The Honorable [name, address]
Sir/Madam,
It has come to my attention that the executive branch's
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is deliberately presenting false and
very harmful disinformation on its website, and likely in other types of publications as well.
Specifically, on the page at
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/anti-tax-law-evasion-schemes-law-and-arguments-section-iv,
the IRS has the following posted:
Contention: The Sixteenth
Amendment does not authorize a direct
non-apportioned federal income tax on United States
citizens.
Some assert that the Sixteenth
Amendment does not authorize a direct
non-apportioned income tax and thus, U.S. citizens
and residents are not subject to federal income tax
laws.
The Law:
The courts have both implicitly and
explicitly recognized that the Sixteenth Amendment
authorizes a non-apportioned direct income tax on
United States citizens and that the federal tax laws
as applied are valid. In United States v. Collins,
920 F.2d 619, 629 (10th Cir. 1990), cert. denied,
500 U.S. 920 (1991), the court cited Brushaber v.
Union Pac. R.R., 240 U.S. 1, 12-19 (1916), and
noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized
that the "Sixteenth Amendment authorizes a direct
nonapportioned tax upon United States citizens
throughout the nation."
However, the Brushaber court
says no such thing.
In fact, that unanimous Supreme Court ruling says
exactly the opposite of what is said by the IRS
through its quote of
the 10th circuit.
Contra the Collins court, the Brushaber court unambiguously holds that
non-apportioned direct taxes are Constitutionally prohibited
and remain so after the 16th Amendment, and that the income
tax is an indirect excise tax only able to lawfully be
administered in accordance with that specific legal
character.
"We are of opinion, however, 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..."
Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916)
(emphasis added).
The Brushaber court goes on to point out that the
very suggestion of a non-apportioned direct tax is
completely incoherent, because that would cause:
"...one provision of the Constitution
[to] destroy another; that is, [it] would result in
bringing the provisions of the Amendment
[supposedly] exempting a direct tax from
apportionment into irreconcilable conflict with the
general requirement that all direct taxes be
apportioned."
Ibid.
...and re-iterates its repeated
pre-16th Amendment holdings that:
"[T]axation on income [is] in its
nature an excise, entitled to be enforced as
such..."
Ibid.
Less than one month later, the same
court reiterates, with yet greater clarity, what it
says in Brushaber:
"[B]y the [Brushaber] ruling, it was
settled that the provisions of the Sixteenth
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 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."
Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co., 240 U.S. 103 (1916)
(emphasis added).
Contemporary expert analysis of the
Brushaber ruling reports
the same thing:
"The Sixteenth Amendment does not
permit a new class of a direct tax... The
Amendment, the [Supreme] court said, judged by
the purpose for which it was passed, does not
treat income taxes as direct taxes but simply
removed the ground which led to their being
considered as such in the Pollock case, namely,
the source of the income. Therefore, they are
again to be classified in the class of indirect
taxes to which they by nature belong."
Cornell Law Quarterly, 1 Cornell L. Q. pp. 298, 301
(1915-16) (emphasis added).
"In Brushaber v. Union Pacific
Railroad Co., Mr. C. J. White, upholding the
income tax imposed by the Tariff Act of 1913,
construed the Amendment as a declaration that an
income tax is "indirect," rather than ... an
exception to the rule that direct taxes must be
apportioned."
Harvard Law Review, 29 Harv. L. Rev, p. 536,
(1915-1916) (emphasis added).
Subsequent Supreme Court rulings as
well as executive and legislative department experts
continue to make the same accurate declarations over
the ensuing decades:
"If [a] tax is a direct one, it
shall be apportioned according to the census or
enumeration. If it is a duty, impost, or excise,
it shall be uniform throughout the United States.
Together, these classes include every form of tax
appropriate to sovereignty. Cf. Burnet v. Brooks,
288 U. S. 378, 288 U. S. 403, 288 U. S. 405;
Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. Co., 240 U. S. 1,
240 U. S. 12."
Steward Machine Co. v. Collector of Internal
Revenue, 301 U.S. 548 (1937) (emphasis added).
