Talk:Tax protester statutory arguments

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Tax protester statutory arguments was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

^{Reviewed version: March 30, 2007}

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[edit] Neutral Point of View

Some of the language in this article seems biased so I've flagged it.

In an apparent attempt to persuade others that there is no law imposing Federal income taxes, some tax protesters argue that the Internal Revenue Service refuses to disclose -- or is unable to find -- any laws that impose the legal obligation to file Federal income tax returns or pay Federal income taxes.

A somewhat incidental claim of tax protesters is that because the IRS itself was not created by statute or because the IRS has no legal capacity to "sue or be sued," the IRS must somehow not really be a federal government agency.

Much of the article text seems like it's been taken from an IRS handbook on how to deal with tax protestors.Pixelface 19:36, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The quoted language refers to arguments by tax protesters. The article, however, also provides information that counters these arguments. The article discloses both viewpoints, so where is the bias? Yours, Famspear 01:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Footnote: For those persons new to this area of Wikipedia, a historical note may be of some benefit. The articles on Tax protester, Tax protester arguments, Tax protester history, Tax protester constitutional arguments, Tax protester statutory arguments and Tax protester conspiracy arguments came about because, as of 2005 at the latest, large amounts of unverifiable and non-neutral point of view materials were being copied, pasted and dumped en masse in various tax related articles in Wikipedia in apparent attempts by various persons to push various tax protester arguments. Gradually this material was concentrated in the aforementioned articles. However, the rules of Wikipedia require neutral point of view. Obviously in articles that state tax protester positions, neutral point of view requires that Wikipedia also show opposing views. Obviously the article text will to some extent therefore seem "like it's been taken from an IRS handbook on how to deal with tax protestors" -- since the tax protesters and the IRS have diametrically opposed views about what the law is. The articles in question, however, were not prepared to any large degree by IRS employees (a fact to which I can personally attest). The citations in the articles are to statutes, case law, regs, etc. It just so happens that the IRS position coincides to a very great degree with what the Primary authority materials show the law to be. That should come as no surprise to anyone; it's not the result of some massive conspiracy. The IRS has a huge check on its ability to interpret the law just any old way it wants to. That "check" is an army of lawyers, CPAs and other professionals who are paid big bucks to make sure the IRS is treating clients fairly. And that's just part of the picture.

If the article looks "like it's been taken from an IRS handbook on how to deal with tax protestors" there's a good reason for it. For every tax protester argument there is a counter-argument shown in Wikipedia. Both sides should be presented. Yours, Famspear 19:18, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I think he is talking about wording. I'm not sure I would call it POV as it presents both sides but sometimes the wording is not presented in a neutral tone.

I just picked this one sentence since I was looking at 861. - "The actual text of section 861 itself contains no language to the effect that any portion of the income of U.S. citizens and resident aliens (whether the income is from sources within the United States or not) is somehow "excluded" from taxation."
Rewritten in a Neutral Tone - "The text of section 861 does not contain language that the income of U.S. citizens and resident aliens (obtained inside or outside the United States) is excluded from taxation."

Words like "somehow 'excluded'" in scare quotes... I'm not debating either side - I have no clue in regard to this topic so perhaps I'm way off... this is just the impression that I get. However, I thought the three preceding sentences were fine as well as the quote following. It probably just needs a tweak here and there. :-) Morphh 20:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

The original wording is mine, and I think I fellow editor Morphh is right; his/her version of the wording appears more neutral, so I'm gonna change it. Yours, Famspear 20:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I feel that statements such as "In an apparent attempt to persuade others that there is no law imposing Federal income taxes," and "A somewhat incidental claim of tax protesters" and the frequent use of "somehow" are all biased and leaving them out would make the article more neutral.

Perhaps those two quotes above can be restated as:

Some tax protestors claim that the Internal Revenue Service refuses to disclose -- or is unable to find -- any laws that impose the legal obligation to file Federal income tax returns or pay Federal incomes taxes and consequently declare that there is no law imposing Federal income taxes.

Many tax protesters claim that the IRS was not created by statute and that the IRS has no legal capacity to "sue or be sued" and have therefore assumed that the IRS must not be an actual federal government agency.

Just some suggestions.Pixelface 17:51, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Dear Pixelface: Yeah, I agree.

Or, on the the second one, how about:

Many tax protesters claim that because the IRS itself was not created by statute and because the IRS has no legal capacity to sue or be sued, the IRS is not a federal government agency.

I think this language may make it clearer that the protesters' point about "not created by statute" and the protesters' point about no "sue or be sued" capacity for IRS are both actually legally correct -- to distinguish the correct points the protesters are making from the conclusion the protesters draw from those points. (As a lawyer, I can tell you the conclusion the tax protesters draw is legally incorrect -- but it's the job of Wikipedia to point out the arguments of both sides, citing the applicable support, etc.)

Just as background info: Apparently almost nobody is actually debating over whether the IRS has the capacity to sue or be sued. In fact, when the taxpayer sues, it's usually the government (not the taxpayer) that points out that the IRS has no such capacity to be sued (although at least one case has gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court with the government lawyers not even bothering to get the IRS removed and replaced by the USA as the defendant). On the other side of it, the "Internal Revenue Service" basically does not file lawsuits. The government lawsuits against taxpayers in tax matters are filed by the "United States of America" -- by lawyers in the Department of Justice. Similarly, the question of whether the IRS was "created by statute" is a legal tempest in a teapot -- actually, in a teapot with no tea in it! Both of these protester arguments are examples of the kinds of things people come up with because they do not understand the intricacies of our legal system, especially intricacies that have to do with law in general, not just tax law by itself. Lawyers see this from time to time: non-lawyers trying to construct what they believe are cool-sounding "technical" arguments about the law, based on ideas they pick up on the internet, etc., and from reading legal materials without having the proper training to interpret the texts. The law can indeed be very technical. Many tax protester efforts are obviously constructed with a view to creating an argument that appears facially valid because it somehow appears technical to the protester, who has no legal expertise. Indeed, one problem for the protesters is that 99.9% of them simply do not have the expertise to construct technically correct technical arguments.

Getting back to the edits, I like the direction you're headed. Any other thoughts? Yours, Famspear 18:58, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I think your wording on that 2nd quote is an improvement over the current version so I've included it in the article.

On those two quote suggestions, I worded them as such because I'm not a lawyer and I really don't know if the premises are true. I just tried to state the basis of their claim and their conclusions.

On that first quote, how about:

Some tax protesters argue that the Internal Revenue Service refuses to disclose, or is unable to find, any laws that impose the legal obligation to file Federal income tax returns or pay Federal income taxes -- and conclude that there must be no law imposing Federal income taxes.

That background info is interesting. Maybe some of it can be worked into the article.

I've appreciated your input.Pixelface 12:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

It looks good to me - I went ahead and changed the article to reflect your wording on the first quote. Thanks, yours, Famspear 14:32, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I've looked at the article again and the language seems more NPOV.

I notice there is no section focused on "definitions." Milton William Cooper in his paper BATF/IRS -- Criminal Fraud discusses obfuscated language and Appendix G from The Federal Zone written by Paul Andrew Mitchell discusses the definitions of "income", "person", "taxpayer", "shall", and "must" used by the IRS. Although I suppose much of this is covered in the The "income taxes are voluntary" argument section. Perhaps there should be a Definitions used by the IRS section and mention claims made by Mitchell and Cooper.

Also, in the Tax protestor articles, I have seen no mention of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Milton William Cooper claimed that the BATF and the IRS are the same organization. I've written about it in the Milton William Cooper article. According to the BATF article on Wikipedia, the Bureau of Internal Revenue was renamed the Internal Revenue Service in the early 1950s, and the ATTU division within the IRS was the forerunner of the ATF. It also says Nixon created a separate BATF in 1972. Cooper claimed that taxpayers are being taxed on income derived from "importing narcotics, alcohol, tobacco, or firearms into the United States, or one of its territories or possessions, from a foreign country, or from Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, or into the Virgin Islands from the Cayman Islands."

Perhaps the BATF/IRS--Criminal Fraud link should be a subsection in the Milton William Cooper article, or maybe a new article should be created for it. The link by Paul Andrew Mitchell (31 Questions & Answers about the IRS which comes after "Some claim it is a Puerto Rican trust.") is only referred to once in the Tax protestor statutory arguments article. If the tax protestor statutory arguments article is to be NPOV, then I think it should include more claims by Milton William Cooper and Paul Andrew Mitchell. Or maybe those should be put in subsections of the author pages, or placed on their own page, I don't know.

Perhaps a section on Puerto Rico should be included, since both Cooper and Mitchell discuss it. In The Federal Zone, Mitchell claims that federal municipal law governs U.S. Territories like Puerto Rico, Guam and the Virgin Islands, but federal municipal law does not extend into any of the 50 States of the Union. And he claims that the income tax statutes in the Internal Revenue Code are federal municipal law. There's more info here [1].

In short, I suggest we add 3 new sections to the article:

Definitions used by the IRS
BATF
Puerto Rico (or perhaps 'The Federal Zone')

I really don't know what the IRS or the courts have said about the above topics. Perhaps those topics are irrelevant.

I think the views of Paul Mitchell and Milton William Cooper should be represented on Wikipedia, but I'm not sure if they should be included in this article, or in subsections of their bio pages, or turned into their own articles. Paul Andrew Mitchell doesn't have a bio page on Wikipedia yet; I'm not sure how notable he is, but he did write the book The Federal Zone and founded http://www.supremelaw.org/. I'll have to search for news about him. Cooper is deceased, but Mitchell has a Yahoo and Gmail email address.

Just some thoughts. Pixelface 00:56, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Upon looking at the Tax protestor history article, it looks like Paul Andrew Mitchell redirects to Mitch Modeleski. Pixelface 01:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Dear Pixelface: Thanks for the ideas! I am going to think about how your comments can be used to expand the articles on either the individuals or in the articles on tax protest arguments, etc.

On your idea about the three new sections, off the top of my head I would say maybe the "definitions" and the "Puerto Rico" and "Federal Zone" stuff could be added or expanded somewhere (I know there is already some discussion of "Federal Zone" in the articles). Based on my study over the years, I would argue the BATF material is a bit more secondary in the world of tax protester arguments (meaning that there are just a lot more arguments like the "Puerto Rico" and Federal Zone contentions that pop up a lot more often, or at least used to). -- Which brings me to an idea you have given me.

The idea is that all these articles have basically slowly grown, evolved, without a comprehensive analysis of which protester arguments are the most "important" for inclusion in an encyclopedia article (whatever "important" would mean). Maybe I and other editors need to sit down and come up with a list of possible criteria for what additional KINDS of materials can be put in the articles.

One possible criterion would be: How many times has this particular protest argument actually been litigated and ruled on, in a reported court decision? Or, how often has that particular argument been litigated and ruled on recently - in the last five years, etc. (with the idea being, is it something that tax protesters used to try, but finally gave up on). Are there any old arguments from the 1970s and early '80s that are still being tried?

Another criterion might be: What are some of the most recently developed arguments?

Another question that might be interesting is: Are there materials out there (that could be sources for Wikipedia articles) that explain why tax protester arguments started coming out when they apparently did, in the 1970s (noting as is done at Tax protester history that there were a hand full of cases from the 1950s).

