Unwarranted Jurisdiction Over US? 16th Amendment and Constitutional Income.

Have We the People "elected" to leave the jurisdiction of the Constitution?  Into a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, such as a corporate reality?   If so, to be sure, we elected to do this without knowing what we were doing. 

The ratification of the 16th amendment was one of the biggest issues  in 1913 because the American people thought this federal income tax would tax the accumulated wealth of the country: basically what the Vanderbilt’s, Rockefellers, and the Morgan’s, etc--those few people who benefited from the Industrial Revolution and the monopolization of American industry-- owned,  the millions of dollars in bonds and investment on Wall Street that were generating enormous income. That and only that income  was supposed to be taxed and the American people were all for it.

In other words, the purpose of the 16th amendment was to bring tax relief to working class wage earners by taxing the top 2% (at the time, a single person making over $3,000 year or a married couple making $4,000 year.  Remember the average working family made $450 year).

So how did we go from the top 2% paying income tax to the bottom 95% paying the majority of income tax?   Well, the answer lies in who wrote the amendment, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich married to a Rockefeller, and how it was written, in vague language that could be manipulated later. And let's not forget the creation of the Federal Reserve system which, since that time has seen the value of the dollar fall by more than 98%.

Through  manipulation of the word income, and the tinkering of jurisdictional boundaries,  more and more of us were incorporated into the taxable bracket: bracket creep. However, the income tax is an indirect tax determined in the case of Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad, which means that it only taxes income that is discretionary, whereas a direct tax taxes our labor, wages and salaries, our very existence.

“In briefs and argument before the Supreme Court in the case of Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad, both Brushaber and the Government claimed that the 16th Amendment provided for a direct tax exempted from the Constitutional apportionment rule. The High Court called this claim an "erroneous assumption...wholly without foundation." Constitutional Income: Do You Have Any? by Phil Hart pp. 204-210.

The courts are not going to unravel this web of deceit because the supreme court refuses to take cases that would clarify jurisdiction and meanings related to our convoluted tax system.

Source:

In the thoroughly researched book (19,000 pages of statutes and regulations)  Constitutional Income: Do You Have Any? by Phil Hart you will read about the intent and the constitutional underpinnings of the Sixteenth Amendment, the Income Tax Amendment and how the American people are being taking advantage of by our government through making the average person pay taxes on money that is not legally taxable.

Clubb, John Scott. "The new man on the job" 1913.
From the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog Collection:
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3b30704/

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Is Mitt Romney a Financial Parasite?

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”. -- Abraham Lincoln

How does the good of a few greedy parasites, beholden to nothing, outweigh the good of the nation? How does anyone justify legislation and policy that further lines the pockets of these parasites? Even if parasitic wealth was taxed at the same rate as the rest of us, they would still be filthy rich! And, they don't create jobs. Hell, most of them never worked a day in their life. But apparently, enough of us believe in their speculative finance economy that has made them obscenely wealthy, and the propaganda that they spew that we are willing to risk an economic catastrophe to protect that obscene wealth.

Which brings me to presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, whose fiscal plan delivers huge tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans while simultaneously forcing massive cuts to public services and social security on which the middle class rely. Then, there is the matter of his personal finances...

Not only, according to his released tax returns, did Romney make $42.7 million over the past two years, paying only $6.2 million in taxes - that’s an effective tax rate of less than 13.9% for doing nothing - he took advantage of a giant tax loophole that's available to only a very select few. It's called the carried interest loophole, or as it's often called the hedge fund manager tax loophole (in 2009 Top 10 Hedge Fund Honchos Averaged $900,000/Hr). Why hedge-fund tax loophole? Because hedge fund managers, partners in real estate ventures, and private equity kingpins are the select few who can use this legal provision to escape paying what the 99.9999 of the population are forced to pay.

What exactly is carried interest? 

Well, aside from the fact that closing this loophole could save taxpayers and the deficit $15 billion by 2015, it is the percentage - usually 20% - that  hedge fund managers and private equity kingpins can claim as investment,  taxed at the long-term capital gain of 15% rate,  instead of claiming what it actually is, fees or income,  which would be taxed at what the rest of us pay, 35%.

Wait, it gets better.  The maximum amount a married couple can pass to their children without paying gift taxes is $10 million, but Romney paid zero gift tax on the $100 million trust funds he set up for his sons. That's right, they avoided $31 million in gift tax that 99.9999% of the population would've had to pay if they did the same thing! According to David Cay Johnston, they "gave their sons some of their carried interest. And because the carried interest is not an ownership, it is a right to receive profits, Congress lets you value that gift at zero". 

