makes his living. An end to the income tax would mean an end to Evan's income!

Just follow the dollar!

-- snuggy (snuggy@aol.com), May 11, 2000.

Enter Joe Banister IRS Agent in your search engine. He is more knowledgable than Illegal Evans. Find out the truth about the IRS straight from the horses mouth!

-- babyfacenelson (babyf@cenelson.com), May 11, 2000.

Just for you Buddy...here's some more "tax junk":

http://www.fairtax.org/

-- Al Phabetsoup (@ .), May 11, 2000.

Looks like Banister could get some help from Evans, actually:

On a pro-Banister site, I found:

"Banister then used all his skills . . . to look into the three allegations which he found 'the most profound and unbelievable':

1) Due to limitations imposed by the U.S. Constitution, filing of federal income tax returns and payment of federal income tax is voluntary, not mandatory.

2) The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which precipitated the federal income tax, was never legally ratified. "

On Evans site, I found:

(1) This is a corruption of statements made by the IRS, the courts, and Congress to encourage taxpayer compliance with the tax laws, without the need for legal action against taxpayers.

A quotation frequently taken out of context by tax protesters is the following by the U.S. Supreme Court:

"Our tax system is based upon voluntary assessment and payment and not upon distraint." Flora v. United States, 362 U.S. 145, 175. This quotation is out of context, because the court first noted that the government could collect the tax by exercising its power of distraint, "but we cannot believe that completing resort to this extraordinary procedure is either wise or in accord with congressional intent." 362 U.S. at 175. In other words, Congress can collect taxes by force, but the court believed that Congress intended to give taxpayers an opportunity to comply before exercising that force.

This is better explained in Helvering v. Mitchell, 303 U.S. 391, 399 (1938), which the court cited in the Flora decision:

"In assessing income taxes, the Government relies primarily upon the disclosure by the taxpayer of the relevant facts. This disclosure it requires him to make in his annual return. To ensure full and honest disclosure, to discourage fraudulent attempts to evade the tax, Congress imposes sanctions. Such sanctions may confessedly be either criminal or civil." See also, Ginter v. Southern, 611 F.2d 1226, 1229 & n.2 (8th Cir. 1979), cert. den., 446 U.S. 967 (1980); Funk v. Commissioner, 687 F.2d 264, 265 (8th Cir. 1982). When confronted by claims that income taxes are "voluntary," courts readily explain that the payment of income tax is mandatory, not optional:

"Appellants' claim that payment of federal income tax is voluntary clearly lacks substance. See Newman v. Schiff, 778 F.2d 460, 467 (8th Cir. 1985)." United States v. Gerads, 999 F.2d 1255 (8th Cir. 1993). "The payment of income taxes is not optional ... and the average citizen knows that payment of income taxes is legally required." Schiff v. United States, 919 F.2d 830, 834 (2nd Cir. 1990). "Any assertion that the payment of income taxes is voluntary is without merit. It is without question that the payment of income taxes is not voluntary. United States v. Gerads, 999 F.2d 1255, 1256 (8th Cir. 1993), (per curiam); Wilcox v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 848 F.2d 1007, 1008 (9th Cir. 1988). The assertion that the filing of an income tax return is voluntary is, likewise, frivolous. Title 26, United States Code, Section 6012(a)(1)(A), 'requires that every individual who earns a threshold level of income must file a tax return.' United States v. Pottorf, 769 F.Supp. 1176, 1183 (D.Kan. 1991). Failure to file an income tax return subjects an individual to criminal penalty. Id., (citing 26 U.S.C. ' 7203)." United States v. Hartman, 915 F.Supp. 1227 (M.D.Fla. 1996). A similar claim is that a federal income tax return is a form of contract, and is therefore voluntary, or invalid if entered into under duress. This claim is also uniformly rejected:

