Ed and Elaine Brown, a couple of would-be tax renegades, have been arrested in New Hampshire after a long stand-off with police. God bless these folks and their anti-government ways. If it wasn't for them and the folks who populate right-wing forums and other protest groups, life wouldn't be nearly as interesting. After all, we need a good laugh now and again don't we?
Seriously though, the Browns believe that the federal income tax is unlawful. Why? They claim that the Sixteenth Amendment was never properly ratified. Yes, that's right, according to the Browns, the Sixteenth Amendment is the greatest fraud in American history. These people have got to be fun at parties.
The idea that the Sixteenth was never ratified started, more or less, with a guy named Bill Benson. Bill went about the states that considered the Sixteenth back in the day and tried to find the documents the state legislatures used to consider the Amendment. What did he find? Spelling errors, misplaced commas, uncapitalized words, and synonyms. For example, whereas the Sixteenth (and the rest of the Constitution) capitalizes States, some of the states didn't when they sent their ratification papers back to the federal government. One state used the word lay instead of levy. Another didn't pluralize incomes. Bill's conclusion? The Sixteenth Amendment was never ratified. Therefore, no one owes any income taxes.
Too bad every court that has ever considered the issue has recognized how silly the argument is and rejected the argument. Here's United States v. Thomas, 788 F.2d 1250 (7th Cir. 1986) as an example.
But, you know what, you gotta love these folks. Being a Vermonter, I've met a million of these folk (well, not a million, there aren't a million Vermonters). They're serious to a fault, hold the most crazy ideas, see the world falling in around them, and tend to hang out in dive bars arguing with bartenders over the cost of a Budweiser (cause they won't drink imports and that micro-brew stuff is just communist). I saw one of them debate Bernie Sanders during the 2006 Senate Election. It ended with the guy, Peter Diamondstone, being handcuffed and dragged out. It's moments like that and people like this that make you glad that Reagan helped close down the state-run mental institutions. Awesome.
Friday, October 5, 2007
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10 comments:
Damnit man, you beat me to it! :)
I gotta say, I was rooting for them...
So thats why you don't drink micro-brew?
You aren't talking Gusto's by any chance eh? :)
I love microbrews. I must remedy the impression that I don't. Link to be posted shortly.
I wasn't really rooting for them. I love these folk, but someone has to set them straight. I think that's why we have so many weirdos in our midst today. No one set the creationists, etc straight long ago. See what happened?
no you're right. I just had a passing amount of information regarding their belief in why the income tax law was unconstitutional.
Though, I don't know if this is connected or not, but there is supposed to be another layer on this argument... It may very well be what you've said, but it was always one of those arguments that at the very least fascinated me (I pay a SHIT load of taxes afterall :) ).
Less to do with the sixteenth and more to do with the IRS I believe. In that the Government can collect taxes, but the IRS's legal ability to do so was in question?
In order to evaluate the IRS's legal ability to collect taxes, you'd need to check its enabling legislation. It works like this: Congress proposes an Amendment; the states ratify (or not), thus giving Congress the power to do something; Congress acts on this power, writing legislation creating an agency to administer the new power; the agency then gets to "fill in the blanks" within the scope of its enabling legislation and the Constitution.
Now, knowing you're a libertarian, I imagine that this seems like a lot of government. I would tend to agree, but I think its the best option. You would either end up with Congress acting as the IRS itself, which no one would want, or no one collecting taxes, which, while that would be nice, I damn sure like having the fighter jets in the world, so I'm cool with taxes.
And if you can invent a better tax collection agency, you deserve a prize.
Certain "families" came up with another system, does that count?
I think its the fact that the goverment mismanaged our tax moneys (ahem Iraq). I guess it could be a form of protest?
That would be my argument, but then again, prison doesnt suit me, so i guess im stuck feeding the beast.
Well, the argument could be made (maybe?) that since the government's foreign policy decisions has caused your status to become an "Enemy Combatant" (since we fund the army and any intel agency that may participate on pissing off foreign enemy combatants), that you should be exempt from taxes.
I know there was a movement to do that for Capitol Hill workers after the Anthrax attacks. Not like I was making much money, but tax free money sounds much better to me :)
What Bill Benson discovered was that several states intentionally modified the language of the 16th Amendment proposed by Congress, and voted to ratify their modifications. The truth is that Secretary of State Knox relied on a presumption that the changes that showed up on the various certificates of ratification were spelling errors because states do not have the authority to change a proposed amendment. The legislative journals obtained by Bill Benson conclusively show the presumption is wrong.
We are currently in litigation over this issue in the United States District Court in Chicago in the case of United States v. Benson, Case No. 1:04-cv-07403 (N.D.Ill.E.D. 2004). The details of the case, including the pleadings showing the truth that the 16th Amendment was not ratified by the requisite number of states, are on my web site: http://jeffdickstein.com.
Jeffrey A. Dickstein
Attorney at Law
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