In a nutshell, top hedge fund managers, gifted with a much lower tax rate, who do not produce anything tangible, or, some might argue, anything of any value whatsoever, make  more hourly, than most Americans will earn in a lifetime,  and financial parasites presidential candidates, who left their company 13 years ago,  still receives a share of the firm’s “carried interest” profits – taxed at the same low rate. It's the gift that keeps on giving to those with ghastly gobs of power and privilege.

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Jackpot Capitalism: Great Fortunes Made Gambling With Other People's Money

Never before in history, have so many, amassed such spectacular fortunes in such a short period of time. Sure, during the Industrial Revolution, the robber barons became tremendously wealthy over a span of about 45-50 years. However, at the very least, this great wealth resulted from exploring new technology and/or finding new resources that did benefit society, despite the extraordinary suffering these men of spectacular fortunes caused.

Fast forward a century, and people are literally profiting immensely from the turmoil that they created. The same cannot be said of this new crop of even faster growing fortunes (approx. 10 year span). Oh, these "jackpot capitalists" have contributed more than their fair share of suffering on a global scale; however, unlike their predecessors, the robber barons, they have produced very little, if any benefit at all, to society. In fact, the opposite can be said. With access to a bull market, and the bank's capital, these new "robber barons" have single-handedly collapsed our economy with their one-way, no risk bets.

How did these individuals become wealthier than some nations? Well, engineered by the Federal Reserve, itself, most of their wealth was made on the sharp fall in the cost of money. After all, the Federal Reserve sets the interest rates for America, as well as greatly influencing global rates.


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Voluminous Codes Eroding the Delicate Balance Between Liberty and Social Order

Liberty is defined as the freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control. In other words, liberty does not imply the absence of rules and consequence of breaking those rules, only the absence of arbritrary and/or despotic rule. At the other end of the spectrum is social order, or the absence of anarchy, which one could say is of equal importance. The United States of America, it is said, is one of the first nations in history to create a form of government that, as much as possible, harmoniously balances liberty and social order.

As we emerge from the first decade of the twenty-first century, the rules preserving rights and liberties have increasingly been sacrificed in the name of "national security", primarily by lawmakers who have created an ambiguous, incoherent web of laws, leaving the average citizen in the dark.

Take the income tax, which can be traced back to 1862, when President Lincoln and Congress created the office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue and enacted an income tax to pay war expenses. It was passed as an emergency and temporary war-time tax, and in 1894, the Supreme Court declared it unconstitional. That is until the 16th amendment exempted income taxes from the constitutional requirements regarding direct taxes, after income taxes on rents, dividends, and interest were ruled to be direct taxes in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. (1895). And in 1913 the very first IRS 1040 form was created, and since that point, the IRS code has morphed into an exceedingly convoluted, complex and oppressive creature.

One might ask, “Why can’t the tax laws be more simple?” Well, not only because  of government’s insatiable desire for revenue, but also because Congress uses the tax laws for reasons other than that for which they were intended. The same is true for our legal system, in general.  Our constitutional rights, if we really ever had them to begin with, have essentially been eviscerated by code. What can we do about it? On an individual basis, not much.

The real world determination of legal or "lawful" arguments lie with the immune judges, and prosecutors. Not only can they enforce the law, they can do so with impunity.

In 1976, the Supreme Court decided, in a case called Imbler v. Pachtman, that prosecutors have absolute immunity from civil rights lawsuits for their work in the courtroom. The court acknowledged that its ruling “does leave the genuinely wronged defendant without civil redress against a prosecutor whose malicious or dishonest action deprives him of liberty,” but said the alternative was worse: leaving prosecutors to fear a lawsuit, or even bankruptcy, every time they lose a trial..

Insofar as income tax, code section 6011 and code section 6012 require citizens to file.  Constitutional? No, but go ahead and try to fight it.

The IRS can bring any action in the courts of the United States. There is an entire section of the Internal Revenue code that creates jurisdiction for the IRS to bring a lawsuit. For example, a section 7403 action, which allows the IRS to file a lawsuit against any delinquent taxpayer in a situation where the IRS wants to seize the property of that taxpayer. Although, the IRS is not allowed to seize the home of a taxpayer through the administrative process, the IRS can seek an order from a judge who allows the IRS to seize the property

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed? -- James Madison

A Monument of Deficient Wisdom:

The IRS is an agency of the government of the United States; however, it has no respect for the constitution. The courts of the US have enforced the Internal Revenue code to the detriment of the constitution There is nothing morally or constitutionally correct about our current tax law. But, can they as a practical real life matter, enforce it? Yes, they can.