Regarding specific individuals, like the ones you mentioned, what would be the criteria for mentioning them in the articles, or for creating bio articles for other protesters? Would you use, say, the number of reported court decisions in which that person was involved? For example, Irwin Schiff would clearly be a leader on that one -- he was in court so many times over the years. Mitch Modeleski/Paul Andrew Mitchell would score very "low" in relation to Schiff on that, but maybe higher on some other criterion.

It would be easy for me to run internet searches on specific protesters' names and obtain the texts of the Federal court decisions where their names are mentioned. I would then have to study the texts for the details.

In short, I contend that your comments seem to relate more to expanding the scope of the article(s), and not so much to neutral point of view (NPOV). I think NPOV deals more with how the material found in each article is presented, so that Wikipedia is simply showing a representative sample of the tax protest arguments and also describing how the courts have analyzed those arguments and ruled on them, with citations to the statutes, court decisions, etc.

Anyway, I'm gonna keep thinking about all this. Stay tuned. Yours, Famspear 17:16, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I've flagged the article again. There are references to the tax code as "law." The tax code is not a piece of legislation. This shows a clear bias towards supporters of the income tax. To the point below: is it not better to provide a neutral point of view rather than preventing two biased opinions? Michaelmcneil

No it biases it in the point of view of people who believe the tax code exists, whether they support it or not. "Law" encompasses a wider variety of legal authorities than simple P.L. No. XXX-XX, including (as is pertinent here) codifications of public laws. ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 23:31, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Note: Regarding the comments by user MichaelMcNeil above, to the effect that "the tax code is not a piece of legislation" -- this of course is totally false, and totally frivolous. This is the same kind of frivolous argument reportedly made by filmmaker Aaron Russo in his film America: From Freedom to Fascism, where Russo apparently makes the bizarre claim that the Internal Revenue Code is only a set of "regulations." As clearly explained in Wikipedia, the tax code (the Internal Revenue Code) is legislation; it's a set of statutes -- meaning that it was enacted by the U.S. Congress. A "statute" is a kind of "law." "Legislation" is a kind of "law." Yours, Famspear 18:25, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Text removed

I have removed the following from the OMB control number section of the article:

In May, 2006, however, it appears that a taxpayer won his case,¹ based on this argument. In Peoria, Illinois, attorneys for the US Department of Justice petitioned the court to dismiss -- with prejudice -- the case against Robert Lawrence, who had been indicted on charges of tax evasion two months earlier.²

U.S. v. Lawrence, Case No. 06-cr-10019, U.S. District Court, Central District of Illinois (Peoria) http://www.givemeliberty.org/RTP2/PRA/PRA-Misc/LawrenceDocket5-18-06.pdf
Motion to Dismiss with Prejudice http://www.givemeliberty.org/RTP2/PRA/Pleadings/27_MtnDismissWPrejudice.pdf

The links cited in the references point to .pdf files, one being the court calender, and the other being the government's motion to dismiss. Nothing in either document suggests that this defense was even raised, much less that it was the basis for the dismissal. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I concur with the removal of the material by BD2412. This was just more false information, and has already been covered in the talk pages here in Wikipedia. A few months ago a Wikipedia reader posted the statement that Lawrence's attorney "sabotaged the DOJ with an eleventh-hour motion for dismissal based on the fact that the 1040 did not bear an illegal [sic; he probably meant "legal"] OMB control number". This statement was apparently based on stuff in tax protester web sites or other tax protest literature. The statement is incorrect, as the OMB control number argument was not why the case was dismissed.

As I have previously explained in talk pages here in Wikipedia, the IRS agents who had calculated Mr. Lawrence's tax liability discovered errors they themselves had made -- based on information obtained from Lawrence's own tax returns, regarding the taxpayer's tax basis in certain property Lawrence had sold. (Tax basis is basically the amount that you paid for something, subject to certain adjustments. The amount realized on a sale less your tax basis amount equals your gain. If the tax basis amount exceeds the amount realized, then you have a loss.) With respect to certain properties the taxpayer had sold, the IRS agents discovered that he had more tax basis than they had originally calculated -- therefore, lower gains or even losses, and thus lower taxes. The IRS agents themselves brought their errors to the attention of the government lawyers, who then asked that the charges be dropped (and they were). The IRS employees recognized that their calculations had incorrectly stated Lawrence's tax liability. Neither the Lawrence court nor any other Federal court has upheld the phony "OMB control number argument." Yours, Famspear 16:34, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

PS: Lawrence's attorney actually did raise the OMB number argument in the case -- it's just that the case was dismissed for an entirely different reason, as noted above. Also, Lawrence would have had no chance to win, had his only defense been an "OMB number" argument. Yours, Famspear 16:42, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wesley Snipes

For anyone who is interested, actor Wesley Snipes has been indicted and is alleged to have been caught up in scheme involving the frivolous "861 argument" -- to the tune of some very big bucks. I have begun adding some technical detail to the article on Mr. Snipes, who is innocent until proven guilty. Yours, Famspear 21:35, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

"...innocent until proven guilty." I thought that line of reasoning fell out of practical use years ago. Mostly due to high amounts of usually slanted pre-trial media coverage, among other things. Yes the media is slanted, because its made of people and people are "imperfect". "Perfect" being "totally objective" in my opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Historiocality (talk • contribs) (6 July 2007.

[edit] Income tax and Federal Reserve System

Could there maybe be some additions as to the beginnings of the Federal Reserve and income taxes in relation to this article? I have heard ([2]) arguments saying that there was no federal reserve or income tax until 1913, when the IRS was formed without constitutional merit. If this is true, could anyone show it and please include it in the article? -Comment added 12 November 2006 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Crazy coyote (talk • contribs) .

Yes, I have seen similar arguments on tax protester and conspiracy theory web sites, so it might be possible to find some sort of arguments to that effect. Neutral point of view would require that such material be balanced by pointing out that: (1) Although the Federal Reserve System did come about in 1913, the Federal income tax was first instituted in the 1860s, not in 1913; (2) The Internal Revenue Service was formed within the Department of the Treasury in the 1860s as the Bureau of Internal Revenue (with the name being changed to "Internal Revenue Service" in the early 1950s), not in 1913; (3) The phrase "when the IRS was formed without constitutional merit" is, from a U.S. constitutional law standpoint, meaningless. Yours, Famspear 01:18, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

Tax protester statutory arguments → Tax protester statutory arguments in the United States This article deals almost exclusively about this phenomenon in the United States. Please discuss at Talk:Tax protester#Requested move. — AjaxSmack 06:29, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Commentary moved from article to talk page

The following commentary by an anonymous user is being moved from the article to here:

No where do they go beyond the general definitions, and no where do they mention section 861, which is used to determine what taxes must be paid. Unsurprisingly, this article in Wikipedia also fails to mention it. Dig a little deeper, people.

This is POV commentary. Yours, Famspear 19:19, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, I see that editor ObiterDicta has removed the verbiage from the article. Famspear 19:21, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proper Portrayal of Topic

I'd like to point out that this article is NOT titled: "Tax protester statutory arguments and why their wrong." It is simply titled: Tax protester statutory arguments." Today a Mateo SA removed my refrence to section 861. This is indeed what the tax protesters claim: moreover, it is the pivitol refrence on which the protesters hang their arguments. Mateo SA even went as far as to insert his point of view that "the code taxes *all* income from 'whatever source derived' does not mean that the codes only sources listed in sec. 861." (See the history for the entire comment.) That is clearly a point of view, and is irrelevant to stating the proper position taken by the tax protesters. Never mind that the entire article is written in a point of view tone against tax protesters: at least accurately portray their position please. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ZandarKoad (talk • contribs) 21:55, 25 February 2007 (UTC).

Dear ZandarKoad: I believe the material you inserted is already covered further down in the article, under the "861 arguments" section. I'll double check, though. The "861 argument" is just one of a gazillion tax protester arguments, so your reference doesn't really go up where you had it, in my view. Stay tuned. Famspear 22:14, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Dear ZandarKoad: OK -- regarding the following verbiage:

The term "taxable income" is in turn defined in section 63 (26 U.S.C. § 63) with reference to "gross income" which in turn is defined in 26 U.S.C. § 61 with reference to "whatever source derived" which in turn is defined in 26 U.S.C. § 861.

The verbiage you added was, I believe "with reference to "whatever source derived" which in turn is defined in 26 U.S.C. § 861." First of all, that is incorrect. Neither the term "source" nor the phrase "whatever source derived" are defined in section 861.

Please review the portion of the article on the section 861 argument. If you feel there is something that needs to be added or changed in that section, please let us know.

All tax protester arguments are, by definition, both legally incorrect and legally frivolous. That's not merely my position, that's the legal status - and the courts have so ruled over and over for many years. They are extreme fringe positions.

Many fringe positions on various topics do not even warrant a Wikipedia article. A decision was made by the Wikipedia community some time back that tax protester arguments would nevertheless be presented, but would generally be confined to articles on the subject of tax protest, etc.

Neutral point of view requires that if you present an argument about the law that has been uniformly ruled to have no legal merit, you cannot present that argument without also specifically pointing out that the courts have uniformly ruled that it has no legal merit. The result is that tax protester arguments, like arguments that the earth is flat or that the moon is made of green cheese, will look silly. Neutral point of view relates to the way things are presented in Wikipedia -- but neutral point of view does not require that we somehow give equal weight to fringe theories. Yours, Famspear 22:25, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

The conolists who decided one day that Great Britian should have no more rule over them also broke the law. Were their arguments silly? The signers of the US Constituation had no authority under Britan to begin a new nation. Would you censor their discussions? It may seem fringe to you, but I am here and so are others. We say it is NOT fringe. By your own admission there has been a recent increase in the number of tax related submissions. Perhaps this theory is no longer so fringe as you think, despite the rulings in the courts. History has shown, that governments CAN in fact be wrong from time to time! On to specifics: You said, "First of all, that is incorrect. Neither the term "source" nor the phrase "whatever source derived" are defined in section 861." Do notice that section 861 is found in Subchapter N of Title 26. This subchapter is titled "Tax Based on Income From Sources Within or Without the United States." [3] Which would clearly indicate that the subchapter has SOMETHING to do with the 'source' of income. Section 861 is located in Part 1 of this subchapter. [4] Part 1 has the title "Source Rules and Other General Rules Relating to Foreign Income." Clearly this Part of Subchapter N too has something to say about "Sources". Further yet, when we take a look at the title of Section 861 itself, it reads: "Income from sources within the United States". Indeed! If we examine the contents of the section itself, it reads:

"(a) Gross income from sources within United States: The following items of gross income shall be treated as income from sources within the United States: "

and it proceeds to list eight sources (common useage here). What clearer definition do you seek?

