Posted on 07/08/2010 8:14:31 AM PDT by Robert A Cook PE
Basically, if your case rises to the criminal level, you're screwed. The confusion I'm seeing on this thread simply involves people not understanding how often it happens, which is rarely.
It [a flat tax] doesn’t have to be “a cancer” as you posit; for example if we amended the Constitution to say something like:
1) All incomes will be taxed at 5%, no exceptions.
2) Any evasion of taxes by a public official, who having been duly convicted, shall result in their immediate removal and the revocation of all emoluments they would otherwise be entitled to for their service in that position.
Likely just more chaff thrown up by the nobama bunch to add one more log to the bonfire of uncertainty. How the heck can they just toss out established law? Answer, they can try, but they can’t make it stick.
“...Two words. Flat Tax...”
-
Two even better words: FAIR TAX!
Nothing thats been said here changes that.
And I’m telling you that it’s not the case. Keep your records for seven years (the way it’s always been), and you’ll be fine.
“One Word: FairTax!”
No damn way!
I got a letter from the IRS a few years back, claiming that our business return from 7 years prior had not been filed. I found our old copy,and sent it in, along with proof of certified mailing. They sent a letter back admitting they had lost the return,and demanding that we sign and date our copy as the original. Then, they claimed that return was filed as an scorp without proof of scorp status granted. I had to go back to returns over 10 years past that to prove we had been approved. My lesson: save everything, forever.
Yeah sure.....like that would ever work.
Do yourself a favor, next time avoid the public school that gave you what they called an ‘education’.
Well well well....another cheerleader for the Income tax.
16th Amendment rah rah rah!!!!
Not “say,” but prove. Beyond a reasonable doubt. In federal court.
You seem a little too comfortable with authoritarian power.
4. You do not file a return; keep records indefinitely.
Well if that's the case, zero's entire cabinet will have to keep all their records. - Oh wait, some of them didn't file income taxes.
>Yeah sure.....like that would ever work.
>
>Do yourself a favor, next time avoid the public school that gave you what they called an ‘education’.
Actually I was home-schooled. And it WOULD work if a) The Constitution was the Supreme Law of the Land, b) Government itself would be subject to the Constitution, and c) People MADE SURE that their Government was abiding by the Constitution instead of just lolling back and letting [for example] the USSC re-define what the Constitution says.
Take, for instance, the Keelo vs New London [2005, IIRC] decision by the USSC. In that decision the Supreme Court ruled that Imminent Domain applies to “intangible” benefits, namely projected taxation revenue increase, as being ‘public use.’ Furthermore, they ruled that using Imminent Domain to take private property and turn it over to another private entity (a form of Larceny) was legal so long as it was government-sanctioned.
If I got into my dislike of Congress’s latest Contra-Constitutional I’d probably end up getting the post pulled. However, here is a link to what they were doing the AIG tomfoolery: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dv698tm_22dr6x3nfb
And the Executive, well... the DOJ’s dropping of the NBP case is just one of MANY outrages.
I’m moving to Mexico, becoming a nationalized Mexican, and then sneaking back. It’s much easier that way.
NO QUESTIONS ASKED
Yeah sure....the original Constitution before the 16th Amendment included two types of taxes 1) an indirect tax and a 2) direct tax with apportionment.
Both of the two taxes above were developed and based in a deep philosophy of fairness.
Your amendment proposal is at the bottom of the amateur league. To even consider such an idea means negating the entire thought development philosophy of the Founders with respect to taxation and fairness thereof. In particular your idea negates the second type of taxation , the direct tax, thereby rendering the United States incapable of emergency war funding or other large and essential public works projects such as the Panama Canal.
As for the Kelo decision and other ‘outrages’, yes they happen from time to time in American history, and they can be overturned. Such cases have nothing to do with your amendment proposal.
The Flat Tax has had time averaged support of between 3 - 6 members of Congress. The FairTax has had such support of between 45 and 75 members as well as Nobel Prize winners, former Federal Reserve Board Governors, respected academics and a huge grassroots organization that is growing by an average 800 person per day 24/7.
The Flat Tax is not new. It keeps coming up over and over again and indeed Congress has had 5 major reforms since 1913 to make the tax code ‘flatter’. Nothing can make it work, not even a Constitutional Amendment because just as soon as the need arises for ‘emergency’ war funding or other ‘emergencies’, such an amendment will be overturned. And if a provision for ‘emergency’ funding is included in such a farce amendment, then the word ‘emergency’ will be abused in meaning just as it has in many many states that have enacted spending restrictions except for ‘emergencies’.
Similar was the case of the 16th Amendment in which the word ‘income’ has been abused in meaning. The word has been sliced into various coded meanings of taxable income, non-taxable income, income that is not income but rather dividend distributions, income which is not earned income and so on and so on ad infinitum.
Since the last major tax reform in 1986 under President Reagan, there have been more than 18,000 amendments to the IRS tax code. As long as the Constitution has amendments with words such as ‘income’ or ‘emergency’ there will be lobbyists paying off members of Congress to define the words to their benefit.
Therefore, learn, realize and accept as a fact of life that abuse of meaning will always exist. And in the sense of an engineer, design your thinking and words for wear and tear, for maintenance, repair and replacement. The best ‘system’ will be a system that is TRANSPARENT, as a mechanic can easily see the problem, as a doctor can easily diagnose the illness. The Income tax in any form, even backed by Constitutional Amendment is a system where those in positions of power can ‘hide’ what they do from the public.
The best tax is a consumption tax with a provision that there is NO TAXATION ON ANY AMERICAN for the essentials of life where the essential level is well-defined and tested, and free of Congressional meddling. Such a level has already been developed as the ‘Poverty Line’. It could be abused but then everyone would see its effects and the tug-o-war that would ensue would check any abuse of it.
As for the natural check on taxation given by a consumption tax, the description was best given by Alexander Hamilton stated in Federalist Paper #21”:
“It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue. If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.”
The Founders got taxation right in the original Constitution before the 16th Amendment. The Income tax without apportionment took 52 years to become legal (1861 - 1913). It was snuck in as a small tax (7%) on the wealthiest 2% of Americans, and within 15 years it was foisted onto the middle class via incrementalism. It was based from the outset on class warfare.
Make your fellow homeschoolers proud, read and study:
Smart move. I hate Mexico though, I’m moving elsewhere and won’t have to sneak back in. :)
. . . “ be prepared to defend yourself “ ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, With what ,, fradulent records that you will save forever ? If we weren’t talking about the IRS none of this would make sense to me .
IRS attorneys in federal court? Generally, no. Perhaps you've spent too much time watching Law & Order.
I think you may be replying to someone else, because you are getting into non-sequiturs.
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