Posted on 03/28/2004 11:17:51 AM PST by Robert Drobot
Do you really believe government been 'honorable' in its dealings with the Citizens of our Republic about the legal status of the 16th Amendment?
Are you honest with the idiots who swallow your crap ?
On the Quatloos page, they say that Bannister now says he files returns, during his TV appearances.
If he does, and tells the chumps that buy his tapes not to, he's a scoundrel. If he doesn't (or didn't), he's a knucklehead. Quite possible he's both.
What he isn't, is a good source of tax advice for anyone. Another page linked from Quatloos notes that he bases part of his book on a series of cases that another tax crank supposedly won. The only prob is, the crank lost.
If you want to believe this guy, ity's your right. It's a free country and people believe all kinds of weird stuff: space aliens ate their livers, the world is flat, Joe Banister has discovered the secret of paying no taxes, which he will gladly share for the price of a book or a few tapes or DVDs. But if you act on Joe B's advice you, like he, will wind up jammed up with the law, because his advice is to commit violations of the law.
So far, the tax protest movement is batting a solid .000 across the whole lineup. One after another their golden boys have been labeled "felon" and tossed in the hoosegow. There will soon be a market for a whole new range of scam-gurus selling tapes on how to get your sentence commuted. I can see it now: "Hi, I'm Joe Bannister and I've seen Federal law enforcement from both sides, up close and personal..."
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Yeah, right now we have an arcane system that basically is set up to make a net transfer of wealth from the average working stiff to folks who can afford high-powered tax advisors and attorneys.
Many have suggested fairer tax schemes, including consumption taxes or an income tax that is simplified, like Steve Forbes's famous "Flat Tax." These run up against all the entrenched interests that make money off the current system, including banks, H&R Block, big accountancy firms, etc. But a fairer system is a worthwhile goal.
However, the goal of the protesters is not to establish a fairer system through the legal & constitutional means available. It's to simply quit paying, using a variety of dodges and authoritative-sounding legal arguments. The problem is that these arguments sound authoritative to John and Jane Public, but they cut no ice whatever with the courts. Another poster has published a case list of some of the sad souls who trusted tax protestors' legal arguments. (Some of these guys contact you ONCE you get in trouble and say that ONLY their legal advice will get you off... of course it's gonna cost you.... meanwhile they are batting .000 and their excuse is, "well those people didn't follow my advice exactly.")
The first rule of scams is, when someone offers you something that is too good to be true, pull the eject handles, hard. If you don't recognise "I can show you how to avoid paying any income taxes, and it's legal" as "too good to be true," you are the kind of person that scam artists are looking for.
The guy in Nigeria with the $30 million he needs to put in your checking account, he's not real either....
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
For an Amendment to the Constitution to pass, it must come from a Constitutional Convention called by 2.3 of State legislatures (which has never been done). or it must pass both Houses of Congress by a 2/3 margin and then be ratified by 3/4 of States (which can be by State Legislatures or a State Constitutional Convention, as specified in the Amendment or at the option of the State if not specified). This is spelled out in Article 5 of the Constitution.
The Senate vote was 77-0 in favour of Amendment XVI. It passes the first half of the 2/3 test.
The House vote was 318-14 in favour. It passes the second half of the 2/3 test. This was a bipartisan, popular Amendment.
It was ratified by 38 States, two more than necessary (at the time there were 48 States. 36/48=.75=3/4). This happened within the relatively short span of three years, ten months (the link, from USConstitution.net, has the states and the date of ratification). More states would have ratified the amendment as well, but it wasn't necessary, so they cleared it off their legislative calendars and went about other business.
The argument that the 16th was never legally ratified appears to have originated in a book by a guy named Benson, who made a lot of unsupported claims about fraud, etc. This is the ur-root of the tax protestors' false and easily disproven claims about the legality of Federal income taxes.
Another argument beloved of the cranks attempts to play Clintonian "meaning of 'is'" games with the wording of the 16th. That doesn't work, because it is really a very simple piece of text:
Amendment XVI - Income taxes authorized. Ratified 2/3/1913.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
A Roman soldier, troubled about how to reconcile his loyalty to his nation to his newfound religious belief, came to Jesus Christ. Jesus asked if he had a denarius (a very small coin). "Look at the denarius, then," said Jesus, "and tell me whose face is upon it."
"Why, it is Caesar's face, my Lord," the soldier replied.
"Then, it is Caesar's coin," said the Lord. "Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's; my kingdom is not of this world."
Now, I have paraphrased the parable off the top of my head. In my denomination we don't go in for great swathes of Bible memorisation (and we haven't got any snake-handling, either, more's the pity). But that parable has been a guide for Christians trying to make their spiritual life coexist with the temporal world for the last twenty centuries.
I don't see how spitting in Caesar's eye makes one particularly "God-fearing" (although the outcome might make one rather Caesar-fearing, I'm thinking) and I don't see any nobility in going up the river for somebody else's bad idea. I especially do not believe that Jesus would have recommended the course of action taken by the dozens of chumps who filed the dozens of ill-fated suits VRWC-Minion listed.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
You all that call this guy a shyster, and laugh at people that stand up to the tyranny, that pay whatever the good pseudo-agency tells you to pay, need to check yourself. How can you sit there and argue for enslavement? Good thing there were more patriots and less cowards at the Boston Tea Party, at the signing of the Declaration, at the hashing out of the Constitution. You types should be ashamed of yourself. You wear chains, and are proud of the fact that you do.
Keep on fighting the good fight. We shall overcome!
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