When you go to the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (e-CFR) [5] you will find the following comments about section 861: "Categories of income. Part I (section 861 and following), subchapter N, chapter 1 of the Code, and the regulations thereunder determine the sources of income for purposes of the income tax." [6]

There can be no clearer statement of definition for the determination of the "sources". If this is not the section of Title 26 that defines what the legal definition of the term "source" is, what is? That is not a rhetorical question. The legal term "source" must be defined. Section 861 clearly, explicitly, and specifically does so. If you know of another section that is titled "secondary definition of sources if you don't like section 861" please let me know. The law itself must define the term. Too often in the past our courts have been mistaken in their application of the law because the people were ignorant of that law. I choose not to be ignorant. Show me the law, disconcerting as it may be. I care not who defies the law. Respectfully yours, ZandarKoad 04:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC) Edited on ZandarKoad 04:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

It is not necessary that a statute define all the terms it uses for that statute to be enforceable. In fact, that would be impossible, because the terms used in the definition of each term would themselves need to be defined, and terms in those definitions would need to be defined, ad infinitum. Generally, terms are defined in statutes only when the terms are inherently ambiguous or are used in a manner different from the common usage.

Section 861 does not define the term "source", either "clearly", "explicitly", and "specifically". A clear and explicit definition would say something like: "For the purposes of this statute, 'source' means...". But Section 861 does not do this.

You are correct in saying that Section 861 has something to do with sources of income—but that is all it has to do with it: something. To repeat the citation, Sec. 861 says "The following items of gross income shall be treated as income from sources within the United States..." [italics mine] It does not say "Only the following items of gross income shall be treated as income..." Nor does it even come close to defining "source". This sentence says that certain items of income must be treated as coming from a particular source. This is not a definition of source any more than "Murders are to be treated as especially dangerous criminals." defines "criminal". — Mateo SA (talk | contribs) 05:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Dear ZandarKoad:

Above, you say:

Too often in the past our courts have been mistaken in their application of the law because the people were ignorant of that law. I choose not to be ignorant. Show me the law, disconcerting as it may be.

Wikipedia editors are not here to "show you the law." We are here to edit Wikipedia. The "show me the law" refrain is a tired, old piece of tax protester rhetoric. It doesn't work here in Wikipedia and, much more importantly, it doesn't work in a court of law. Further, the law in fact is clearly shown, right here in the Wikipedia articles on taxation. For starters, see 26 U.S.C. § 1, 26 U.S.C. § 61, 26 U.S.C. § 62, 26 U.S.C. § 63, 26 U.S.C. § 6151, 26 U.S.C. § 6651, 26 U.S.C. § 6011, 26 U.S.C. § 6012, and 26 U.S.C. § 7203. Another tired refrain is that the IRS doesn't "show us the law," when in fact citations to some (but not all) of the statutes are actually printed in the Form 1040 instructions. Still another flaccid tax protester assumption is the belief that the IRS, or the tax lawyers, or the CPAs, or the law professors, or somebody somewhere is under some moral or legal obligation to "show the law." As a general proposition, there is no such obligation. There is also no obligation to show you the law on murder, or theft, or anything else. The laws are already published, and are a matter of public record.

Under the U.S. legal system, the courts are not "mistaken" in their application of the law. As every first year law student knows, under the U.S. legal system the law is what the court rules the law is in an actual case or controversy with actual parties fighting over actual legal issues that are actually decided by the court. You may want to review these articles: Precedent, Ratio decidendi, Stare decisis, and especially Obiter dictum.

You also say:

Would you censor their discussions? It may seem fringe to you, but I am here and so are others. We say it is NOT fringe. By your own admission there has been a recent increase in the number of tax related submissions. Perhaps this theory is no longer so fringe as you think, despite the rulings in the courts.

When I say "fringe," I mean that tax protester arguments are legally frivolous. It's not a question of my personal opinion about tax protester arguments; it's a matter of what the courts actually rule. The courts repeatedly use the word "frivolous" to describe tax protester arguments. Like the term "tax protester," the term "frivolous" is a legal term.

At one point, you say:

The law itself must define the term [. . . ]

That statement is a common tax protester refrain, and it is completely incorrect. As editor Mateo SA has pointed out, many legal terms -- including some very important ones -- are not defined in the statutes that use those terms. There is no law that requires that important legal terms be defined in statute. Yes, it would be nice if they were defined in the statutes, and many times they are -- but there is no rule of law that requires them to be.

Regarding censoring discussions, Wikipedia articles are not the proper forum for discussions promoting tax protester arguments. There are, however, several Wikipedia articles on tax protester arguments. The basic rules in Wikipedia are Verifiability, Neutral Point of View, and No Original Research. Those rules apply to the articles on tax protester arguments.

The talk (discussion) page for a Wikipedia article also is not generally the appropriate forum for discussions of this type, except to the extent that the discussions involve ways to improve the Wikipedia article. We all drift a bit from time to time from that rule, but we try to adhere to it. Yours, Famspear 06:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Aaaaaah, I didn't realize I was discussing this with an Attorney. Just looked at your page finally. I'd like to say that we can and DO define terms ad infinitum. It's called a dictionary. Every word is defined, so it's not impossible. No, really! I have one! I can't hope to convince someone who's got such a strong vested interest in the continuance of the income tax. Your attempts to end the discussion are evidence to me that I am correct. I am quite happy that I was able to go this far, especially against one so learned as yourself. I probably would have been scared off long ago if I knew you were an Attorney! Hahahaha! Oh yeah, I know how the courts in the United States operate. They can and will sentance anyone to anything they please despite what the law says. So I'm not intimidated by 'frivolous' claims. I know the law. Just remember what the Code of Federal Regulations says (to paraphrase). For the purposes of the income tax, section 861 determines the sources. As such it should be included in the article where I specified to accurately represent the subject of the article "Tax protester statutory arguments". Your vehement opposition to this simple inclusion is bewildering.ZandarKoad 06:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Dear ZandarKoad: I realize that you are new to Wikipedia. It probably would not be beneficial for you to bring up other people's credentials, especially as a way of trying to argue against that person's edits or commentary. Here's why.

In Wikipedia, you don't need credentials in an area of expertise in order to edit in that area of expertise. You have just confirmed that the only way you were able to find out that I am an attorney was to check my user page. Most Wikipedia editors do not bring up their own credentials and level of expertise in the talk (discussion) pages for the articles.

The accompanying de facto rule is that non-experts are held to the standards of experts in editing Wikipedia. There are plenty of lawyer editors in Wikipedia. If your edits are legally incorrect, or if they do not conform to Wikipedia's rules about Verifiability, Neutral Point of View, and No Original Research, you will not be granted a pass merely because you are not an expert.

In any case, I and other Wikipedia lawyers do not generally bring up the point that we are lawyers on an article's talk page as part of an argument for the correctness of our statements, edits, or commentary. Correspondingly, it is probably more damaging for your arguments than it is helpful to you for you to bring up that fact in arguing, for example, that my statements are incorrect, invalid, etc., etc.

No one has said that we cannot define terms. You essentially, but incorrectly, stated that Code section 861 defines the term "source" as that term is used in section 61. It does not. I corrected you. And all of us have access to general purpose dictionaries; many of us have access to legal dictionaries as well.

Statements like: "I can't hope to convince someone who's got such a strong vested interest in the continuance of the income tax" are not appropriate on Wikipedia talk pages. Further, you should not be here to convince me, and I certainly am not here primarily to convince you. We are here to edit Wikipedia, following the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia.

Your statements like these:

Oh yeah, I know how the courts in the United States operate. They can and will sentance [sic] anyone to anything they please despite what the law says.

and these statements:

So I'm not intimidated by 'frivolous' claims. I know the law.

--are probably not going to do much for your editing efforts here in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a soapbox to promote your views about Federal income tax or anything else. Your strong personal belief in the correctness of your own knowledge of the law also is not going to get you very far in Wikipedia.

Verifiability; Neutral Point of View; No Original Research. Yours, Famspear 16:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Dear readers: At the expense of appearing to beat a dead horse (something I have had to do fairly regularly recently), I would also like to comment on the following language by user ZandarKoad above:

Today a Mateo SA removed my refrence [sic] to section 861. This is indeed what the tax protesters claim: moreover, it is the pivitol [sic] refrence [sic] on which the protesters hang their arguments.

This is incorrect. The section 861 argument absolutely is not a pivotal reference on which the protesters hang their arguments. It is just one of many, many tax protester arguments. And some of the most notable tax protesters -- such as Irwin Schiff -- more or less reject the 861 argument, and have expressed the opinion that people like Larken Rose, who espoused the argument, were wrong. So sorry, but the tax protesters can't even agree among themselves.

Regarding the following materials:

The conolists [sic] who decided one day that Great Britian [sic] should have no more rule over them also broke the law. Were their arguments silly? The signers of the US Constituation [sic] had no authority under Britan to begin a new nation. Would you censor their discussions?

Well, the answer is yes -- as harsh as it may sound, I and other editors would remove their discussions to the extent, if any, that those "discussions" actually amounted to inserting unverifiable material, non-neutral material, or original research material into actual Wikipedia articles. Sorry. Under Wikipedia rules and guidelines, Wikipedia is not the place to promulgate personal views, political arguments, original research, etc. Wikipedia is not the proper forum for saving your country or the planet. If our Founding Fathers were fighting this fight today, they would probably be using the internet like almost everyone else -- and there are plenty of appropriate web sites on the internet where these kinds of discussions take place. Some web sites have their own rules restricting what is discussed, or how it is discussed. Wikipedia is one. Wikipedia has its policies and guidelines including but not limited to Verifiability, Neutral POV, and No Original Research.

Look at this verbiage:

Further yet, when we take a look at the title of Section 861 itself, it reads: "Income from sources within the United States". Indeed! If we examine the contents of the section itself, it reads:

"(a) Gross income from sources within United States: The following items of gross income shall be treated as income from sources within the United States: "

and it proceeds to list eight sources (common useage here). What clearer definition do you seek?

Sorry, but the above material is not a definition of the term "source". User ZandarKoad contended that section 861 defined the term "source." It does not. Section 861 addresses the issue of what items of income are "income from sources within the United States." Merely listing sources of income does not, in this context, constitute defining the word "source."

In reference to the 861 argument, ZandarKoad writes:

It may seem fringe to you, but I am here and so are others. We say it is NOT fringe. By your own admission there has been a recent increase in the number of tax related submissions. Perhaps this theory is no longer so fringe as you think, despite the rulings in the courts. History has shown, that governments CAN in fact be wrong from time to time!

I'm not sure what is meant by "tax related submissions" or what ZandarKoad meant by saying that I have "admitted" that there has been a "recent increase" in them. It would be correct to say that tax protester litigation is a relatively recent phenomenon in U.S. law. Although income taxes have been imposed off and on since the Civil War, and pretty much constantly since 1913, tax protest cases did not begin showing up in reported court decisions in any appreciable volume until about the mid-1970s, a little over thirty years ago. The mid-1970s is relatively recent when you consider that income taxes had been on the books virtually constantly for over sixty years prior to the time these cases started hitting the courts in appreciable numbers. Unfortunately for tax protesters, this fact arguably militates against tax protester arguments, not in their favor.

Regarding the verbiage:

Perhaps this theory is no longer so fringe as you think [ . . . ]

Actually, from a legal standpoint the more that tax protester arguments are litigated, the more "fringe" they become (if that is even possible at this point), for the simple reason that the protesters always lose on tax protester arguments. The more the cases pile up against them, the more frivolous the argument becomes (again, if it's even possible for a tax protest argument to become more frivolous than it already is). It may seem somewhat counter-intuitive, but one dirty little secret about the law is that the law that is most well settled is sometimes also the law that is most heavily litigated. Tax protester arguments provide vivid examples of this phenomenon.

