Independent American News

By Attorney Ed Rivera,

As you know, the federal income tax was initiated in the civil war as a tax on federal office holders with an annual salary of $600 or more. These federal officers could be and were required to file a return along with the payment of their tax, because as to them the federal income tax was an excise on the holding of a public office.

The Commissioner of Internal Revenue was created to try and collect the federal income tax from everyone else. Then as now, they used every dirty trick to get anyone suspected of earning more than $600 a year to voluntarily file a return.

The feds beat the confederates, but the federal income tax was so hated it was left to die. The hated assessors were also retired and the duties of assessment given to the Collectors of Internal Revenue, who collected excises in some 65 districts.

In 1894, the federal income tax was revived, but because a generation had passed since the last income tax it was forgotten that a legal duty cannot be imposed on everyone to file an income tax return. Section 29 of the 1894 federal income tax required the filing of a return by making it “the duty of all persons of lawful age having an income of more than three thousand five hundred dollars for the taxable year.”

Practically, everyone who has done any research on the federal income tax has discovered that the 1894 income tax law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the legislative branch in the Income Tax Cases: Pollock v. Farmer’s Loan & Trust, 157 U.S. 429 (1895) and Pollock v. Farmer’s Loan & Trust, 158 U.S. 601 (1895). To cover up what part of the 1894 act was bad the court declared the entire law unconstitutional as a direct tax.

How is a direct tax imposed? A legal duty is imposed to make a list or return of all taxable property. During the civil war the assessor would make the return for the tax protester and the Collector of Internal Revenue would collect. The Collector of Internal Revenue was bonded and could be sued, but the suit was in federal district court, so you had a 50/50 chance of recovery.

Today the federal income tax is still an excise and there still can be no legal duty to make a return. The Collector of Internal Revenue was abolished in 1952. There is no one with any authority to make an assessment, make a return, give notice or demand payment of federal income taxes.

The IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 tardily prohibited the use of the “tax protester” moniker, since there is no need to protest payment of a tax that legally amounts to voluntary payment. Congress specifically authorized the IRS to identify persons who do not file as nonfilers and the IRS has tried hard to make that term a pejorative. Congress also stipulated how a nonfiler would become a taxpayer. A nonfiler must file two consecutive returns and pay the tax on the returns before a nonfiler can become a taxpayer.

The federal income tax is an excise on the performance of a public office. It is the act of performing the public office that imposes the legal duty to make the federal income tax return known as the U.S. Individual Income Tax Return or 1040. Any attempt to impose a legal duty to account for property by making the filing of a list or return results in the creation of a direct property tax which can only be imposed, when authorized, by apportionment.

The 42^nd Congress made the federal income tax voluntary by first abolishing the assessor on December 24, 1872 in 17 Stat 401. All internal revenue taxes were made voluntary by the abolition of the Office of the Collector of Internal Revenue in the IRS Reorganization of 1950 and 1952, which is found in the 1994 edition of the United States Code Title 26 Section 7804.

The IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 Section 3707 permits the IRS to call a nonfiler a taxpayer once two consecutive tax returns have been filed and the taxes on those returns have been filed, but filing a return for a nonfiler could only be done if the Office of the Collector of Internal Revenue was revived and the Constitution amended.

The 16^th Amendment does not permit the imposition of an income tax that is direct. The 16^th Amendment refers, specifically, if not expressly, to its power to tax the income of its Officers and employees, as an excise on the performance of a public office:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on income, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

The prepositional phrase: “from whatever source derived,” refers to the power to tax and not to the word “income.” The President of the United States is an employee of Congress, as are the Justices and judges of all the federal courts. These officers are liable as both officers and as employees. The source of the power of Congress to tax is from authority to impose an excise and the power to reduce the income of an employee. The holder of the Office of President has income protection not the President of the United States. Real Article III judges have fixed compensation not territorial black robed employees. 

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 16th, 2008 at 1:47 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.