Good post, I was looking for the link myself. The income tax is evil, but there is no reason to pretend that one doesn't have to pay it. All that does is get good people in trouble with the law.
It is NOT at all like the Soviet Union. However, I have been through this government raid on your business scenario followed by extensive contact with the IRS. it was truly horrible and completely ruined my life. Anything anyone does to get the American public to see the many problems has my support. That is for sure.
I'm not sure the movie makes the point that you don't have to pay it...and certainly the article is not making that point.
Oddly enough, Cohen - who may be the most knowledgeable person alive where it comes to the tax code - did not cite Section 6012 of Title 26 of the U.S. Code, which states: "Returns with respect to income taxes under subtitle A [governing tax computations] shall be made by the following: (1)(A) Every individual having for the taxable year gross income which equals or exceeds the exemption amount." The penalty for violation of Section 6012 can be found under Section 7203, which calls for up to a $25,000 fine and one year in prison for an individual "who willfully fails to pay such estimated tax or tax, make such return, keep such records, or supply such information."
It would be expected that a former IRS commissioner would be able to cite those provisions on demand. Yet he finds himself confused and lost amid the abstruse details of the Tax Code. How can we expect to do any better? Laws protecting lives, property, and public order are clear and easily complied with. The same cannot be said of the mare's nest of "laws" and precedents cited by the IRS to justify seizing the product of our labor at gunpoint.
The point of the article is that 1/4 or more of your income is confiscated by the federal government pursuant to a tax code that is over 17,000 pages, a code of related regulations that is tens of thousands more pages and too many interpretative opinions of the federal courts to count. Moreover, any determination by the IRS that you may not have complied with this thoroughly incomprehensible tax system (a system that no one could possibly fully comprehend), can result in an audit where the individual taxpayer is presumed to be noncompliant until he can prove otherwise.
Talk to tax attorneys or CPA's...everyone I've met has more than horror story of how someone's life was turned upside down because they were unable to prove that they complied with a system that the IRS itself does not understand after suffereing through a brutal audit process
What's evil is the federal reserve system. What's truly evil is that the IRS can arrest you and hold you without a court hearing, trial, or legal representation. And they can do it all without a warrant.
Rodney King wrote: "The income tax is evil..."
Give unto Caesar, that which is Caesar's. I agree with you, but I'll still file.
I'm always amazed when I read the 16th Amendment. What sane person would vote for such a thing? They must have been very naive back then to think they could write such an open-ended abomination without the government taking advantage of it. The 16th is literally a blank check:
"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."
The 16th is the fountain from which springs all sorts of government mischief. Education Dept. unconstitutional? No problem! Comply with No Child Left Behind, or you won't get this pile of money! Set the drinking age to 21, or you won't get this pile of money. Seatbelts? Wear them or you won't get this pile of money. You get the point.