Posted on 01/15/2004 6:37:31 AM PST by yoe
The ink is barely dry on the Supreme Court's devastating decision in McConnell v. FEC -- the so-called campaign finance case that GOA was involved in. That decision severely restricted broadcast communications, thus making it more difficult for GOA to hold legislators accountable on Second Amendment issues.
Now, the IRS is already leaping forward to expand the Court's ruling to include GOA newsletters, e-mail alerts, and other Second Amendment communications.
Put out for comment on December 23, 2003 -- when, presumably, no one would notice -- proposed IRS Revenue Ruling 2004-6 creates a broad new set of ambiguous standards which groups like GOA must follow in order to avoid losing all or part of their tax-exempt status.
Under the proposed Revenue Ruling, the IRS would create a vague "balancing test" to determine whether GOA communications would be "permitted" by the government.
If the communication occurred close to an election, mentioned an officeholder who was running for reelection, and was targeted to put pressure on congressmen through constituents in each representative's district, all of these factors would push toward outlawing the communication.
Although the McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection law was repressive enough, the proposed Revenue Ruling would go far beyond this anti-gun statute:
* Unlike McCain-Feingold, the proposed Revenue Ruling would not be restricted to broadcast ads. Rather, it would apply to newspaper ads, e-mail alerts, newsletters, and other communications by organizations such as GOA.
* Unlike McCain-Feingold, the proposed Revenue Ruling would not automatically exempt communications which occurred more than 60 days prior to an election -- or which fell below a certain monetary threshold.
* Unlike McCain-Feingold, the proposed Revenue Ruling would contain no fixed standards for compliance. Rather every GOA newsletter or alert would have to be published with the realization that the government, after the fact, could apply its vague criteria to determine that is was "impermissible."
For example, when GOA learned that an anti-gun rider had been placed on a Defense authorization bill in September 2000, GOA alerted its members to this provision which would have allowed the Dept. of Defense to confiscate and destroy any military surplus item that had ever been sold by the government.
M1 Carbines, 1903 Springfields, Colt SAAs, uniforms, ammo, scopes -- and much more. All these privately-owned items could have been confiscated and destroyed by the feds.
GOA generated a groundswell of nationwide opposition against the confiscation attempt. But we especially targeted our focus on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The message evidently got through, as the Committee Chairman's office called GOA to discuss this problem after he received hoards of calls, postcards and e-mails from our members. The provision was removed, and Second Amendment rights were preserved.
But had this IRS regulation been in effect in 2000, the agency (which then was under Clinton's control) could have RETROACTIVELY punished GOA, stating that our activity would have been impermissible if just one of the targeted Senators had been facing reelection!
This new regulation would allow lawmakers to load up gun bills prior to an election, secure in the knowledge that GOA won't be able to let you guys know about them in time.
GOA has formally lodged a protest with the IRS regarding this expansion and abuse of power. To read the GOA comments, go to (link)
It is imperative that this rule be defeated!
ACTION: Contact your congressmen. Ask them to write the IRS and demand that it withdraw proposed Revenue Ruling 2004-6. You can contact your Representative and Senators by visiting the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center at (link) to send them a pre-written e-mail message.
Take Action
Your Representative and Senators must submit their comments to the IRS by January 26.
Write letters - GOA has the process automated. The impact will be in direct proportion to the number of letters they receive. I sent three.
Go get 'em guys.
Since this is a proposed IRS regulation, it is, or will be, in effect, the same as an executive order. The President could squash it like a bug if he so chose. He could have done so before it was formally proposed, IF he had heard of it, which he may or may not have, although the odds are against it. It's up to us to be sure he hears of it now.
Please see reply #164. This proposed rule seems to be aimed at unions and such organizations such as Planned Parenthood.
Is the GOA a social welfare organization, union, or trade association?
So, you actually believe that the Income Tax is "voluntary?"
IIt is clear from the writing of Madison, Hamilton and others as well as history that no tax can be made voluntary and work. To say a tax is voluntary is to say it is not levied or the Congress does not intend or have the power to collect it.
