Posted on 09/26/2012 4:42:57 AM PDT by wesagain
"Colorado man's challenge to IRS says wages don't count"
The government calls those who argue the income tax has no legal foundation “tax protesters” and labels their arguments “frivolous.” And usually judges toss their arguments out of court, assess them court costs on top of taxes, interest and penalties, and sometimes even threaten them if they file further cases.
But now the U.S. Supreme Court – the nine judges who sit on the bench in Washington by virtue of their selection by presidents and confirmation by the U.S. Senate – has docketed exactly that type of case.
The results? Who knows, considering the radical arguments offered by the pro se plaintiff, Jeffrey Thomas Maehr, a Colorado chiropractor who has been involved in a number of business ventures, including PureHealthSystems.com.
Among Maehr’s contentions is that while the government has the legal authority to tax, the Internal Revenue Service has used “unlawful, unconstitutional, unfair and biased” manipulations to assess income taxes on that which is not income – essentially salaries and wages.
Basing his argument on 10 years’ worth of research into tax law, he concludes that salaries and wages are the result of the mutual agreement among participants to exchange labor for money – and that’s not income.
Income, he said, is the increased value of an asset, such as interest on money in a bank account, which can be subjected ........
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
How do you get that $1,000 is equal to $10,000? Did they receive 10 times the representation of government services than you?
The Communists have you brainwashed into thinking percentages are equal representations.
“Really? Then why did you do it?”
Most likely because the government paid me to. But you’re right, it would be foolish speculation on my part as to how to spend my time. Let’s forget about what you said about all labor and pretend it was meant to be labor that produces something. Do you think all laborers predict correctly that their product will be worth something? That is hopeful.
Or is it that you’ve redefined labor to mean laborious that us fruitful, meaning laborious that produces tangible and valuable things. Well, we can go home now because the argument has been defined away. Money may or may not make you money, but your special definition surefire will.
By the way, the reason I brought up digger’s n io and filling in holes was to demonstrate that there’s a difference between laborious and laborious that produces value. Whenever you apply elbow grease to nature, so to speak, you speculate it will have been better than nit doing anything. You delusion that labor necessarily leads to valuable goods is false.
Money speculation may be more abstract, but it is nit fundamentally different from hoping your trench digging or tree cutting will make you a living.
“if the government decides to tax boats, is the tax unconstitutional because they pay and I don’t?”
Do I have to explain this? No, because that would be a property tax. Or if it is a tax on buying boats, then a consumption or excise tax. Income taxes are what were called capitation taxes or poll taxes, more commonly today head taxes. It is applied upon individuals by classing them according to how much they’ve accumulated over the period in question in income. Property taxes are applied upon the ownership of something, or if it is a consumption tax upon the purchase of something. No special status is implied.
“The fact that the law may impact one group of people...differently than another group of people...doesn’t make it unconstitutional”
Perhaps it would be easier for you if you thought of it not as one law affecting people differently, which it really isn’t, but rather as different laws for different classes of people, which is more accurate.
“is the law unconstitutional because they pay and I don’t?”
Yes, if you ate paying a different rate for a different income level. Because then obviously there’s one rule for them and one for you.
“Because it is equally applied”
How fan you say that? They have one rate applied to them and another is applied to you based solely on income classification. How can that ne considered equal application?
>> “Whenever you apply elbow grease to nature, so to speak, you speculate it will have been better than nit doing anything. You delusion that labor necessarily leads to valuable goods is false.” <<
.
How many times have you dug a hole or trench of random size in a random location on speculation that it would be of value to an unknown buyer?
Your example lacks relevence to the real world. (no analogy exists)
Beer tax is an excise tax. It is a tax on consumption via purchase. That is not the same as a head tax. I can’t believe I have to explain this to people on FR.
Let me put it thus way. I couldn’t get murder law struck down because it discriminates against murderers. Because murderers are not a group; that’s just an action they happen to have performed. Although some make a habit of it. Still, they’re only noticed for it by the government one at a time.
Contrarywise, you can strike down laws that discriminates against black people. Why? Because race is not something you do; it is something you are, or are perceived to be.
Buying beer is something you do. Being in a certain income bracket is something you are.
“If one team were awarded more points for a touchdown than the other, that would be playing by different rules”
That’s a better analogy than between field goals and touchdowns, since it is comparing like with like. Also, it highlights how the diffetence is on the status of the team and not on any action it took.
“Your example lacks relevance”
Ugh. It’s called reductio ad absurdum. You said “labor always produces value,” which is false. I proved it with an abnormal example. But it so happens to be not mine and an example with a famous pedigree. Keynes was reputed to have said stimulus spending would be worthwhile even if we paid men to dig up holes and fill them in. Or was it dig ditches? No matter.
Now, you may say no one is so foolish as to think doing so would produce value. But all sorts of tangible produce is valueless, as you must know. Like I said, you can redefine labor as fruitful labor, but that’s just as unrealistic as my example of fruitless laborious.
The more I think about it, property taxes like poll taxes are considered direct taxes. So if your boat tax is a tax on ownership and not a tax on purchase, it may be a matter of status like income brackets. I’d have to think about it.