"The income tax … is an
excise tax with respect to certain activities and
privileges which is measured by reference to the
income which they produce. The income is not the
subject of the tax; it is the basis for determining
the amount of tax.” ... "[T]he amendment made it
possible to bring investment income within the scope
of the general income-tax law, but did not change
the character of the tax. It is still fundamentally
an excise or duty..."
House Congressional Record, March 27, 1943, p. 2580,
testimony of Former Treasury Department legislative
draftsman F. Morse Hubbard, (emphasis added).
"The Supreme Court, in a decision
written by Chief Justice White, first noted that
the Sixteenth Amendment did not authorize any new
type of tax, nor did it repeal or revoke the tax
clauses of Article I of the Constitution, quoted
above. Direct taxes were, notwithstanding the advent
of the Sixteenth Amendment, still subject to the
rule of apportionment…"
Report No. 80-19A, 'Some Constitutional Questions
Regarding the Federal Income Tax Laws' by Howard
M. Zaritsky, Legislative Attorney of the American
Law Division of the Library of Congress (1979)
(emphasis added).
"[T]he sole purpose of the Sixteenth
Amendment was to remove the apportionment
requirement for whichever incomes were
otherwise taxable.
45 Cong. Rec. 2245-2246 (1910); id. at 2539; see
also Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. Co., 240
U. S. 1, 240 U. S. 17-18 (1916)"
South Carolina v. Baker, 485 U.S. 505 (1988), fn 13
(emphasis added).
In short, every single authority, and
every branch of government-- legislative, executive
and judicial-- knows perfectly well, and has stated
unequivocally and repeatedly over all the decades
since the unanimous Brushaber ruling, that
the Supreme Court therein declares the income tax to
NOT be a direct non-apportioned tax and that such a
tax is
Constitutionally prohibited and remains so after the
16th Amendment.
Further, every single authority, and every
branch of government-- legislative, executive and judicial--
knows perfectly well, and has stated unequivocally and
repeatedly over all the decades since the unanimous
Brushaber ruling, that the Supreme Court therein
declares that the income tax, both before and after the 16th
Amendment, is an indirect excise tax, only lawfully able to
be laid and administered in accordance with that legal
character.
So, when the IRS says on its website that the
10th Circuit "cited Brushaber v.
Union Pac. R.R., 240 U.S. 1, 12-19 (1916), and
noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the
'Sixteenth Amendment authorizes a direct non-apportioned tax upon United States citizens
throughout the nation,'" it is correct about the
circuit court having said this, but knows perfectly well
that the circuit court was wrong, either innocently (as hard
as that is to believe) or corruptly.
The IRS, therefore, is deliberately citing to a
bogus "authority" that makes an incorrect statement about
the law. Clearly, the object of this falsehood is to mislead
American citizens about the agency's own scope of authority
and the proper and lawful application of the income tax.
I'm sure you will agree with me that this
subterfuge by the IRS is completely unacceptable and
that little can be of broader or deeper personal interest to
each and every American than the proper and lawful
administration of the income tax. (For your own interest, a
very brief but comprehensive presentation on the actual
nature of the income excise can be found at
http://losthorizons.com/A/TheNatureOfTheTax.pdf.)
***
In light of the foregoing, and out of the deep
respect for the rule of law which I am sure you share with
me, I therefore ask you to exercise the power of your office
to command the Treasury Department to remove all false
assertions about the law and the tax, such as the one I have
used as an example above.
I further respectfully suggest that judicial
officers who have promulgated or acted in accordance with
false doctrines about the income tax in the conduct of their
offices, particularly that it is, or can lawfully be
administered as, a nonapportioned direct tax, have violated
their oaths of office and deliberately acted against both
the sovereign will and the critical interests of The People.
Such judicial officers-- and all executive
officials who have condoned, cooperated with, or exploited
such false and wrong statements or behavior-- should be
deemed unfit for office. These oath-breakers should be duly
impeached and removed from office, or fired, and each and
every one should be prosecuted for any criminal acts their
conduct has involved, which would include civil rights
violations and possibly others.
I look forward to saluting you in person should the
opportunity arise, and at the ballot box, for your prompt and
diligent attention to this extremely important matter.
Thank you very much, and please consider me
Most Respectfully Yours,
[your name/signature,
address, date]
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