Do you figure James Madison would agree with such an assessment?
James Madison, Elliots Debates Vol 3 p128-129:
James Madison, Federalist #45:
James Madison, Federalist #39:
Or Hamilton,
"A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people."
"As revenue is the essential engine by which the means of answering the national exigencies must be procured, the power of procuring that article in its full extent must necessarily be comprehended in that of providing for those exigencies."
"As theory and practice conspire to prove that the power of procuring revenue is unavailing when exercised over the States in their collective capacities, the federal government must of necessity be invested with an unqualified power of taxation in the ordinary modes. "
Or the fact that when voluntary taxation was indeed proposed in the Virginia Ratification document to modify the unlimited power to tax under Article I Section 8 to one which requiring explicit consent of the people. Said proposed amendment was proposed, debated and not included in the Bill of Rights but rather rejected from those amendments.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/const/ratva.htm
Ratification of the Constitution by the State of Virginia; June 26, 1788.
***
Subsequent Amendments agreed to in Convention as necessary to the proposed Constitution of Government for the United States, recommended to the consideration of the Congress which shall first assemble under the said Constitution to be acted upon according to the mode prescribed in the fifth article thereof:
***
and no aid, charge, tax or fee can be set, rated, or levied upon the people without their own consent,
However, that taxes are voluntary is not what I stated.
Strange indeed! I've been supporting the removal of the income and payroll tax system for decades now, and not once have I ever had a gun pointed at my head
Strange indeed! I've been supporting the removal of the income and payroll tax system for decades now, and not once have I ever had a gun pointed at my head."
Try a little experiment then. Don't pay your Income Taxes this year, and when the IRS contacts you-- tell them you don't owe them anything. Then when the IRS sends it's agents to take your house (and everything in it), take your car, and garnish your wages, and haul you off to jail-- try to resist! You will end up seeing that gun that I'm speaking of in my posts.
If you think for one minute that the the government won't use force to collect those taxes, then you're delusional!
This is where the crux of the matter lies for the income tax. The courts clearly ruled, especially MERCHANT’S LOAN & TRUST CO. v SMIETANKA, 255 US 509 (1921), that the word “income” had a specific legal meaning in the 16th Amendment. They further pointed to STRATTON’S INDEPENDENCE, LTD. v HOWBERT, 231 US 399 (1913) as the ruling that defined the word “income” in the 16th Amendment.
Here is what STRATTON’S says:
Stratton's Independence, LTD. v. Howbert(1913), 231 U.S. 399:
- "'[I]ncome' may be defined as the gain derived from capital, from labor, or from both combined, and here we have combined operations of capital and labor. As to the alleged inequality of operation between mining corporations and others, it is of course true that the revenues derived from the working of mines result to some extent in the exhaustion of the capital. But the same is true of the earnings of the human brain and hand when unaided by capital, yet such earnings are commonly dealt with in legislation as income."
“As has been repeatedly remarked, the corporation tax act of 1909 was not intended to be and is not, in any proper sense, an income tax law. This court had decided in the Pollack Case that the income tax law of 1894 amounted in effect to a direct tax upon property, and was invalid because not apportioned according to populations, as prescribed by the Constitution. The act of 1909 avoided this difficulty by imposing not an income tax, but an excise tax upon the conduct of business in a corporate capacity, measuring, however, the amount of tax by the income of the corporation.”
Which was true in the case of taxes on rents (from real estate) and returns from stocks & bonds and similar investments of capital as addressed in Pollock, but has nothing to due with whether or not a tax can be levied on an employed individual in regard to earnings from employments or vocations or even corporations with regard to their earnings thus is not endowed with the significance you would have us believe.
The important key is “upon the conduct of business in a corporate capacity”. So the court is saying that
1) income taxes are direct taxes because they tax the income of the individual,
It only states that the particular tax in question (1909 corporate tax), was explicitly laid on businesses & corporations by act of Congress and that the mining corporations earnings from sales of gold were subject to that tax.
