"Prescident" Obama: A reason to not pay income taxes

Joseph Siegel of the George Washington Law School ^ | 12/17/08 | Polarik

[Polarik]

If Barack Hussein Obama is allowed to take the Oath of Office, he will have done so by skirting around the requirements of Section 1, Article II, of the US Constitution. If the POTUS can ignore Section 1, Article II, then every citizen who is required to pay income tax under Section 8, Article I, and the 16th Amendment, should follow the lead of the President and skirt around those problematic provisions, as well.

Obama's Presidency will not only be illegitimate ib Constitutional terms, but also illegitimate according to the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed that "governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Those among us who still believe that Presidents should br held accountable to the Constitution will not give our consent to a government led by a person unjustly becoming our President.

Any tax plan proposed and/or approved by the President could be treated as "illegal taxation," as the President will not have the Constitutional authority to sign any tax bills (or any other for that matter).

Since Barack Obama truly believes that he does not have to prove his Constitutional qualifications, then neither should any citizen of the United States who believes in his heart that he or she does not have to pay income taxes. This same citizen cannot be charged for failing to file his income tax if he truly believes that he is not required to do so.

According to Cheek v. United States, 498 U.S. 192 (1991), the Supreme Court noted that the statute making it a crime to fail to pay federal income taxes provides that the crime is committed only by someone who “willfully” fails to pay. The Supreme Court held that someone who truly believes that the law does not require him to pay taxes has not committed the crime of willfully failing to pay, even though his belief is wrong.

Although the belief that you don’t have to pay taxes does not relieve you of your obligation to pay, it means that failure to pay will not be a crime. If you owe taxes, you owe them, regardless of any erroneous beliefs you may have.

Also, the Supreme Court placed some limits on the sources of permissible good faith beliefs that one doesn’t owe taxes. The Court held that it is not a defense to a charge of willfully failing to file that one believed the income tax laws were unconstitutional. So if the reason you think you don’t owe taxes is that you believe the tax laws are unconstitutional, that’s not a defense.

It might be interesting if there were several thousand tax protesters claiming this.

[IronJack]

This author is supposed to be a law professor? He’s daffier than a duck!