[sinkspur]

She still owes the taxes. What did she win?

[DB]

She won the criminal trial because the IRS screwed up the handling of her letters.

Nonetheless she still owes the money, as this trial did nothing on that front.

So her victory only amounts to her not going to jail - Yet.

After she gets done paying all the interest and penalties, I’d hardly call it any kind of victory (for her).

[Consort]

Who pays her lawyer, and how much?

[Republican Red]

I would think she would also owe interest and penalties. My father-in-law got into some trouble a while back and the amount of back taxes owed were nominal compared to the interest and penalties attached to it.

[mvpel]

"Well, there was until the 16th Amendment was enacted in the early part of the last century. The Constitution specifically prohibited the federal government from taxing individuals directly. The 16th Amendment amended that. And it was challenged several times in two cases right after it was enacted. And those cases have been called intellectually dishonest. But no one seriously, successfully, has challenged the power of the federal government since then to tax individual income."

No one that they are willing to talk about, and/or haven't killed or driven to suicide, that is.

Larken Rose, at TaxableIncome.Net is one in the former category, as is Joe Banister, a former IRS agent who was forced to resign when he asked his superiors for chapter and verse after trying in vain to debunk the anti-income-tax arguments himself. Banister's calculated income taxes are going into a irrevocable trust until the IRS can prove a claim on them or until his son goes to college, and he's been waiting for years.

The only surprise in this case is not the outcome, but that the judge wasn't colluding with the IRS to suppress the testimony of the defendant and her witnesses, as is usually done.

The Sixteenth Amendment did not expand Congress' taxing powers one iota, and the fact is, they can legally tax only those things that fall under their jurisdiction among the delegated powers in Article I, Section 8. They can not legally take power over something that is outside of that realm simply by calling it a tax, direct or indirect, and payment from an employer in a state to the employee in the same state for services rendered to the employer is not "in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce."

It'll be interesting to see what happens if and when the IRS issues a notice of levy and attempts to collect from this woman. They probably don't want to just kick her door in and gun her down now that she's gotten national media attention, and they can't truthfully answer some very specific, fundamental questions about the structure of Title 26 without their whole racket crashing down. They're in quite a bind.

[Temple Owl]

If this leads to a simple tax--flat or sales-- so that the average American can understand it should named to honor Vernice Kuglin. Meanwhile we urge all FReepers not to try it without first getting good legal advice.

[Sgt_Schultze]

Bump!

[lawdude]

Let's see. This is rather like the situation where the Score is 49-3 with 0 (zero) seconds on the clock. The Ref decides to put 4 seconds back on the clock for the trailing team after review of the tape!

Good luck!

[Frapster]

bump for later reading *this debate is quite interesting*

[AD from SpringBay]

More power to this woman and (never thought I'd say this) her lawyer. There is a very thin line between current levels of taxation and theft. Shots have been fired over far far less.

[The Wizard]

sounds like a good lawyer could win the case that the federal government is breaking the constitutional ban on taxing citizens