For the Pollock cases clearly state that individual is subject to taxation on business, privileges, employments and vocations as an excise laid on the value of such activities; that the particular taxes considered unconstitutional in Pollock were taxes on the fruits of property, and thus were direct subject to apportionment.
Flint v. Stone Tracy Co.(1911), 220 U.S. 107
- "The Pollock Case construed the tax there levied as direct, because it was imposed upon property simply because of its ownership."
BROMLEY v. MCCAUGHN, 280 U.S. 124 (1929)
- While taxes levied upon or collected from persons because of their general ownership of property may be taken to be direct, Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Turst Co., 157 U.S. 429 , 15 S. Ct. 673; Id., 158 U.S. 601 , 15 S. Ct. 912, this court has consistently held, almost from the foundation of the government, that a tax imposed upon a particular use of property or the exercise of a single power over property incidental to ownership, is an excise which neet not be apportioned
Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, 157 U.S. 429 (1895)
- "The people of the United States constitute one nation, under one government, and this government, within the scope of the powers with which it is invested, is supreme."
- "Without the States in union, there could be no such political body as the United States. Both the States and the United States existed before the Constitution. The people, through that instrument[the Constitution], established a more perfect union by substituting a national government, acting, with ample power, directly upon the citizens, instead of the confederate government, which acted with powers, greatly restricted, only upon the States."
POLLOCK v. FARMERS' LOAN & TRUST CO., 158 U.S. 601 (1895):
- "We have considered the act only in respect of the tax on income derived from real estate, and from invested personal property, and have not commented on so much of it as bears on gains or profits from business, privileges, or employments, in view of the instances in which taxation on business, privileges, or employments has assumed the guise of an excise tax and been sustained as such."
- "If that[rents from land] be stricken out, and also the income from all invested personal property, bonds, stocks, investments of all kinds, it is obvious that by far the largest part of the anticipated revenue would be eliminated, and this would leave the burden of the tax to be borne by professions, trades, employments, or vocations; and in that way what was intended as a tax on capital would remain, in substance, a tax on occupations and labor. We cannot believe that such was the intention of congress."
- "We do not mean to say that an act laying by apportionment a direct tax on all real estate and personal property, or the income thereof, might not also lay excise taxes on business, privileges, employments, and vocations. "
- Our conclusions may therefore be summed up as follows:
First. We adhere to the opinion already announced,-that, taxes on real estate being indisputably direct taxes, taxes on the rents or income of real estate are equally direct taxes.
Second. We are of opinion that taxes on personal property, or on the income of personal property, are likewise direct taxes.
Third. The tax imposed by sections 27 to 37, inclusive, of the act of 1894, so far as it falls on the income of real estate, and of personal property, being a direct tax, within the meaning of the constitution, and therefore unconstitutional and void, because not apportioned according to representation, all those sections, constituting one entire scheme of taxation, are necessarily invalid.
- Mr. Justice WHITE, dissenting.
16. The injustice of the conclusion points to the error of adopting it. It takes invested wealth, and reads it into the constitution as a favored and protected class of property, which cannot be taxed without apportionment, while it leaves the occupation of the minister, the doctor, the professor, the lawyer, the inventor, the author, the merchant, the mechanic, and all other forms of industry upon which the prosperity of a people must depend, subject to taxation without that condition.
2) corporate income taxes are not taxes on the corporation’s income but an excise tax measured by the size of the corporation’s income, and
And??? Since the the mining company was found to be a business taxable under the 1909 law, what else would they say? The Court was not addressing a tax on individuals at all, the 1909 law was purely a business tax. The defendant before the court was a mining company and found subject to that tax.
3) any true federal income tax would be unconstitutional, if not apportioned.
Not according to Pollock nor any other Supreme Court case.
I suppose you define a "true" income tax as a tax merely on rents and earnings from property, then Pollock would have held up until the ratifictation of the 16th amendment which did away with that particular distinction.