In any case, the issue as far as Wikipedia articles on tax law is not whether you think something is "fringe" or whether I think something is "fringe" -- it's how reliable primary, secondary and tertiary sources treat it -- or in legal parlance, how Primary authority and Secondary authority treat it. Verifiability, Neutral POV, and No Original Research. Yours, Famspear 19:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chapters and subchapters

I deleted what appears to be an attempt, perhaps innocently, to give the impression that Subchapter A of Chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code is entitled "Nonresident Aliens and Foreign Corporations." The title of Subchapter A of Chapter 1 is actually "Determination of tax liability."

The verbiage "Nonresident Aliens and Foreign Corporations" is the heading for Subchapter A of Chapter 3 of the Code. Chapter 3 of the Code is entitled "Witholding of Tax on Nonresident Aliens and Foreign Corporations." The entire chapter deals not with the imposition of the Federal income tax or the definition of gross income, etc., but instead with certain withholding issues related to the income tax. Yours, Famspear 05:12, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah yes, you are correct. Chapter A Subchapter 3 does indeed have that title, my mistake. Chapter A Subchapter 1 is titled "Tax on Individuals." Part one of that subchapter details how taxes are imposed on taxable income, while part two details definitions. For the definition of taxable income it refers the reader to section 63 where we begin again our journey to find the defenition of 'source'.ZandarKoad 05:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Dear readers: Actually, the beginning of the table of contents of the Internal Revenue Code, title 26 of the United States Code, goes like this:

SUBTITLE A --INCOME TAXES

Chapter 1 --Normal Taxes and Surtaxes

SUBCHAPTER A. DETERMINATION OF TAX LIABILITY

PART I --TAX ON INDIVIDUALS

Section 1. Tax imposed [ . . . ]

and so on. I don't think you will find a definition in the Code itself for the term "source" as that term is used in section 61 (relating to the definition of gross income).

By the way, a lot of tax protesters have argued about the meaning of the term "source" as used in the Sixteenth Amendment. Unfortunately, the term "source" isn't defined there either.

For one of many examples of some lists of definitions that are found in the Internal Revenue Code, see 26 U.S.C. § 7701. Yours, Famspear 06:21, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Marking Article as Non-Neutral

The article is not written from a neutral point of view. The theory that tax code is "law" is presented as a fact, and the idea that it isn't is presented as an opinion. Presenting one side as fact and the other as speculation is a textbook definition of one-sidedness. Please leave this article marked until the issue is corrected. I'm going to mark it with a "{bias}" tag again. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Michaelmcneil (talk • contribs) 23:35, 2 March 2007 (UTC).

Dear user Michaelmcneil: Rather than trying to add a tag, you might want to quote specifically, here on the talk (discussion) page, the language you believe is non-neutral. Yours, Famspear 23:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, I'm new to all this. Here's my quote:

"Although the specific statutes imposing an income tax may be generally unknown to persons other than tax lawyers, certified public accountants, enrolled agents and other tax specialists, it can easily be demonstrated that such laws exist.

Internal Revenue Code sections 1 (26 U.S.C. § 1) (relating to individuals, estates and trusts) and 11 (26 U.S.C. § 11) (relating to corporations) are examples of statutes that expressly impose an income tax on "taxable income" (with section 1(a), for example, expressly using the phrase "[t]here is hereby imposed on the taxable income of [ . . . ]"). The term "taxable income" is in turn defined in section 63 (26 U.S.C. § 63) with reference to "gross income" which in turn is defined in 26 U.S.C. § 61.

For the duty to pay the tax at the time prescribed for filing the related tax return, see 26 U.S.C. § 6151. In Holywell Corp. v. Smith, the United States Supreme Court (in a unanimous case) stated the legal significance of section 6151: "The Internal Revenue Code ties the duty to pay federal income taxes to the duty to make an income tax return. See 26 U.S.C. 6151(a) ('when a return of a tax is required . . . the person required to make such return shall . . . pay such tax')."[1] For civil monetary penalties for failure to timely pay taxes, see 26 U.S.C. § 6651(a)(2)."

The only thing that is "easily demonstrated" was the author's opinion. The entire basis of the argument for those who don't believe in the income tax is that the referenced IRS tax code does not constitute legislation in the first place. Michaelmcneil 23:52, 2 March 2007 (UTC)michaelmcneil

Dear Michaelmcneil:

Regarding your statement: "The entire basis of the argument for those who don't believe in the income tax is that the referenced IRS tax code does not constitute legislation in the first place" -- well, Aaron Russo in the film America: From Freedom to Fascism reportedly does make that assertion -- that the Internal Revenue Code was not passed as an act of Congress. That theory is blatantly false.

The vast majority of tax protesters, however, do not appear to be making the argument that the tax code is not "legislation" (i.e., is not a set of statutes actually passed by Congress). What they do typically argue is that the legislation, the statutes, are invalid (i.e., not really "the law") because the statutes are supposedly unconstitutional. Other protesters argue that the Code is constitutional, but is being applied, interpreted, enforced, etc., etc., incorrectly in one way or another.

The only thing I see as being even arguably an "opinion" is this language:

Although the specific statutes imposing an income tax may be generally unknown to persons other than tax lawyers, certified public accountants, enrolled agents and other tax specialists, it can easily be demonstrated that such laws exist. [Bolding added by Famspear]

Maybe the bolded language should be changed to read "that such statutes exist".

The term "law" is a technical term and has lots of different legal meanings. Under one theory of jurisprudence, a "statute" is a not a "law" if the statute is unconstitutional.

The rest of the verbiage is not "opinion". It contains citations to the actual statutes.

See my change in the article text, which I will try to make shortly. (The database has been locking up in the last few minutes, so I may have to do it later.) Yours, Famspear 00:10, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and just as a follow-up, here is the language from the Wikipedia rules, etc., about this kind of thing:

[ . . . ] the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a verifiable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and may not include tiny-minority views at all (by example, the article on the Earth only very briefly refers to the Flat Earth theory, a view of a distinct minority). We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view, and views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views. To give undue weight to a significant-minority view, or to include a tiny-minority view, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties.[7][Bolding and italics added by Famspear.]

Tax protester arguments are classic examples of extreme fringe theories, and in Wikipedia the elucidations of those arguments are appropriate only in articles on those subjects. I invite you to read all the tax protester articles carefully. Yours, Famspear 00:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

"except in articles devoted to those views"-Wikipedia rules This is an article devoted to those views. I included the last two paragraphs of verbiage because they imply and suggest that an income tax is legal. These statutes exist, but the issue of whether they are legal or not is disputed. Since this is an article about that very topic, the language needs to be treated more diplomatically.

For instance: "For the duty to pay the tax at the time prescribed for filing the related tax return, see 26 U.S.C. § 6151..." should be: "26 U.S.C § 6151 reads..."

There is no need to inject opinion into the mix- the article is about a particular group of arguments and their counter arguments. No one can say for sure what is truly legal; all we can provide as contributors to wikipedia is what the IRS bureacracratic statutes actually read.Michaelmcneil 00:40, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be confused here. The United States Code is enacted by Congress. By "IRS bureaucratic statutes" I assume you mean the Treasury Regulations, part of the Code of Federal Regulations. There are legal theories (albeit not accepted by the courts) that any promulgation of regulations is an unconstitutional exercise of law-making power. Perhaps this is what you are thinking of? ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 00:54, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly what I'm getting at. Thank you for bringing it up.Michaelmcneil 01:10, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear user Michaelmcneil: You make an interesting point. Stay tuned; I believe it would be pretty easy for me to come up with alternative language to reflect your concerns (hopefully later tonight). Yours, Famspear 02:14, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

But Michael, you say that you are objecting to 26 U.S.C § 6151 being treated as law. It is part of the US Code enacted by Congress. Now I'm seriously confused ... ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 02:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear readers: OK, I've started changing the material to add some of the quotes from the statutes. You could read the exact statutory language by simply clicking on the links, which take you to the United States Code (title 26 of which is the Internal Revenue Code) at the Cornell University Law School web site, but now some of the language is in the article itself.

I have also changed some of the language to address the neutral point of view concern of user Michaelmcneil.

And of course I share editor ObiterDicta's curiosity regarding Michaelmcneil's concerns. Stay tuned. Yours, Famspear 03:20, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Postscript: Regarding this language:

Regarding neutral point of view and verifiability, in my view this language is good as is. The statutes are specifically referenced, and the statutes do expressly "impose" the tax (even specifically using the word "impose"). The terms "taxable income" and "gross income" are in fact defined in the referenced sections, and those sections actually do use the terms "taxable income and "gross income." Yours, Famspear 03:25, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Follow up: OK, I gotta take a short break. By the way, regarding the "regulations" arguments, there is of course case law on that. Various people have actually tried to make the argument that because the IRS has not promulgated regulations, the statutes cannot be enforced. Aside from the fact that the IRS (or more precisely, I think, someone in the Treasury department above the IRS) has promulgated regs for some but not all code sections, there is no legal requirement under the U.S. legal system that statutes have regs to go along with them to make the statutes enforceable.

And yes, other people have argued more or less the opposite -- that Congress cannot delegate any law making authority to administrative agencies like the IRS who make regs. That argument also has no legal basis. There are legal restrictions on what an executive branch bureau like the IRS can do, though. The regs do have to follow the statute. If there's a real conflict, the statute controls over the reg (just as constitutional provisions control over statutes). Stay tuned. Famspear 03:32, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Material with invalid citation

Dear readers: The following verbiage added recently is being moved from the article to here for discussion:

Other subparts of the Internal Revenue Code list the District of Columbia and territories of the United States in response to the definition of "State" or geographically, the "United States" (26 CRF 31.3132 (e)-1)

The citation "26 CRF 31.3132 (e)-1)" is not a valid citation. First, although it's touted as being at Internal Revenue Code provision, it's not from the Internal Revenue Code. Although what may have been intended was "CFR" instead of "CRF," the citation "26 CFR 31.3132 (e)-1)" -- is not valid either. I have checked both the U.S. Government Printing Office website and the CCH website (a professional "pay" web site for attorneys, CPAs, etc.), and neither site shows any such provision.

Perhaps some numbers have been transposed. I will keep looking. If I or any other editor finds a correct citation that would support this verbiage, it can be moved back to the article. Yours, Famspear 04:12, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear readers: OK, I have found what I believe was intended. It's 26 C.F.R. sec. 31.3121(e)-1. The provision reads as follows (in full):

State, United States, and citizen.

(a) When used in the regulations in this subpart, the term “State” includes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Territories of Alaska and Hawaii before their admission as States, and (when used with respect to services performed after 1960) Guam and American Samoa.

(b) When used in the regulations in this subpart, the term “United States”, when used in a geographical sense, means the several states (including the Territories of Alaska and Hawaii before their admission as States), the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. When used in the regulations in this subpart with respect to services performed after 1960, the term “United States” also includes Guam and American Samoa when the term is used in a geographical sense. The term “citizen of the United States” includes a citizen of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands, and, effective January 1, 1961, a citizen of Guam or American Samoa.