Appropos of SCOTUS, I suggest you read Harper v Virginia Board of Elections. The reasoning isn’t applied to the income tax no doubt because of the courts’ irrational “strict scrutiny” standard for laws affalecting voting (among other things) and “rational basis” for taxation. But it is enlightening. It says voting qualifications based on wealth violate equal protection.
Ever since, and before, “poll tax” has been a dirty word, implying racism, and restricted to meaning something to do with voting. But of course there are all sorts of poll taxes, the income tax being one. The only reason SCOTUS knocked down economic discrimination in voting status but not income status is, again, because of the misguidedlu bifurcates scrutiny system. The same logic applies.
Please ignore my depiction of property taxes in post 124 as not being direct taxes. I was going off half-cocked.
“like ‘the rich’ murderers”
Come now. This is beneath you. Richness is a status; murderousness is not. You are put on trial for discreet acts of murder, not for being a murderer. Once convicted you obtain special status as a convict or an ex-con, but not as a murderer.
Having an income at so-and-so a level does confer special status, though, more like being a felon than being a murderer.
By the way, if you want to attack felon status as in violation of equal protection, go ahead. I say it’s acceptable along the same lines as unequal laws for inors and adults, mothers and fathers, or marrieds and singles.
It is special status, just like different rates for different income groups. Only I don’t buy the state’s interest as legitimate in varying income tax rates like I do for blocking felons from voting. That the government can get more money with less political risk from soaking the rich does not trump equal protection.
Buying beer is something you do. Being in a certain income bracket is something you are.
So, when I recently chose to not work for a while, significantly lowering my income bracket, did I change who I was, or what I did?
I’ve said my piece - the tax brackets apply to everyone, even if not everyone is successful enough to have income in all of those brackets. That some income is taxed at higher rates doesn’t matter since the same rates apply to anyone with income in those brackets. That’s all equal protection requires. This equal protection argument has not be effective since 1913, and if there’s one thing people would do, it would be to challenge their tax bills under every conceivable argument. Good night.
Labor for hire is assumed to have produced value, or the producer of said labor is terminated, except in government of course.
Your example simply failed, not necessarily in absurdity, but from shallow analysis. You cited an act that is common in commerce, but failed to see its common usefulness.
“This equal protection argument has not been effective since 1913”
How long was seperate but equal legal before it was overturned? Korematsu has still not been overturned after 70-plus years and everybody in the country knows it’s wrong. We’ve had obviously unconstitutional policies for decades upon decades, from regulation of interstate commerce that isn’t commerce or interstate to the draft to sedition, and so on.
You’re telling me what? That they get grandfathered in, or that time settles all disputes? Banana oil. I guarantee you think something’s illegal that’s been around for ages.
“if there’s one thing people would do, it would be to change their tax bill under every conceivable argument.”
Have you any idea how hard it is to strike down laws? Especially laws that have spawned entire departments. The courts are part if government, after all. They wouldn’t stand in the way of what the central government needed to live (in the style to which it had become accustomed).
I beg you to read US v Caroline Products Co and its infamous footnote four. SCOTUS grants laws a presumption of constitutionality. Why? No reason, really. Unless, that is, they affect:
1. voting/the political process
2. “insular minorities”
3. prima face violations of the Constitution, including explicitly mentionedrights in the Bill of Rights (except the right to bear arms, or whatever else they don’t like)
Cases falling within such bounds are subject to “strict scrutiny.” Everything else is assumed to be constitutional if it passes the lower “rational basis” bar. Which means the state has to have some reason, whatever it may be. Mere “economic rights” fall under rational basis, which explains why equal protection arguments against progressive rates fail. Note how poll taxes on voting were struck down even though they are economic in nature because it dealt with voting.
There is no rational basis fir the strict scrutiny/rational basis division, nor the presumption of constitutionality. Like I said, it came from a footnote. But because of it, I can confidently say your argument that it’s been a hundred years and the equal protection defense would have been tried by now is toothless.
“Labor for hire is assumed to have produced value”
I’m learning you assume that, but the rest of the world doesn’t.
“or the producer of said labor is terminated”
Interesting you bring that up. The fact that people are laid off contradicts your assertion that all laborious produces value. Otherwise we’d have full employment and the more jobs businesses add the bigger they’d grow.
“You cited an act that is common in commerce”
Obviously I meant digging a hole and refilling it for the purpose of digging a hole and refilling it. Like I said, it is not mine and a famous example. But also obviously you do not study economics so I guess I have to be as explicit as possible.
Replace digging with any pointless activity you can think of. Surely you must admit there is some work that bears no fruit. When you hit upon it, finish the argument yourself.
“when I recently chose to not work for a while, significantly lowering my income bracket, did I change who I was, or what I did?”
Both, actually. But the government is only interested in what you became, which was someone with a lower income level. You are nit taxed for how much you work, you are taxed based on his much you made. That’s why we call it an income tax instead of a work tax.
Is this really that hard to get? Why don’t you tell me why we càll income taxes direct (or poll, head, capitation) and how excise taxes are different. Then maybe we could get back to equal protection.
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