The only way they could come close to levying a tax on corporations would be to levy an excise and not an income tax.
Ahmmm!
What, precisely prevents them from levying an excise or duty on individual's activities in commerce?
House Congressional Record, March 27, 1943, pg. 2580:
- "The income tax is, therefore, not a tax on income as such. It is an excise tax with respect to certain activities and privileges (the type 3 and 4 taxes) 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."
James Madison, Federalist #39:
- "The difference between a federal and national government, as it relates to the OPERATION OF THE GOVERNMENT, is supposed to consist in this, that in the former the powers operate on the political bodies composing the Confederacy, in their political capacities; in the latter, on the individual citizens composing the nation, in their individual capacities. On trying the Constitution by this criterion, it falls under the NATIONAL, not the FEDERAL character;"
James Madison, Federalist #45:
- "The change relating to taxation may be regarded as the most important; and yet the present [Continental] sic Congress have as complete authority to REQUIRE of the States indefinite supplies of money for the common defense and general welfare, as the future [Constitutional] Congress will have to require them of individual citizens;
A LAW DICTIONARY
by John Bouvier, Revised Sixth Edition, (1856):
"INCOME. The gain which proceeds from property, labor, or business; it is applied particularly to individuals;"A LAW DICTIONARY
by John Bouvier, Revised Sixth Edition, 1856:
PROFITS. In general, by this term is understood the benefit which a man derives from a thing. It is more particularly applied to such benefit as arises from his labor and skillSpringer v. United States(1880), 102 U.S. 586
"The central and controlling question in this case is whether the tax which was levied on the income, gains, and profits of the plaintiff in error, as set forth in the record, and by pretended virtue of the acts of Congress and parts of acts therein mentioned, is a direct tax." "Our conclusions are, that direct taxes, within the meaning of the Constitution, are only capitation taxes, as expressed in that instrument, and taxes on real estate; and that the tax of which the plaintiff in error complains is within the category of an excise or duty."
POLLOCK v. FARMERS' LOAN & TRUST CO., 158 U.S. 601 (1895):
- "We have considered the act only in respect of the tax on income derived from real estate, and from invested personal property, and have not commented on so much of it as bears on gains or profits from business, privileges, or employments, in view of the instances in which taxation on business, privileges, or employments has assumed the guise of an excise tax and been sustained as such."
- "If that[rents from land] be stricken out, and also the income from all invested personal property, bonds, stocks, investments of all kinds, it is obvious that by a r the largest part of the anticipated revenue would be eliminated, and this would leave the burden of the tax to be borne by professions, trades, employments, or vocations; and in that way what was intended as a tax on capital would remain, in substance, a tax on occupations and labor. We cannot believe that such was the intention of congress."
- "We do not mean to say that an act laying by apportionment a direct tax on all real estate and personal property, or the income thereof, might not also lay excise taxes on business, privileges, employments, and vocations. "
Stratton's Independence, LTD. v. Howbert(1913), 231 U.S. 399:
- "'[I]ncome' may be defined as the gain derived from capital, from labor, or from both combined, and here we have combined operations of capital and labor. As to the alleged inequality of operation between mining corporations and others, it is of course true that the revenues derived from the working of mines result to some extent in the exhaustion of the capital. But the same is true of the earnings of the human brain and hand when unaided by capital, yet such earnings are commonly dealt with in legislation as income."
Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co.(1916), 240 U.S. 103:
- "the provisions of the 16th 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"
Lucas v. Earl(1930), 281 U.S. 111:
- "The Revenue Act of 1918 approved February 24, 1919, c. 18, 210, 211, 212(a), 213(a), 40 Stat. 1057, 1062, 1064, 1065, imposes a tax upon the net income of every individual including 'income derived from salaries, wages, or compensation for personal service ... of whatever kind and in whatever form paid,' 213(a). The provisions of the Revenue Act of 1921, c. 136, 42 Stat. 227, 233, 237, 238, in sections bearing the same numbers are similar to those of the above."
