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epluth · Nov 3, 2006, 04:39 PM

I have seen it mentioned that alot of people have been acquitted by the supreme court for not paying income taxes due to the govt. not being able to back the law up with actual ink. Its been mentioned on here a few times in the past few years, and rather than bringing these threads back from the dead, I figured I go ahead and ask.

Has anyone seen the new film entitled "America: freedom to Fascism"? You can view the trailer here...

America - Freedom to Fascism New Trailer - Google Video

Would anyone like to share their views on this? Has the mysterious law been found yet?

art_director · Nov 3, 2006, 04:47 PM

I no expert on taxes or this subject but I know two people who have embarked on this little experiment.

The first person refused to pay his income taxes for six years. He spent untold hours responding to and writing letters to the IRS during the entire ordeal. This past summer he finally caved in and paid all his back taxes. He refuses to discuss the details and his face goes white at the mere mention of his experience.

The second person refused to file last year for the first time. The IRS letters have not yet begun.

Both people I mention above have sent me links about this film.

Personally, I believe our tax system blows. It's unfair and horribly constructed. The IRS is incompetent beyond compare and we need a new way to pay our fair share. That said, I think it's BS that some people actually believe they don't / shouldn't have to pay a dime.

hey!_Zeus · Nov 3, 2006, 04:51 PM

Yes you don't have to pay BUT...the IRS will invade your house with a SWAT team and put you in jail and totally ruin your life. Sooooooo you better pay!

Big Mac · Nov 3, 2006, 04:54 PM

Proponents of that view have been laughed out of court, epluth. It does not work.

art_director · Nov 3, 2006, 04:54 PM

Originally Posted by hey!_Zeus

Yes you don't have to pay BUT...the IRS will invade your house with a SWAT team and put you in jail and totally ruin your life. Sooooooo you better pay!

The person who played the game for six years had more legal paperwork on the case than you can believe. It was quite the mess.

Shaddim · Nov 3, 2006, 04:56 PM

If you had the legal muscle, you could fight it and win. But, it would be cheaper to just pay.

epluth · Nov 3, 2006, 04:56 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Proponents of that view have been laughed out of court, epluth. It does not work.

Im sure, but how depressing. My view of our country and what it stands for is ever-eroding.

art_director · Nov 3, 2006, 04:56 PM

Originally Posted by MacNStein

If you had the legal muscle, you could fight it and win. But, it would be cheaper to just pay.

No, you wouldn't win in the end.

epluth · Nov 3, 2006, 05:05 PM

Originally Posted by art_director

No, you wouldn't win in the end.

Actually there have been alot of people who have won. I guess thanks to a jury of citizens like you and me making sure the system works. But like it was mentioned, what a hell you have to go through.

I'd surely love to pick a tax attorney's head right about now.

art_director · Nov 3, 2006, 05:08 PM

Originally Posted by epluth

Actually there have been alot of people who have won. I guess thanks to a jury of citizens like you and me making sure the system works. But like it was mentioned, what a hell you have to go through.

I'd surely love to pick a tax attorney's head right about now.

The first person I mentioned has told me just one thing about his reasons for giving in: the courts are turning on people playing this game. He cited numerous cases he'd been watching closely.

If I were younger and single I could see where there might be an incentive. But, having signifigant equity in a home and numerous investments, not to mention a wife and child, I'd never even think about it.

Then there's the fact that I believe we all have the duty to pay some taxes.

Shaddim · Nov 3, 2006, 05:11 PM

Originally Posted by art_director

No, you wouldn't win in the end.

Actually, yes I would, it's been done before and there's legal precedence for it. It's just time consuming and very costly. It's cheaper just to pay the Federal "protection money" and be done with it.

art_director · Nov 3, 2006, 05:13 PM

Originally Posted by MacNStein

Actually, yes I would, it's been done before and there's legal precedence for it. It's just time consuming and very costly. It's cheaper just to pay the Federal "protection money" and be done with it.

You left out how dangerous it is. They are more than happy to lock up tax cheats.

The courts have begun to turn on the people playing this game.

Shaddim · Nov 3, 2006, 05:24 PM

Originally Posted by art_director

You left out how dangerous it is. They are more than happy to lock up tax cheats.

The courts have begun to turn on the people playing this game.