I hope this helps. Yours, Famspear 04:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

sorry about the mixup. i'll wait to get more information regarding your other comments. Itsnoteasybeingbrown 13:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Status report: For the time being, I am going to be working on gathering information on the Federal court rulings on the meaning of the term "state" as it's used in the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended. Also, the court rulings on "includes" and "including." Stay tuned. Yours, Famspear 21:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Please notice that the definition for "State" and "United States" provided in 26 CFR sec. 31.3121(e)-1 specifically mentions Alaska and Hawaii before they were admitted into the Union (while they were still territories belonging to the United States government), and four other territories that belong to the United States government. Not one of these territories is a State of the Union. The States of the Union have an entirely different standing with regard to the federal government than do the territories or inchoate states of the United States. See O'Donoghue v. United States, 289 U.S. 516, 53 S.Ct. 740 (1933) where the U.S. Supreme Court discussed the distinction between the States of the Uinon and inchoate states, and stated, "As the only judicial power vested in Congress is to create courts whose judges shall hold their offices during good behavior, it necessarily follows that, if Congress authorizes the creation of courts and the appointment of judges for a limited time, it must act independently of the Constitution and upon territory which is not part of the United States within the meaning of the Constitution." Keeping in mind that the tax court is an article I court (26 U.S.C. sec. 7441) whose judges serve for 15 years (26 U.S.C. sec. 7443(e)), how does the O'Donoghue holding affect our understanding of where the Internal Revenue Code has inherent application? --Jerbro 01:52, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear user Jerbro: I’ve inserted a “Welcome to Wikipedia” elsewhere on this talk page, and I’ll repeat it here.

Regarding the O’Donoghue case, you may want to be a bit more specific. If you are trying to make some point about the status of the judges of the Tax Court, then perhaps you have read some of the Federal court decisions about the status of the judges. Do you know what the courts have ruled? Yours, Famspear 04:48, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Why do you need the opinion of a judge when you have the declaration of Congress regarding the type of court the Tax Court is and the limited term of office for a judge in the Tax Court? The words of Congress are clear and unmistakable, and it is the primary evidence on the issue. Given these facts as stated by Congress, how does the holding in the O'Donoghue case inform us of the geographical area where the Tax Court has inherent jurisdicion? Jerbro 10:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Since Famspear found the correct citation number, shouldn't he be replacing the text in the article?Itsnoteasybeingbrown 17:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear editor Itsnoteasybeingbrown: As a general proposition, any editor can put (or replace) text in an article.

Regarding editor Jerbro's questions -- Jerbro, your question originally was "how does the O'Donoghue holding affect our understanding of where the Internal Revenue Code has inherent application?". Now I believe your question has changed to or been replaced by the question "how does the holding in the O'Donoghue case inform us of the geographical area where the Tax Court has inherent jurisdicion [sic]?". Jerbro I'll ask you: (1) do you think the O'Donoghue holding has any material bearing on either of your questions, and (2) how does this relate to the article? Yours, Famspear 20:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Famspear: My questions are the same. Now, I asked you first. You answer my question and I'll respond to yours. --Jerbro 05:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Jerbro: I and the other Wikipedia editors are not here to answer your questions -- especially questions that you posed first. I may answer some of your questions from time time. We are here on this talk page to discuss ways to improve the related article. My question was posed to you in response to your unsolicited question to me. We are even. If you have an idea for a way to improve the article, you are free to state it here on this talk page. If you have a point to make about what you believe the answer to your own question might be, and that answer can improve the article, then you are free to answer your own question.

Or, alternatively, think of this as tennis. Yours, Famspear 17:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

If this is tennis, then you missed the ball. --Jerbro 15:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

No, I didn't. There it is over there, right behind you! Famspear 16:01, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

What you seem to be overlooking is the difference in the degree of legislative jurisdiction the United States government has over the territories that belong to the United States and the States of the Union. The federal government has absolute legislative jurisdiction over the territories of the United States, but only limited legislative jurisdiction over the States of the Union. See United States v. Coe, 155 U.S. 76, 15 S.Ct. 16 (1894) where the court stated "...territorial courts...are legislative courts, created in virtue of the general right of sovereignty which exists in the government over the territories, or the clause which enables congress to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory belonging to the United States." You may recognize the last phrase as being a parallel of Article 1, sec. 8, clause 17 which is limited to the District of Columbia and other places similarly situated. The federal government does not have sovereignty over the States of the Uinion, but only a delegated authority through the U.S. Constitution. Federal legislative jurisdiction is limited to those things that have been specifically delegated to the United States through the U.S. Constitution. See The Mayor, &c., of New Orleans v. United States, 35 U.S. 662, 10 Pet. 662, 9L.Ed. 573 (1836) where the court stated the following:

"The government of the United States, as was well observed in the argument, is one of limited powers. It can exercise authority over no subjects except those which have been delegated to it. Congress cannnot, by legislation, enlarge the federal jurisdiction, nor can it be enlarged under the treaty-making power."

"Special provision is made in the constitution for the cession of jurisdiction from the states over places where the federal government shall establish forts or other military works. And it is only in these places, or in the territories of the United States, where it can exercise a general jurisdiction."

"All powers which properly appertain to sovereignty, which have not been delegated to the federal government, belong to the States and the people."

Consequently, when the federal government bought land within the States of the Union for the purpose of building hospitals for veterans and providing places for a few families of VA hospital workers to live on federal government property, the children of those workers were not entitled to free education from the State because they were not residents of the State. Schwartz v. O'Hara Township School District, et al., 100 A.2d. 621 (1953). An indirect result of this ruling was that the Attorney General for the United States, with the blessing of President Eisenhower, formally conferred with the Attorney Generals of the States for the purpose of clarifying the degree of legislative jurisdiction the federal government has over federal lands within these States. That report can be found at http://www.constitution.org/. Scroll down to "Jurisdiction and Due Process" and follow the links. The red and yellow boxes are for HTML and TXT files. These can be downloaded. They also have an 8.7 Mb. PDF file plus the last chapter of 897Kb as a seperate file.

The federal government's power to tax is stated in Article 1, sec. 8, clause 1, but that power, as it might be applied to individuals, is limited by clause 4 which states that "no cpitation, or other direcct, tax shall be laid, unles in proportion to the census or enumeration hereinbefore directed to be taken." This limitation was not diminished by the Sixteenth Amendment as the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the Sixteenth Amendment did not extend the taxing power to new or excepted subjects. See William E. Peck & Co. v. Lowe, 247 U.S. 165; 38 S.Ct. 432 (1918), Evans v. Gore, 253 U.S. 245 (1920), Bowers v. Kerbaugh--Empire Co., 271 U.S. 170; 46 S.Ct. 449 (1926), Taft v. Bowers, 278 U.S. 470; 49 S.Ct. 199 (1928). If a person was not subject to a federal income tax before the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment, that person did not become subject to a federal income tax by the Sixteenth Amendment.

A general authority to tax the citizens of the States has not been delegated to the United States government. The Alabama Supreme Court stated more than 20 years after the adoption of the Sixteenth Admendment in Beeland Wholesale Co. v. Kaufman, 174 So. 516 (1937), "State may tax its citizens personally provided no Constitutional restriction is violated, but federal government cannot tax citizens personally except in proportion to census." This ruling remains unchallenged to this day.

None of these are "tax protestor" arguments; these are the conclusions of the elected officials of both the federal and State governments and both federal and State courts. --Jerbro 17:15, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Jerbro: Haven't forgotten about your latest comments. I'm just snowed under at the moment. Stay tuned for my reply - it may be a while. Yours, Famspear 21:14, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Jerbro: Your statement that a "general authority to tax the citizens of the States has not been delegated to the United States government" is incorrect. No court has ever upheld this argument, and the Constitutional provisions you quoted directly contradict your statement. The authority of Congress to tax citizens of "the States" is, to use the term the courts have used, "plenary." There is very little constitutional limitation on the power of Congress to validly impose taxes of any kind whatsoever. The apportionment and uniformity restrictions are already covered in various Wikipedia articles (there are a few other restrictions not relevant here).

The apportionment limitation -- which is the one that states that no capitation or other direct tax shall be laid except in proportion to the census, etc. -- has nothing to do with limiting the subjects of taxation (either in terms of who may be taxed or what may be taxed). The language in the limitation deals with apportionment of the tax among the states by population according to census, and means exactly what it says -- and the apportionment limitation applies only to DIRECT taxes. All income taxes are now (and have always been) INDIRECT taxes -- except (essentially) for taxes on interest, dividends, and rents (and those taxes were treated as being required to be apportioned only for a short period, from 1895 to 1913). Read the Pollock and Brushaber decisions again. With respect to taxes on income from property (taxes on rents, interest, dividends, etc.), the apportionment limitation was deleted (or affected, repealed, etc., etc.) by the Sixteenth Amendment, as the courts have so ruled over and over.

Your statement -- that the federal government's power to tax as applied to individuals, is limited by the "no capitation, etc., except in proportion to the census" clause -- is incorrect. Go back and read the language again. The "no capitation, etc.," language includes no restriction whatsoever on WHO or WHAT may be taxed, but deals only with apportionment. There are no "excepted subjects" (either in terms of people or things subject to tax) in any of that language, and no Federal court has ever plugged any such idea into that language. Try to find even one case where a taxpayer has won using your argument before any court whatsoever. (Hint: There is no such case.)

Regarding your statement that "[i]f a person was not subject to a federal income tax before the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment, that person did not become subject to a federal income tax by the Sixteenth Amendment" -- sorry, but citizens and residents of the fifty states are subject to Federal income tax -- both before and after the Amendment, and no Federal court has ever ruled otherwise. What "you seem to be overlooking," to use your words, is that I have not overlooked the argument that the "federal government has absolute legislative jurisdiction over the territories of the United States, but only limited legislative jurisdiction over the States of the Union." This is part and parcel of a frivolous argument that the Congress cannot validly impose a Federal income tax on citizens and residents within the "fifty states." This is a variation on the frivolous, laughable "federal zone" argument. This is already covered in one form or another in court decisions such as United States v. Mundt, 29 F.3d 233, 94-2 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 50,366 (6th Cir. 1994); Nelsen v. Commissioner, 65 T.C.M. (CCH) 2530, T.C. Memo 1993-189 (1993); Abbs v. Imhoff, 99-2 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 50,652 (W.D. Mich. 1999), and in the article Tax protester constitutional arguments.

Now let's look at some of the cases you cited.

In Evans v. Gore, 253 U.S. 245 (1920), the U.S. Supreme Court did rule that a Federal income tax on the income of a federal judge was unconstitutional. Unfortunately, this decision was later overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court itself -- in the case of O'Malley v. Woodrough, 307 U.S. 277 (1939). So sorry.

In the case of William E. Peck & Co. v. Lowe, 247 U.S. 165, 38 S. Ct. 432 (1918), the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the tax. In Bowers v. Kerbaugh-Empire Co., 271 U.S. 170; 46 S. Ct. 449 (1926), the United States Supreme Court upheld the tax. In Taft v. Bowers, 278 U.S. 470, 49 S. Ct. 199 (1928) -- a case studied by every law student who takes a basic Federal income tax course -- the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the tax. Regarding the U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Coe, 155 U.S. 76, 15 S. Ct. 16 (1894), this isn't even a Federal income tax case. It's not a tax case at all. No issues involving the validity of taxes were presented to or decided by the Court. The word "tax" does not even appear in the case.