- "There is no doubt that the statute could tax salaries to those who earned them "
U.S. v. CONSTANTINE, 296 U.S. 287 (1935)
- " The United States has the power to levy excises upon occupations, and to classify them for this purpose; and need look only to the fact of the exercise of the occupation or calling taxed, regardless of whether such exercise is permitted or prohibited by the laws of the United States or by those of a state. The burden of the tax may be imposed alike on the just and the unjust."
Charles C. Stewart Machine Co. v. Davis (1937), 301 U.S. 548:
- The tax, which is described in the statute as an excise, is laid with uniformity throughout the United States as a duty, an impost, or an excise upon the relation of employment.
- "But natural rights, so called, are as much subject to taxation as rights of lesser importance. An excise is not limited to vocations or activities that may be prohibited altogether. It is not limited to those that are the outcome of a franchise. It extends to vocations or activities pursued as of common right."
- Employment is a business relation, if not itself a business. It is a relation without which business could seldom be carried on effectively. The power to tax the activities and relations that constitute a calling considered as a unit is the power to tax any of them. The whole includes the parts. Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U.S. 249, 267 , 268 S., 53 S.Ct. 345, 349, 350, 87 A.L.R. 1191
Try a little experiment then. Don't pay your Income Taxes this year, and when the IRS contacts you-- tell them you don't owe them anything. Then when the IRS sends it's agents to take your house (and everything in it), take your car, and garnish your wages, and haul you off to jail-- try to resist! You will end up seeing that gun that I'm speaking of in my posts.
You figure that you are not subject to enforcement of the laws of this nation??
Yes they can and do come after you with guns if necessary to enforce law of the nation. What precisely is inappropriate about that?
Constitution for the United States of America:
- Article VI: "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."
- Article I Section 8: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises,
to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;
but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; "
- Article I Section 8: "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."
If you think for one minute that the the government won't use force to collect those taxes, then you're delusional!
What has that to do with my statement?
"However, that taxes are voluntary is not what I stated.
Strange indeed! I've been supporting the removal of the income and payroll tax system for decades now, and not once have I ever had a gun pointed at my head."
They also refused to apply the second amendment, in the Silveria case out of the 9th circus.
Well... I don't ACTUALLY know that any of that is true... but once you get him started he is pretty much a one trick pony on this subject.
Some people will never see the forrest for the trees.
What do you want me to do? Agree with you that the Federal Government is our friend?
The National Government is nothing more nor nothing less that what we allow it to be through the representatives we elect and the legislation we allow them to enact.
If you want the income tax to end or abusiveness of the minions of goverment like the IRS to be addressed, the place to start cleaning house is at the source of the problem, Congress.
Railing at the hired guns, only detracts from ever recognising the source and the cure to the problem. It's like the bull going after the red-cape and never hitting the mattadore.
Recognising the red-cape for what it is, the distraction, and direct barbs at those pulling the strings and making the bad law that enables and supports the abuse, Congress.
Government is empowred to enforce law, that's a fact of Constitutional life, violate statutes and expect the minion's gun pointed at you.
It's better to go for the real problems bad law (by supporting repeal/replacement) and the Critters making the bad law(by voting them out of office), instead of pounding one's head against the brick walls of bureaucracy designed to distract one's attention from the real issues.
What's stopping YOU Geezer?
Absolutely nothing at all.
I bring attention to the mattadore and what can and should be done towards change and point out the futility of attacking the redcape.
Blaming the IRS or any agency or department is a waste of time, they will not go away and only increase in strenght, while the pushers and movers that create those agencies remain right where they are making evermore of the same kind of laws and ever increasing the power of those minions to enforce those laws we should never have allowed to be enacted in the first place.
In the case of taxation, there are better alternatives, and legislation in the pipeline to effect the change. I find it deplorable that so much energy is wasted in charging the cape, wasting people's lives and wealth, with so little addressed to actually supporting and implementing change in the law and removing those that have given and maintain the laws we all object to.
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