"The notion that the federal income tax is contractual or otherwise consensual in nature is not only utterly without foundation by, despite McLaughlin's protestations to the contrary, has been repeatedly rejected by the courts." McLaughlin v. United States, 832 F2d 986 (7th Cir. 1987). "Drefke argues that taxes are debts which can only be imposed voluntarily when individuals contract with the government for services and that those who choose to enter such contracts do so by signing 1040 and W-4 forms. By refusing to sign those forms, Drefke argues that he is 'immune' from the Internal Revenue Service's jurisdiction as a 'nontaxpayer.' "This is an imaginative argument, but totally without arguable merit. 26 U.S.C. ' 1 imposes upon 'every' individual a certain rate of income tax depending on their amount of taxable income. 26 U.S.C. ' 6012 states that unmarried individuals having a gross income in excess of $4,300, and married individuals entitled to make joint returns having a gross income in excess of $5,400 'shall' file tax returns for the taxable year. Considering Drefke's gross income for 1979 and 1980, he was clearly required to file tax returns for those years. "26 U.S.C. ' 6151 states that when a tax return is required to be filed, the person so required 'shall' pay such taxes to the internal revenue officer with whom the return is filed at the fixed time and place. The sections of the Internal Revenue Code imposed a duty on Drefke to file tax returns and pay the appropriate rate of income tax, a duty which he chose to ignore." United States v. Drefke, 707 F.2d 978, 981 (8th Cir. 1983), cert. den., sub nom., Jameson v. United States, 464 U.S. 942 (1983). "Upon review of May's amended peition, we find no allegations of fact which could give rise to a valid claim; rather, the complaint merely contains conclusory assertions attacking the constitutionality of the Internal Revenue Code and its application to the taxpayer.[Footnote omitted.] Tax protest cases like this one raise no genuine controversy; the underlying legal issues have long been settled. See, e.g., Abrams, 82 T.C. at 406-07 (citing cases rejecting similar arguments). Because May's petition raised no justiciable claims, the Tax Court properly dismissed the petition for failure to state a claim." May v. C.I.R., 752 F.2d 1301, 1302 (8th Cir. 1985), (among other things, May's amended complaint alleged that "The filing of an 'imcome' [sic] tax return is 'VOLUNTARY' and penalties can not be instituted against a voluntary act since to do so would make the act 'mandatory.'" 752 F.2d at 1304, note 3).

(2) Although the Constitution describes how to ratify amendments, it doesn't say how we know when an amendment has been ratified. After some confusion about the status of some amendments (including the infamous "Titles of Nobility" amendment that fell at least one state short of ratification, but appeared in numerous copies of the Constitution in the early and middle 1800's), Congress decided that the Secretary of State should certify what amendments have been ratified.

The argument that the 16th Amendment was not ratified is best explained (and refuted) by this quotation from U.S. v. Thomas, 788 F.2d 1250 (7th Cir. 1986), cert. den. 107 S.Ct. 187 (1986):

"Thomas is a tax protester, and one of his arguments is that he did not need to file tax returns because the sixteenth amendment is not part of the constitution. It was not properly ratified, Thomas insists, repeating the argument of W. Benson & M. Beckman, The Law That Never Was (1985). Benson and Beckman review the documents concerning the states' ratification of the sixteenth amendment and conclude that only four states ratified the sixteenth amendment; they insist that the official promulgation of that amendment by Secretary of State Knox in 1913 is therefore void. "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. 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's. 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's 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's decision is now beyond review."

It has also been claimed that the votes of Georgia legislature were recorded incorrectly and that Georgia actually rejected the amendment, contrary to Knox's report. However, no Congressman or other official from Georgia has ever complained about the "error" and, even if there was an error and Georgia did not ratify the amendment, there would still have been thirty-seven ratifications, one more than the thirty-six required. (Article V of the Constitution requires that amendments to the Constitution be approved by the legislatures of three fourths of the states, and there were forty- eight states in 1913.)

As noted by the 7th Circuit in Thomas, the argument that the 16th Amendment is invalid is not only factually deficient, but it is an argument that federal courts are unwilling to consider. This is because the federal courts have always recognized limits upon their powers, and one of those limits is that the courts should not get involved in issues that the Constitution has entrusted to other branches of the government. The Constitution says that Congress may propose amendments, and the states may ratify them. Whether an amendment has been properly ratified is considered to be a "political question" to be resolved by Congress and the states, and not in court. In this case, no state has ever claimed that the 16th Amendment was not ratified.