And give me a break: Mayor, Aldermen and Inhabitants of New Orleans v. United States, 35 U.S. 662 (1836)???!!! The first Federal income tax wasn't even enacted until the 1860s, about 25 years after this case was decided. The Court in this case did not decide the validity of any Federal tax at all. (Can you guess what's coming next?) You got it: the word "tax" is not even found in the case. (Is this getting old yet?)

Regarding Beeland Wholesale Co. v. Kaufman, 234 Ala. 249, 258, 174 So. 516, 523 (1937), there is no "ruling" that the Federal government "cannot tax citizens personally except in proportion to census." Gee, maybe that's why it "remains unchallenged to this day," as you put it! That language is merely a quotation from dicta in the case (hint: that basically means the statement is non-binding), where the court was referring to property taxes (not income taxes). The Alabama court's non-binding statement would actually be correct with respect to Federal property taxes (i.e., a tax imposed on property by reason of ownership) -- if there were such a thing as Federal property taxes today. If you had a Federal property tax, it would indeed be required to be apportioned among the states according to population. Unfortunately, the apportionment rule does not apply to Federal income taxes, and Federal income taxes are not imposed on property "by reason of ownership." Further, as you yourself recognized, Beeland was an Alabama Supreme Court case, not a Federal court case. Get real! Neither the United States government nor its Federal taxing authority (in 1937, the Treasury's Bureau of Internal Revenue, now the Internal Revenue Service) was a party to the case! Hint: Law school 101, first semester: State courts generally do not bind the United States government as an entity that was not even a party to the case, any more than, say, a Montana state court could bind people in Vermont who had no connection to Montana, who were not being sued in Montana, in connection with property not located in Montana, in a case in which the Vermont people were not even parties, etc., etc. Thus, the doctrines of res judicata (claim preclusion) and collateral estoppel (issue preclusion) would not bind the United States government in connection with Beeland. More to the point, no issues involving the validity of Federal income taxes were even presented to the Alabama court in Beeland. Thus, the doctrine of stare decisis with respect to Federal income taxes would not apply in Beeland either.

To all tax protesters and to people who believe tax protester arguments: Clue: Do your homework and stop citing cases where the courts upheld the validity of the Federal income tax. And stop citing cases that don't even involve Federal income taxes. Learn the difference between holdings (see Stare decisis) and non-binding dicta. Look for an actual court ruling on the validity of Federal income taxes under the current Internal Revenue Code in your favor. (Clue: There is no such ruling.) Verifiability, Neutral Point of View, No Original Research. Yours, Famspear 23:01, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Clarification: Oops! Above, where I said that there is no ruling "on the validity" of the Federal income tax under the current Code, what I should have said is that there is no ruling that income tax under the current Code is invalid. Obviously, I have cited in various Wikipedia articles lots of cases where courts ruled on the validity of the income tax under the current Code -- it's just that virtually all the courts ruled the tax valid. As far as the current code, there was one case in 2006 where a court ruled a particular income tax provision unconstitutional, but the same court later vacated (nullified) its own decision -- and anyway that court never ruled that the entire income tax itself was unconstitutional. Yours, Famspear 14:42, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Post-script: Well, it's only Wednesday morning and I guess I must be tired already. After reading my own original statement more carefully, I see that my statement was correct anyway, because I had used the words "in your favor". That is, there is no court decision ruling in the tax protesters' favor -- there is no ruling that the income tax under the current Code is unconstitutional. Famspear 14:53, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of "state"

I think it would be helpful, in the section on the definition of "state," if someone could provide a court case where the court ruled that under the Internal Revenue Code the term "state" does not include the fifty states. The problem is: there is no such case.

Over the next few days I will try to locate some court cases where the meaning of the term "state" actually was decided by a Federal court in a tax case. Yours, Famspear 21:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear editors: Regarding the Montello Salt case cited by another editor, neutral point of view requires that if one editor is citing this case for the argument that the terms "include" and "including" as used in the Internal Revenue Code are words of exclusion rather than expansion -- in other words, that these words are applied to the definition of the word "state" to exclude the fifty states from the definition of "state" under the Internal Revenue Code, the article should also point out that the Court in Montello Salt did not rule that way. The Internal Revenue Code did not even exist when Montello Salt was decided. The word "tax" is not even found in the text of Montello Salt. No Federal tax issues were presented to or decided by the Court in Montello Salt. The holding of Montello Salt is not even currently mentioned in the article. Providing balancing information about the Montello Salt case is hardly providing "irrelevant" information. Indeed, to leave out such information would be misleading to readers. Yours, Famspear 22:19, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear editors: I have made more edits to the newly added material on the "state" argument. Obviously, this stuff is susceptible to being removed altogether as original research, but since this is an article on tax protester arguments I think we can allow a little leeway as long as we work on this material to get it to conform to the rules on neutral point of view and attribution (verifiability and no original research). Oh boy. Yours, Famspear 22:52, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Famspear, thank you for the nice welcome, i'm not sure if i'm doing anything right at this point. is this how we talk? it would be nice to find court cases where Federal courts made decisions on tax cases regarding the definition of state, etc., in terms of internal revenue code, but to my knowledge i don't have any examples for or against. it seems that the supreme court, especially, stopped wanting to look at tax cases a long time ago, but what do i know. i do know that this is an argument that some very few tax protesters use as a basis of reasoning. So i second Famspears request that someone find such a case or find one with a contrary decision, and hope there is one. Famspear may want to search for the terms "private international law" in order to speed his research. Itsnoteasybeingbrown 22:56, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear editors: Regarding the "Montello Salt" case, one can easily look up the Supreme court decision online and learn that it entirely hinged on the meaning of the word "including," despite Famspears initial claims, and that nearly the whole decision talks about this word and how it is to be interpreted by the courts and how congress is supposed to use the word. In the same way that in english, "or" is an exclusive term that bars other possibilities, "or" in logic is inclusive, yet there's no word in english for an inclusive "or"; according to the supreme court, when "including" is used in a certain way--at the beginning of a list or enumeration of even one thing-- it is assumed to be exclusive. There may be times when the situation makes it logically impossible for it to have been meant to be written exclusively, but barring that we take it to have exclusive meaning at the beginning of an enumeration in law. All law, not just tax law. there is no reason to think that the rulings of the supreme court on the meaning of this word stop before title 26. I can't understand why anyone would make that argument. it doesn't matter when the IRS was created. the common law applies to rules and regulations created in the future. It matters not at all that Montello Salt was not a tax case. it was a Supreme Court Case. Providing the information that Montello Salt was not a tax case IS irrelevant information. Furthermore, the holding in that case, if i understand "holding" correctly, is too long for the article, but the relevant implication for how to interpret "including" relevantly to the particular code sections in the IRC IS in the article. Are we expected to write the entire holding in the wikipedia article??? Itsnoteasybeingbrown 22:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Famspear seems to be exhibiting shockingly non-NPV; isn't it the duty of editors to not judge arguments as right or wrong before editing and changing them? i noticed that Famspear edited the article immediately after i posted this section, claiming the case cited didn't even mention the word "including", and a few other minor things which are all in the past now, but does anyone else get the feeling that Famspear is not just a little biased?Itsnoteasybeingbrown 23:05, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Some of the arguments presented in the article are neither original research, nor far-out claims that need to be cited as belonging only to tax protesters. they are ordinary facts about the federal system or about the actual text of the law. i'm sorry i wasn't able to cite the Codes; i would be obliged if someone helped to do that. As for what could be construed as original research, i know I haven't done any original research, and i know that there were sufficient numbers of Tax protesters to make a mention of the definition of state argument that the section was created in the first place. Does it count as original research, anyway, to give a literal reading to a code section of the law??? i can't believe that. Furthermore, it is sometimes difficult to attribute who in a tax protester movement did the original research, and who could be cited for putting together a logical train, as you know, but the idea, if it is circulating, must be included. I will do my best to make sure that the article is NPOV. Perhaps if we attacked the new writing in sections it would help.Itsnoteasybeingbrown 23:19, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

by the way, starting every paragraph with "tax protesters argue..." is extremely bad writing.Itsnoteasybeingbrown 23:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear editor Itsnoteasybeingbrown: First, whether it's bad writing is a matter of opinion. Second, that phrase has been added over and over to make clear that these are tax protester arguments, and not authoritative statements of what the law is. I invite all readers to go back and look at the verbiage as it was originally inserted, and then compare that to my version as edited with "tax protesters argue."

The Supreme court decision in Montello Salt did involve the words "include or "including." But that's not the problem. The problem is that the material as you inserted it seemed to leave the false impression that Montello Salt involved those terms as they are used in the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as a way of making an argument that the term "state" does not "include" the fifty states under the Internal Revenue Code. That is false. The Montello Salt case has nothing to do with the words "includes" or "including" as used in the Code. The point, however, is not to say in the Wikipedia article "Your angle on Montello Salt is wrong." The point is that we must present the material with a neutral point of view. That means adding a notation that Montello Salt did not involve a holding on any Federal tax law, etc. The reader can then make his or her own evaluation, if desired.

As you can see, I changed the article to say:

The Montello Salt case was not a Federal tax case, and no issues involving the meaning of the terms "state" or "includes" or "including" as used in the Internal Revenue Code were presented to or decided by the Court [ . . . ]

That is a correct statement.

We are not here to present just "one side."

And we are not here to determine for ourselves the legal meaning of the terms "includes" and "including" as used in the tax code. (But if we were, we would look first to the text of the statute itself and to holdings in court cases (if any) that actually ruled on what that tax statute means.) Because we are here to write an encyclopedia, our goal is to find primary, secondary or tertiary sources that make particular claims -- not to put something in source A and together with something in source B to come up with our own theory "C". We are not here to promulgate original research or novel theories about tax law -- especially ones that have never been accepted by the courts, and especially ones that have been rejected by the courts. The "tax protester argument" articles are here to provide information for readers on (1) what the tax protesters have argued, (2) what the statutes and regs actually say (3) what the courts have actually and specifically ruled about tax protester arguments when tax protesters litigated those arguments, and what any reliable Secondary authority sources have stated on the subject.

The primary concepts are: neutral point of view (NPOV), verifiability, and "no original research."

One of the most basic problems we have had here in Wikipedia with tax protester articles is the problem of original research. Worse, with respect to reference to case law, we have had a problem with editors not understanding concepts such as Precedent, Stare decisis, and Obiter dictum. Writing about case law is very different than writing about statutory law -- because of these legal concepts.

We aren't "judging arguments as right or wrong before editing and changing them." What we are doing is toning down the non-neutral point of view and beginning to add more citations (adding verifiability). We are trying to avoid having the whole thing thrown out as original research, by (hopefully, if we can) showing that this material is not just your personal theory, but that this is an actual tax protester argument.