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$100,000 Reward Offered for any Attorney Who Can...

... find a statute that makes the American worker liable for the income tax.

Sounds a little too good to be true, but one organization, Freedom Law School (livefreenow.org), will pay  $100,000 for finding such a law. All you have to do is show them the statute that plainly and clearly imposes liability for the federal income tax on the typical working American.

Operation Rich Rewards

"99.9% of attorneys will instantly tell you that there is a law making working Americans liable for the income tax. They say this not because they have seen such a law, but because they know that it MUST exist in order for the IRS to impose the income tax on all working Americans. If they were to look for that law, however, they would very easily and quickly realize that it does not exist. As attorneys they would also instantly realize that without such a law the IRS is illegally collecting income taxes from millions of hardworking Americans. What will it take, however, to get them to look? What motivates most attorneys?"

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Do You Qualify for a Stimulus Payment?

Get your 2007 Form 1040, or Form 1040EZ, or Form 1040A available to use the Economic Stimulus Payment Calculator to see if you qualify for the stimulus payment.

According to law, the economic stimulus payment amount that everyone other than married couples filing jointly would otherwise be entitled to receive is $600. That amount is reduced by 5% of the amount that their Tax Year 2007 Adjusted Gross Income exceeds $75,000. If your Adjusted Gross Income exceeds $87,500 that amount is reduced to zero.

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Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes

The Real Deal:



























The pie chart below is the government view of the budget. This is a distortion of how our income tax dollars are spent because it includes Trust Funds (e.g., Social Security), and the expenses of past military spending are not distinguished from nonmilitary spending. For a more accurate representation of how your Federal income tax dollar is really spent, see the large chart (top).

What the government wants you to believe:



















HOW THESE FIGURES WERE DETERMINED

Current military” includes Dept. of Defense ($585 billion), the military portion from other departments ($122 billion), and an unbudgetted estimate of supplemental appropriations ($20 billion). “Past military” represents veterans’ benefits plus 80% of the interest on the debt.*

The Government Deception

The pie chart below is the government view of the budget. This is a distortion of how our income tax dollars are spent because it includes Trust Funds (e.g., Social Security), and the expenses of past military spending are not distinguished from nonmilitary spending. For a more accurate representation of how your Federal income tax dollar is really spent, see the large chart (top).
the government's deceptive pie chart

These figures are from an analysis of detailed tables in the “Analytical Perspectives” book of the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2008. The figures are federal funds, which do not include trust funds — such as Social Security — that are raised and spent separately from income taxes. What you pay (or don’t pay) by April 17, 2007, goes to the federal funds portion of the budget. The government practice of combining trust and federal funds began during the Vietnam War, thus making the human needs portion of the budget seem larger and the military portion smaller.

*Analysts differ on how much of the debt stems from the military; other groups estimate 50% to 60%. We use 80% because we believe if there had been no military spending most (if not all) of the national debt would have been eliminated. For further explanation, please see box at bottom of page.

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Only 10% of All Charitable Deductions Go to Help Poor.

Lots of charitable dollars — especially from the wealthy, who have the most to donate — are going to culture palaces: to the operas, art museums, symphonies, and theaters where they spend much of their leisure time. And to the universities they once attended and expect their children to attend, perhaps with the help of what's known as affirmative action for "legacies."

These aren't really charitable contributions. They're more like investments in the lifestyles the wealthy already enjoy and want their children to have too. They're also investments in prestige, especially if they result in the family name engraved on the new wing of the art museum or symphony hall.

Now it's their business how they donate their money. But not entirely, because, you see, charitable donations are deductible from income taxes.

This year, the U.S. Treasury will be getting about $40 billion less than it would if the tax code didn't allow charitable deductions. By the way, the government now spends less than $40 billion a year on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which is what's left of welfare.

I can see why a contribution to, say, the Salvation Army should be eligible for a charitable tax deduction. It's helping the poor. But why, exactly, should a contribution to the Guggenheim Museum or Harvard University?

Not long ago, New York City's Lincoln Center had a gala dinner supported by the charitable contributions of the leaders of the hedge fund industry, some of whom will be receiving billion-dollar bonuses in the next few weeks. I may be missing something here, but this doesn't strike me as charity. I mean, poor New Yorkers don't often attend concerts at the Lincoln Center.

It turns out, in fact, that only an estimated 10 percent of all charitable deductions this year will be directed at the poor.

At a time in our nation's history when the number of needy continue to rise, when government doesn't have the money to do what's necessary, and when America's very rich are richer than ever, we should revise the tax code.

Limit the charitable deduction to real charities.

And have a happy holiday.

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