Tax protester constitutional arguments

He could not draw a conjurer's circle around the whole matter by his own declaration that to write any word upon the government blank would bring him into danger of the law.

Saying your occupation is "assassin" or "professional killer" could be self-incriminating, and therefore the 5th Amendment could be invoked as to that question; saying you made $635,000 last year does not provide evidence of anything criminal and thus it could not.

[7] Protesters argue that the income tax violates the Fifth Amendment right that no person shall be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law".

The United States Tax Court stated: The [taxpayer's] petition in this case, while rambling and lengthy, appears to rely primarily on arguments that neither the Internal Revenue Service nor this Court has authority to determine petitioner's tax liability because the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution, which changed the method of electing senators to the U.S. Congress, was improperly proposed and/or adopted, and therefore all laws enacted by Congress (and the Senate) subsequent to at least 1919 are invalid.

In fact, the use of "Esquire" by lawyers and judges is merely an informal custom in the United States, not a title with any legal standing.

[29] This contention, rarely raised before courts, was most recently addressed in Campion v. Towns, No.CV-04-1516PHX-ROS, *2 n.1 (D. Ariz. 2005) as a defense to a charge of tax evasion.

As included in that compilation, the Thirteenth Amendment would strip an individual of United States citizenship if they accept any title of nobility or honor.

Such arguments, even if based on honestly held beliefs, may constitute evidence that helps the prosecutor prove willfulness, one of the elements of tax evasion.

[citation omitted] All individuals, natural or unnatural, must pay federal income tax on their wages, regardless of whether they received any "privileges" from the government.

[43] See also United States v. Buras (argument that the taxpayer can be subject to an excise tax only if he benefits from a "privilege extended by a government agency" was rejected).

[47] The argument that an individual who received Form W-2 wages is not subject to federal income tax unless the taxpayer enjoys a "grant of privilege or franchise" was ruled frivolous by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in May v.

[52] The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Rutkin v. United States that the receipt of money obtained by extortion is taxable as income to the wrongdoer.

[56] In Bevans, the parties argued over whether a federal court in Massachusetts had jurisdiction over the case of a U.S. Marine charged with a murder that occurred on a ship in Boston Harbor.

No issues regarding federal income taxation or the Internal Revenue Code were presented to or decided by the Court in the Bevans case.

"[T]he word 'exclusive' was employed to eliminate any possibility that the legislative power of Congress over the District [of Columbia] was to be concurrent with that of the ceding states."

No issues involving the power to impose and enforce federal taxes in the fifty states were presented to or decided by the court in Caha.

The courts have uniformly rejected the "federal zone" argument that congressional authority to impose an income tax is limited to the District of Columbia, forts, magazines, arsenals, or dockyards, etc.

[68] The following language is sometimes cited by protesters: Yet it is plain, we think, that by the true intent and meaning of the act the entire proceeds of a mere conversion of capital assets were not to be treated as income.

Whatever difficulty there may be about a precise and scientific definition of 'income,' it imports, as used here, something entirely distinct from principal or capital either as a subject of taxation or as a measure of the tax; conveying rather the idea of gain or increase arising from corporate activities.The above verbiage is immediately followed in the text of the case by this sentence: As was said in Stratton's Independence v. Howbert, 231 U.S. 399, 415, 34 S. Sup.

Thus, the taxpayer was entitled to deduct, from its gross receipts from the sale of finished lumber, a basis amount computed with reference to the $40 per acre value as of December 31, 1908.

"[85] Robert L. Schulz and his We the People Foundation take the positions that the government "is clearly prohibited from doing what it is doing – taxing the salaries, wages and compensation of the working men and women of this country and forcing the business entities that utilize the labor of ordinary American citizens to withhold and turn over to the IRS a part of the earnings of those workers" and "that the federal government DOES NOT possess ANY legal authority –statutory or Constitutional– to tax the wages or salaries of American workers.

Also, the words "wages" and "salaries" are not found anywhere in the text, and there is no ruling in that case that the federal income tax statutes apply only to "corporations."

No issues involving the validity or applicability of federal income taxes were presented to, mentioned by, or decided by the Supreme Court in the Colonial Pipeline case.

In some printed versions of the case, this statement and other quotations and paraphrases from pages 8, 10, 14, 15, 17, and 18 of the taxpayer's brief are re-printed as a headnote or syllabus above the opinion of the Court.

A person not trained in analysis of legal materials would not necessarily know that this verbiage, like any headnote or syllabus, is not part of the Court's opinion, perhaps leading to the confusion about the source of the quotation.

They are void because they interfere with the liberty of the individual to pursue a lawful trade or employment.Butchers' Union Co. was a case involving interpretation of the Louisiana Constitution and certain ordinances of the city of New Orleans.

The Court ruled that the Louisiana Constitution and the New Orleans ordinances did not impermissibly impair a pre-existing obligation under a contract when those laws effectively ended a slaughter-house business monopoly by the Crescent City Company.

Tax protesters also cite[107] the case of Murdock v. Pennsylvania (also known as Jones v. City of Opelika):[108] A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the federal constitution.Murdock (or Jones v. City of Opelika) was a case involving the validity of a city ordinance (in Jeannette, Pennsylvania) worded as follows: That all persons canvassing for or soliciting within said Borough, orders for goods, paintings, pictures, wares, or merchandise of any kind, or persons delivering such articles under orders so obtained or solicited, shall be required to procure from the Burgess a license to transact said business and shall pay to the Treasurer of said Borough therefore the following sums according to the time for which said license shall be granted.

See, for example, the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in United States v. Buras,[124] in which the taxpayer's theory — that wages were not taxable because (1) "only profit or gain, such as that from the sale of a capital asset, constituted income subject to federal tax" and (2) "[w]ages could not constitute gain or profit because wages merely represent an equivalent exchange for one's labor" — was rejected.

"[132] Prior to his conviction, John Cheek had specifically contended that the Sixteenth Amendment did not authorize a tax on wages and salaries, but only on gain or profit.