For the rest of your points as you explained above, please stay tuned for more to come soon. Yours, Famspear 23:43, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Is there a reason, Famspear, that you keep inserting the fact that the Supreme Court decision cited was not a tax case? Itsnoteasybeingbrown 00:10, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Itsnoteasybeingbrown: What do you think would be the reason that this fact is important? Famspear 01:39, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

PS: I have restored the language regarding the Montello Salt case not being a tax case. While you are thinking about why this is important, you may want to read or re-read the Wikipedia rules about "Attribution" (Reliability and No Original Research) and also read or re-read the articles on Stare decisis and Obiter Dictum. Yours, Famspear 01:54, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Post-post script - Dear Itsnoteasybeingbrown: I notice that in a recent edit, you stated in capital letters that you are not a "tax protester." Thank your for sharing that with us. No one here has referred to you as a tax protester. This talk (discussion) page is here for the purpose of serving as a forum discuss ways to improve the article. Yours, Famspear 01:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Famspear: The purpose of the legal encyclopedia Words and Phrases is to catalogue the holdings which courts of record have made with regard to the legal meanings of certain words and phrases. The holding of the meaning of the word "include" and "including" by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Montello Salt Co. case is not limited to land grant cases (which Montello was), but applies to all federal statutes -- including, but not limited to, tax statutes, codes, and regulations. It doesn't matters that Montello was or was not a tax case, what does matter is the holding regarding the meaning of the words. Once the court of record makes a holding, it has that application to all statutes, codes, and regulations where there is not a specific limited definition for that word or phrase, until overturned by a higher court. In the Montello case, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the holding of the supreme court of the state regaring the meaning of "including" as being a word of expansion. Whenever the court's ruling alters the intended meaning of the legislature, the legislative body is free to amend the statute, code, or regulation to restore its original meaning if it wishes.

Your statement that "The Montello Salt case was not a Federal tax case, and no issues involving the meaning of the terms "state" or "includes" or "including" as used in the Internal Revenue Code were presented to or decided by the Court [ . . . ]" may be a factual statement, but it is misleading because it implies that the holding regarding the meaning of "include" and "including" in Montello cannot be applied to a tax case. The term "state" was not at issue in Montello, but the holding of the court regarding the meaning of "include" and "including" has an application to all federal law. Thus, Congress was careful to create a general defiinition for "state" for the Internal Revenue Code, but where that general definition is superceeded by the language of a subsection, the holding of the Supreme Court for "include" and "including" applies. It was also careful to create a definition for "includes and including" at 26 U.S.C., sec. 7701(c) which states: ""Includes and Including. -- The terms "includes" and "including" when used in a definition contained in this title shall not be deemed to exclude other things otherwise within the meaning of the term defined."

The court's ruling in Montello is in harmony with the legal maxims 'inclusio unius est exclusio alterius' (the inclusion of one thing is the exclusion of others not included) and 'expressio unius est exclusio alterius' (the expression of one thing is the exclusion of others not included). Thus, where tax code provides a defnition of "state" as including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and other territories belonging to the federal government, the sovereign States of the Uinon are excluded from the application of that code section.

What hasn't been stated in this "Definition of State" section is that there are two types of states in America. There are the sovereign States of the Union which existed before the federal government and brought it into existence by adopting the Constitution for the United States, whose people are eligible to vote for certain federal officials and whose representatives in Congress give guidance to the United States government. In addition, there are the inchoate states that are actually territories that belong to the United States government, whose people are not eligible to vote for federal officials and whose people have no vote in Congress. The single exception to this is the District of Columbia where the right of the residents of the District were granted the right to vote for the President by Amendment 23. While the residents of the District have the right to vote for President, they do not have an elected representative in Congress. This lack of representation in Congress is exactly the same status as the territories mentioned in the tax code. The geographical language in the Internal Revenue Code is almost entirely directed to the inchoate states of the United States (the territories) and not the States of the Union. --Jerbro 01:21, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear user Jerbro: First of all, welcome to Wikipedia!

Let’s go through your points. First, Words and Phrases is what we call a finding tool. It’s a product of West, a leading publisher of legal materials, and lawyers sometimes use it to find stuff -- like court cases that might be on point. It’s what we call Secondary authority. Certain other kinds of secondary authority, such as Black’s Law Dictionary, are cited in court decisions. In general, however, we do not actually cite West's Words and Phrases, when trying to make a point or an argument about what the law is.

You state that the holding in the Montello Salt case is not limited to land grant cases. First, you have not stated what you believe the holding in that case is. (Neither have I, of course.) We’ll put that aside for now. Second, your statements -- (1) that the holding in Montello Salt “applies to all federal statutes -- including, but not limited to, tax statutes, codes, and regulations” and (2) that “It doesn't matters that Montello was or was not a tax case” -- are blatantly incorrect.

To reiterate, the issue here is: What is the meaning of “includes” and “including” as those terms are used in the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, and how does that meaning affect the meaning of the term “state” as used in the Code?

The apparent implication -- that the holding in Montello Salt can be applied as controlling the interpretation of words in the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 -- is also totally incorrect.

Legal maxims like inclusio unius est exclusio alterius and expressio unius est exclusio alterius are indeed used by courts from time to time to interpret statutes, contracts, and so on where the meaning of the interpreted provision is not plain. Your problem is that the plain language of section 7701 expressly contradicts your argument that these legal maxims should apply to section 7701. Now, all you have to do to overcome the plain language of the statute – and to support your own theory about what the terms “includes” and “including” should mean in section 7701 – is to find an actual Federal court decision that ruled that way -- on section 7701 itself, or on a statutory predecessor version of section 7701. Hint: You will never a case like that, because there isn’t one.) Section 7701 means exactly what it says.

The arguments presented, in one form or another, have already been presented over and over by tax protesters on the internet including right here in Wikipedia. If you look around you may find them. They are indeed tax protester arguments, which means that they are both legally invalid and legally frivolous.

The problem for tax protesters with respect to the “includes and including” argument is the same as it is for all other tax protester arguments: All the statutes and all the case law work against them.

In analyzing court decisions in the United States, we follow a legal doctrine called Stare decisis. What this basically means, applied in the context of your attempt to analyze the terms “includes” and “including” and "state" as used in the Internal Revenue Code, is that the Montello Salt case is important only for what the parties in that case actually fought about, and what the Court in that case actually decided about what those parties fought about.

The statement that the “geographical language in the Internal Revenue Code is almost entirely directed to the inchoate states of the United States (the territories) and not the States of the Union” is totally without legal merit. No court has ever upheld this argument.

The idea that the Montello Salt case somehow reverses the plain language of 26 U.S.C. § 7701 with respect to the terms “includes” and “including”, and the idea that Montello Salt ultimately results in the term “state” (as used in section 7701) being defined to exclude the fifty states are totally without any legal merit whatsoever.

No Federal court has ever ruled that where the Internal Revenue Code provides a definition of the term "state" as including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and other territories belonging to the federal government, the sovereign States of the Uinon are excluded from the application of that code section. All the Federal courts that have considered arguments like this have rejected those arguments.

As I have said on this talk page, I am in the process of accumulating additional information on what the courts have actually ruled about the terms “state,” “includes,” and “including” as used in the Internal Revenue Code.

The basic concepts that govern editing of articles in Wikipedia are (1) Attribution (encompassing the concepts of Verifiability and No Original Research, and (2) Neutral Point of View. The analysis you provided above – trying to argue that the Montello Salt case could or should somehow control the legal definitions of the terms “includes” and “including” and “state” in the Internal Revenue Code – is a classic example of why Wikipedia has the rule of No Original Research.

Stay tuned. Yours, Famspear 04:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Your comments regarding Words and Phrases are correct, but nearly everything else you've stated in response to my comments is in error. The Montello Salt case was a land grant case where Congress granted to the State of Utah certain lands for the establishment of the University of Utah. The State was granted two townships in quantity for this purpose. The language in controversy is found in the following provision of the enabling act of July 16, 1894: "That in addition to the above, one hundred and ten thousand acres of land, to be selected and located as provided in the foregoing section of this act, and including all saline lands in said state, are hereby granted to said state, for the use of said university,..." The entire case involves the single question of the meaning of the words "and including" in this act. The state supreme court had ruled that the words "and including" is a term of enlargement. The U.S. Supreme Court relied on Webster's dictionary, the Century Dictionary, and several court cases in rejecting that notion when it stated: "The determining word is, of course the word "including." It may have the sense of addition, as we have seen and of "also;" but, we have also seen, "may merely specify particularly that which belongs to the genus." Hiller v. United States, 45 C.C.A. 229, 106 Fed. 73, 74. It is the participle of the word "include," which means, according to the definition of the Century Dictionary, (1) "to confine within something; hold as in an inclosure; inclose; contain." (2) "To comprise as a part, or as something incident or pertinent; comprehend; take in; as the greater includes the less; . . . the Roman Empire included many nations." "Including," being a participle, is in the nature of an adjective and is a modifier. What, then, does it modify as used in section 8? Necessarily, we think, the preceding substantive phrase "one hundred and ten thousand acres of land," and we have the meaning of the section to be that the saline lands are to be contained in or comprise a part of the 110,000 acres of land. We see no particular awkwardness in the expression of the purpose, and it well may be contended that it needs not for its support the rule of strict construction. And such purpose is in harmony with grants of saline lands to other states. It is also sustained by the reports of the committees of the House and Senate.

"In the case of Brainard v. Darling, 132 Mass. 218, it was held that a legacy of $100, "including money trusteed in a certain bank," could not be construed as meaning that the sum of $100 was in addition to the sum in the bank.

"In Henry v. Henry, 81 Ky. 342, a bequest of $14,000, "including certain notes," was held to mean that the notes formed a part of the $14,000, and were not in addition thereto.

"In Neher v. McCook County, 11 S.D. 422, 78 N.W. 998, it was held that a certain section of the laws of the state which provided that the sheriff's fees should be $16 for summoning a jury, "including mileage," did not entitle him to mileage in addition to the $16.

"We have seen that the state urges that the word "and" is always employed to express the relation of addition, and it is said, with words of emphasis, that Congress cannot be supposed to have been ignorant of its meaning. The supreme court of the state also gave special significance to the use of "and," as adding something to that which preceded. The court also considered that the word "including" was used as a word of enlargement, the learned court being of opinion that such was its ordinary sense. With this we cannot concur. It is its exceptional sense, as the dictionaries and cases indicate." Pp. 708-709.

After four pages of discussion this is the only ruling in Montello as the Judgment of the Supreme Court of Utah was reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion. Because the court's only ruling in this case has to do with the meaning of this word, and because the court relied on cases other than land grant cases in determining the meaning of these words, and because the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the state supreme court where it had ruled that "including" was a term of enlargemnet, the meaning rendered in Montello is the ordinary meaning of the words "includes" and "including" in American law. There might be a situation where the legislative body creates an extraordinary meaning for these words, but the ordinary meaning is controlled by this ruling in Montello.

Montello does not reverse the meaning of the words "includes" and "including" in the tax code. Montello preceeded the tax code and served as guidance for writing the limited definitions of "includes" and "including" in that text. Where you have understood the meaning of "includes" and "including" to be words of enlargement as understood by the supreme court of Utah, your understanding needs to be informed and reversed by the ruling of Montello just as was the understanding of that learned court.