If I had enough money to fight it, I'd have enough to stay out of jail. Wealthy people don't go to prison over this type of thing, unless they're trying to nail you for something else entirely. Sad but true.

art_director · Nov 3, 2006, 05:30 PM

Originally Posted by MacNStein

If I had enough money to fight it, I'd have enough to stay out of jail. Wealthy people don't go to prison over this type of thing, unless they're trying to nail you for something else entirely. Sad but true.

Rich people don't play this foolish game. They pay the big buck accountants to help them dodge their taxes and hide their income. This is the path of the foolish.

The person I know who tried it did all the paperwork himself so your no money argument is fluff. If you're so certain that this is a viable option I challenge you to do it yourself and report back.

itai195 · Nov 3, 2006, 05:39 PM

Originally Posted by epluth

I have seen it mentioned that alot of people have been acquitted by the supreme court for not paying income taxes due to the govt. not being able to back the law up with actual ink.

You mean like the 16th Amendment?

Atheist · Nov 3, 2006, 05:52 PM

This sounds like one of those urban legend things. Can anyone cite a specific case with real details?

art_director · Nov 3, 2006, 05:58 PM

Google will turn up many a theory on how and why it's legal. BS, IMHO.

Doofy · Nov 3, 2006, 06:07 PM

Tax protester constitutional arguments - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shaddim · Nov 3, 2006, 06:13 PM

Originally Posted by art_director

Rich people don't play this foolish game. They pay the big buck accountants to help them dodge their taxes and hide their income. This is the path of the foolish.

The person I know who tried it did all the paperwork himself so your no money argument is fluff. If you're so certain that this is a viable option I challenge you to do it yourself and report back.

Why would I? Given my contributions, I pay almost nothing as it is.

art_director · Nov 3, 2006, 06:17 PM

Originally Posted by MacNStein

Why would I? Given my contributions, I pay almost nothing as it is.

I'll refrain from the obvious punchlines that can be tacked on to that post. Too easy.

epluth · 06:57 PM

Originally Posted by itai195

You mean like the 16th Amendment?

Will you state what the 16th Amendment says for everyone? I thought the argument was that it was never ratified. Wiki talks about it too, but I don't put too much beef behind that site.

Another thought to all of this. How can you tax a right? Isn't that mentioned in the constituition? Don't get me wrong, we pay our taxes. This is just an interesting debate.

EDITed

epluth · Nov 3, 2006, 06:53 PM

Originally Posted by Atheist

This sounds like one of those urban legend things. Can anyone cite a specific case with real details?

The 2 hour movie (ugh) mentions many cases by name, saying they had a 100% success rate.

SirCastor · Nov 3, 2006, 06:54 PM

My dad once told me that income tax is unconstitutional. I really don't know if that's true or not. It began as a temporary thing after WWII, stuck around.

I'm willing to pay taxes. Taxes go to support all kinds of important, valid things. What's really unfortunate is when Taxes are paying something and it's not a good return on the investment.

Dr Reducto · Nov 4, 2006, 01:28 AM

Originally Posted by art_director

You left out how dangerous it is. They are more than happy to lock up tax cheats.

The courts have begun to turn on the people playing this game.

The thing is if I remember it correctly:

It's a felony to lie on your taxes

It's a civil matter if you simply don't file.

So if you are cheating the government out of taxes.....don't file instead of lying. They can lock you up for lying, but in a civil suit, you can emerge unscathed, or simply leave the country, or a variety of other options

itistoday · Dec 2, 2006, 06:57 PM

Yeah, I just finished watching this excellent film. I'm pretty disgusted and angry about the whole thing, this is ridiculous. I'm trying to recommend it to as many people as I know (the film that is). Watch it and sign up at their site if you want to do something about our f*cked system (it's not just about the taxes, it's about your freedoms and how quickly they're about to disappear): America: Freedom to Fascism (Edit: GAH! How do I force this link to display as a URL and not the title???)

Ron Goodman · Dec 2, 2006, 07:32 PM

We're locking peope up with no right to appeal, sending them abroad to be tortured, having our phones tapped without warrents, databases kept on overseas travelers, and you're worried about income taxes?

itistoday · Dec 2, 2006, 07:37 PM

Originally Posted by Ron Goodman

We're locking peope up with no right to appeal, sending them abroad to be tortured, having our phones tapped without warrents, databases kept on overseas travelers, and you're worried about income taxes?