For other decisions upholding the validity of the 16th Amendment, see United States v. Foster, 789 F.2d 457 (7th Cir. 1986), cert. den. 107 S.Ct. 273; Pollard v. Commissioner, 816 F.2d 603 (11th Cir. 1987); United States v. Benson, 941 F.2d 598 (7th Cir. 1991); Socia v. Commissioner, 23 F.3d 941 (5th Cir. 1994), reh. den. 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 22014; United States v. Stahl, 792 F.2d 1438 (9th Cir. 1986), cert. den. 107 S.Ct. 888; United State v. Sitka, 845 F.2d 43 (2nd Cir. 1988).

Miller v. United States, 868 F.2d 236, 239-41 (7th Cir. 1989).

Biermann v. Commissioner, 769 F.2d 707 (11th Cir. 1985).

Buckner, 830 F.2d at 102.

United States v. Dube, 820 F.2d 886, 891 (7th Cir. 1986).

Coleman v. Commissioner, 791 F.2d 68, 70-71 (7th Cir. 1986).

Moore, 627 F.2d at 833.

Knoblauch v. Commissioner, 749 F.2d 200 (1984), cert. den. 474 U.S. 830 (1985).

"Despite plaintiff's and numerous other tax protesters' conention that the Sixteenth Amendment was never ratified, courts have long recognized the Sixteenth Amendment's ratification and validity." Betz v. United States, 40 Fed.Cl. 286, 295 (1998)

All things being equal, in a legal argument, courts back the people with accurate citations to authorities. I've checked Evans's (you all are welcome to as well...) They're right on.

-- jpdonohue (jpdonohue@bellsouthips.com), May 11, 2000.

I have no problem with people advocating repeal of taxes and/or alternative tax structures. Use the system, write your congressman, go to court. More power to you. I do, however, have a problem with people who either misunderstand what they're reading or deliberately misrepresent themselves and then write for-profit newsletters and so forth and pawn them off on less knowledgeable folks. Devvy Kidd is using the same scheme to make money that many in the Y2K hoopla did, that Gary North does, and frankly I will fight it anywhere I see it.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), May 11, 2000.

jpdonohue--a great citation to a great FAQ. But, I doubt that it'll do any good. As I've said before, the tax nuts are to law what the Chemtrail crowd is to meteorology. In other words, they're so far out on the fringe that arguing with them is useful. In legal circles, the URLs to some of these tax protest sites are traded as jokes.

Hopefully, however, the information you provided can bring some sense of reality to a few people on the borderline between rationality and paying someone to tell them how they can end up in jail as a tax protester.

-- E.H. Porter (Just Wondering@About.it), May 11, 2000.

Oops -- should be "arguing with them is useless"

-- E.H. Porter (Just Wondering@About.it), May 11, 2000.

Yes, give me your money and I'll keep my gun in my pocket. Yes, that's right; you "shall" give it to me. VOLUNTARILY. You wouldn't want me to take it by force, now would you? Of couse not. OK, now I got another job for you; when you pay your employees, I want you to give me some of their money too. And by the way, if you want to keep the family home, make sure you save up, because I"m gonna want a piece of that action too. This is the kind of mentality that you support, Porter. But I am not surprised.

-- KoFE (Your@town.USA), May 11, 2000.

KoFE -- Ya, as an attorney, I'd say you've got a simplistic but fundamentally accurate summary of the law there. And, if you think it's painfull for you -- as a self employed attorney, I have to pay LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS. All self employed persons do.

I don't like it. I do like tax reduction. But I do know what the law is, and I abide by it until it can be changed.

My primary objection to the "tax nuts" is that I think that anyone who's into deluding gullible people into to avoiding the law (most probably for profit)is profiting from human misery. And, I don't think that's right.

-- E.H. Porter (Just Wondering@About.it), May 11, 2000.

Well Porter, it seems that in your veiw, voluntary is mandatory, and anyone who can't violate their conscience with that twisted logic is nuts.

-- KoFE (your@town.USA), May 11, 2000.

Excuse me KoFe, but you're making the same mistake about "voluntary" as Devvy Kidd's writings do.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), May 12, 2000.

Pllease explain voluntary and mandatory Buddy. They're tough ones.

-- KoFE (your@town.USA), May 13, 2000.