Yeah, because you don't have to pay them, and if you don't then, like you said, you'll be locked away without appeal, your life ruined, and your possessions taken away from you. The video also discusses the PATRIOT act, and the facade of electronic voting. I'd say that blatant robbery on the government's part is rather important, especially when it means that the government is not controlled by the people, but by a small group of wealthy individuals who also happen to control not just the government, but the media as well.

probablecause · Dec 3, 2006, 12:17 PM

I'm sorry but a lot of the content in this video is B******t. You all complain about paying taxes but no one is talking about what the alternative to paying income taxes should be. The government doesn't always do the best things with our money nor what we agree with but we can't withhold tax dollars because we disagree with the guy in office. If we did, there would be no Supreme court to decide anything. There'd just a guy on your corner with a machine gun telling you what he wants you to do.

Also, the part of the video about the value of the dollar is laughable. It implies that gold has real value whereas the dollar has no real value. What intrinsic value does gold have exactly? Besides jewelry and a few other limited used in technology for which there are alternatives why is gold valuable? Simply because there is a limited supply and we all have decided that its worth something thereby driving up the price. A car has intrinsic value because you can actually use it to do something. Any medium of exchange is likely to have no intrinsic value, so comparing the dollar to gold and whining that the link between the two has been severed is silly.

itistoday · Dec 3, 2006, 12:35 PM

Originally Posted by probablecause

I'm sorry but a lot of the content in this video is B******t. You all complain about paying taxes but no one is talking about what the alternative to paying income taxes should be. The government doesn't always do the best things with our money nor what we agree with but we can't withhold tax dollars because we disagree with the guy in office. If we did, there would be no Supreme court to decide anything. There'd just a guy on your corner with a machine gun telling you what he wants you to do.

Also, the part of the video about the value of the dollar is laughable. It implies that gold has real value whereas the dollar has no real value. What intrinsic value does gold have exactly? Besides jewelry and a few other limited used in technology for which there are alternatives why is gold valuable? Simply because there is a limited supply and we all have decided that its worth something thereby driving up the price. A car has intrinsic value because you can actually use it to do something. Any medium of exchange is likely to have no intrinsic value, so comparing the dollar to gold and whining that the link between the two has been severed is silly.

Yeah, I'm actually eating my words, I spent some time last night researching some of the claims the video made about income tax being illegal, and it seems like they rest on the rejection of the 16th amendment as being illegitimate, however none of their arguments for this have received any acceptance among most people, which I assume includes the scholarly type, and the whole tax thing is very complicated in general, so there's a lot of bullshit going around about it simply because the vast majority of people don't understand it.

For example, you claim that income tax is integral to the proper functioning of this government, however the video claims the opposite and says that it's all used to pay off the debt to bankers, and still other people make the slightly silly argument of "we didn't need it for 100 years, why should we need it now?" (which is a somewhat flawed argument but you see the point), and the point is, is that the actual facts, about where this money goes and how its spent, is simply unavailable (to the best of my knowledge).

So therefore I'm not going to be persuaded one way or the other, I think I will just let this issue drop. Plus the end of the movie starts getting really out of hand and becomes super-conspirist with ridiculous dramas put on about the national ID card. As my friend pointed out, the claim made in the movie that you won't be able to leave the country without a national ID card is moot because we're already in that situation, it's called passports.

HackManDan · Dec 3, 2006, 01:27 PM

Believing the income tax is unconstitutional or part of some fascist conspiracy is like believing the Moon landing didn’t happen. It’s that silly.

itistoday · Dec 3, 2006, 01:44 PM

Originally Posted by HackManDan

Believing the income tax is unconstitutional or part of some fascist conspiracy is like believing the Moon landing didn’t happen. It’s that silly.

Bad analogy, one was televised, the other hidden away in obscure historical documents that no one has read and are questionable in their legitimacy. It's not as cut and dry as that if you look into it, just look at how long the wiki on it is: Tax protester constitutional arguments - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I dunno, perhaps I'm wrong and you're a Harvard law grad and this all makes perfect sense to you, but whereas even the layman believes in the moon landing, in this case it's a bit harder for him make any sort of educated statement one way or the other.