The application this has to the Internal Revenue Code is that Congress was careful to write a definition of the terms "includes" and "including" into the code at 7701(c). "The terms "includes" and "including" when used in a definition contained in this title shall not be deemed to exclude other things otherwise within the meaning of the term defined." With regard to the meaning of the word "state" in the Internal Revenue Code, we find the many references to the territories of the United States, (the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands), but virtually no references to the States of the Union. The relationship of the States of the Union with regard to the federal government is altogether different from the relationship of the territories and the federal government. Wtih respect to the States of the Union, the federal government has limited authority. "The government of the United States, as was well observed in the argument, is one of limited powers. It can exercise authority over no subjects except those which have been delegated to it. Congress cannot, by legislation, enlarge the federal jurisdiction, nor can it be enlarged under the treaty-making power." The Mayor, &c., of New Orleans v. United States, 35 U.S. 662, 10 Pet. 662, 9 L.Ed. 573 (1836). Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court stated in Cohens v. Virginia, a case often used in law review courses, although for other purposes, "It is clear that Congress, as a legistative body, exercise two species of legislative power: the one, limited as to its objects but extending all over the Union; the other, an absolute, exclusive legislative power over the District of Columbia." 6 Wheat. 264, 5 L.Ed. 257 (1821).

Regarding your understanding that the federal courts have rejected the distinctions between the States of the Union and the territories, see O'Donoghue v. United States, 289 U.S. 516, 53 S.Ct. 740 (1933) which conducted an exhaustive review of the prior decisions on this issue. You should have a field day reviewing all the cites given in that case and noting the explanation of an inchoate state. If the States of the Union and the territories of the United States have the same standing in the Internal Revenue Code, why did Congress remove all mention to Alaska and Hawaii in the Internal Revenue Code as each was admitted into the Uinon and thus converted from a territory of the United States to a State of the Union? In other words, if the definition of "State" in the IRC is expansive so that the States of the Union are included with the territories that are there called "States," why did Congress feel the need to remove the references to Alaska and Hawaii in the IRC when they were admitted into the Uinon because of a "special definition of "State"? This editorial change in the IRC by Congress is evidence we the people can rely on that helps inform us of the distinction between the States of the Union and the inchoate states of the United States.

If I wish to know the legal meaning of a term or concept, I research what is recorded in the law books. I have described for you exactly what the cases and/or code sections state. Please check my writing to see if I've misquoted any of it and inform me of my errors. Your claim that the positions I've stated are frivolous is without merit because your accusation is contrary to the legal meaning of the word 'frivolous.' "A claim or defense is frivolous if the proponent can present no rational argument based on the evidence or law in support of that claim or defense." Liebowitz v. Aimexco Inc. 701 P.2d 140 (Colo.App. 1985). Not only have my arguments been rational, I've quoted codes and cases in support of my statements. By this rule of law, I do not need to limit my arguments to the previous rulings of federal judges regarding tax related issues; I am allowed to rely on evidence and law in support of my claims without my position being incorrectly labeled as frivolous.

Finally, this is a discussion thread and not an article, so the rules for the construction of an article don't apply here. Moreover, the citation of an original source in law is not original research.

Read widely. --Jerbro 14:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Jerbro: Sorry, but the verbiage you provided is incorrect as a matter of law. And everything I have written here is correct.

The understanding of Wikipedia editors and readers does not need to be "informed and reversed" by the ruling of Montello Salt -- or any of the other cases you mentioned. Again, none of these cases involved an interpretation of the Internal Revenue Code, much less the specific definitional Code provisions that are the subject of this discussion.

Your exhortation to "read widely" is telling. The verbiage you provided is an example of the result of reading --and interpreting -- far too widely. None of the court cases you cited are even close to being on point. You are basically correct when you say that the citation of an original source in law is not original research. That's not the problem. Here's the problem: Based on your verbiage, it appears you are reading language in a case or cases, none of which cases include any holding, any Precedent, with respect to the meaning of section 7701, and you are then formulating your own idiosyncratic conclusion about what you think section 7701 ought to mean -- a conclusion that no court, and no reputable legal scholar has ever reached, or could or would reach. This is Original Research on your part -- blatantly faulty research at that.

Your verbiage that begins with the phrase "Regarding your [Famspear's] understanding that the federal courts have rejected the distinctions between the States of the Union and the territories, see O'Donoghue v. United States [ . . . ]" is a bit odd, as I have not stated anywhere that I have an "understanding that the federal courts have rejected the distinctions between the States of the Union and the territories," whatever that means. I don't even have an opinion about that. I didn't even bring up the subject. You did. Further, the question of whether "the federal courts have rejected the distinctions between the States of the Union and the territories" may be of interest to you, but the question has no material bearing on the interpretation of the terms "includes," "including," and "state" as used in the Internal Revenue Code.

Now, let's look at this verbiage:

This verbiage is quite incorrect.

What I am saying is that under the U.S. legal system, the argument -- that people who reside within the fifty states are not subject to Federal income taxation, based on the theory that the term "state" as used in the Internal Revenue Code somehow excludes the fifty states, based in turn on citations of Latin phrases and Montello Salt -- is legally frivolous. If a litigant presents that argument in a Federal court in an actual dispute with the government over whether that litigant owes Federal income tax, the argument will be ruled frivolous. The court will, in all probability, actually use the term "frivolous" in its ruling. It's a legal term, and it's used in court over and over. Your feeling that your argument is "rational" is, from a legal standpoint, completely misplaced. Sorry, but that's it.

Let's look at these statements:

I do not need to limit my arguments to the previous rulings of federal judges regarding tax related issues; I am allowed to rely on evidence and law in support of my claims without my position being incorrectly labeled as frivolous.

Those statements are absolutely incorrect. They're incorrect for purposes of Wikipedia, and they're also incorrect in a court of law. A litigant is absolutely not legally entitled to "rely on evidence and law in support of [the litigant's] claims without [the litigant's] position being incorrectly [sic] labeled as frivolous" where those arguments not only have no legal merit, but also have no conceivable chance of succeeding in court. The law specifically provides for penalties for merely bringing frivolous arguments up in court, and tax protesters are penalized all the time for this behavior. I don't recall off hand whether your specific argument has resulted in penalties for bringing a frivolous position in an actual court case (as opposed to merely being ruled frivolous) -- but now you've just given me an idea for something to check on.

Again, American law follows doctrines such as Stare decisis and Obiter dictum when analyzing the texts of court opinions. The verbiage you provided does not conform to some of the basic rules for legal analysis. You have been citing Federal court decisions that did not even involve taxation -- much less the meaning of "includes" and "including" and "state" as those terms are used in the Internal Revenue Code. This is a regularly recurring attribute of tax protester arguments (including some that have been posted here in Wikipedia): the citation of court decisions that do not even involve Federal taxation to make idiosyncratic arguments about what tax law should mean, when every court that has actually decided the argument has already ruled just the opposite. The Montello Salt case (and the state court decisions cited in Montello Salt you mentioned above) cannot possibly support the legally frivolous argument that the term "states" as used in the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 somehow should exclude the fifty states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, etc., etc.).

Regarding section 7701, I would suggest that you considering going back and reading the text of section 7701 very carefully, and then go see if you can find court decisions that actually interpret section 7701. This means cases where litigants actually fought with the government over Federal taxes, and specifically on the meaning of those terms as used in section 7701, and the court actually rendered a decision. See what the rulings are. And you can try to find reputable secondary sources as well. A court decision (Montello Salt) that interprets the Utah land grant statute would not help you in court in presenting your argument about what you believe Internal Revenue Code section 7701 ought to mean -- and the Utah land grant statute and the Montello Salt' case are not going to help you here in Wikipedia either.

This is a talk (discussion) page for the related article, Tax protester statutory arguments. Regarding the comment that "the rules for the construction of an article don't apply here" -- we are discussing the application of Wikipedia concepts such as Verifiability, Neutral POV, and No Original Research. And we are discussing a topic that is law-related. The rules of legal analysis, and the rules of Wikipedia, do indeed apply here.

However, if appropriate, your material might form the basis for a description of a tax protester argument that could be described in the article, as long as the argument is clearly identified in the article as a tax protester argument, and as long as the article also points out that no Federal court has ever ruled that the argument is valid. That's a call that Wikipedia editors as a group may eventually have to make.

Regarding Wikipedia policies and guidelines, I would strongly urge you to read the materials on Verifiability, Neutral Point of View, and especially No Original Research. Yours, Famspear 18:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I've made the argument in court at the appellate level against the U.S. Department of Justice and the court ruled in my favor and against the motion of the DOJ for sanctions for filing a frivolous appeal. Your writing is terribly biased. --Jerbro 05:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Jerbro: You raised, in a Federal court in a dispute over your Federal taxes, the argument that people who reside within the fifty states are not subject to Federal income taxation based on the theory that the term "state" as used in the Internal Revenue Code somehow excludes the fifty states, based in turn on the Montello Salt case, etc.? You lost at the trial court, and the case went to appeal, and at least one of the issues actually decided on appeal was the government's request for frivolous position sanctions against you?

I repeat: If a taxpayer raises that argument in a Federal trial court, or in an appeals court, the court will rule that argument to be frivolous. The court may even use the term "frivolous" in its opinion. As I said, I don't recall whether that argument has also resulted in imposition of frivolous position penalties (and you are saying that it did not in your case). That's a separate issue. You cannot verify the particulars of your case (and I cannot comment much on your case) unless you provide a complete citation that would disclose your identity. The particulars of your case would be material here only to the extent that they would improve the Wikipedia article. Because of the Wikipedia rules on Verifiability and No Original Research, we would need the full citation to the case to use it in Wikipedia anyway. Providing the citation is your call. Yours, Famspear 18:00, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Its not the ruling of the case, its the ruling on a motion at the appellate level. While I won the issue of the motion, I lost the appeal on other issues. Consequently, my having won the frivolous issue is not in the published report. --Jerbro 00:36, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Jerbro: Well, then that leaves us with only three court cases involving Federal taxation since the year 1913 (I use CCH, and that's how far the CCH internet web site data goes back on court cases) having reported opinions that even mention the Montello Salt case, at least that I have been able to locate. Two of them are:

Red Wing Malting Co. v. Willcuts, 15 F.2d 626, 1927 CCH paragr. 7024 (8th Cir. 1926), cert. denied, 273 U.S. 763 (1927);

Cannon v. Nicholas, 80 F.2d 934, 35-2 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 9672 (10th Cir. 1935).

The third one is a U.S. Tax Court decision from a couple of years ago. I won't cite it since, on the outside chance that it might be your case, citing it might inadvertently disclose your identify.

Anyway, none of these three cases say anything about an argument made by any taxpayer that the term "state" as used in the Code should exclude the fifty states. And none of the three cases seem to have any other frivolous arguments in them. So we seem to be at an impasse there.

However, I will look for court cases that do address the definition of "state" in the Code (even though the cases don't mention Montello Salt). To the extent we can find stuff like that, it could still be used in the article. Stay tuned. Yours, Famspear 02:54, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to quote any tax court case you like. I have never been in tax court. --Jerbro 15:49, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear readers: Regarding the extended discussion some months ago -- about the section 7701 definition of "includes" and "including," and the point that the Montello Salt case was not an interpretation of section 7701 (or of any other Internal Revenue Code provision), I later researched the case law and found that in the 1959 tax case of Sims v. United States, the United States Supreme Court indicated that the term "includes" in section 7701 of the Internal Revenue Code is indeed a term of expansion, not a term of exclusivity (see Sims v. United States, 359 U.S. 108, 79 S. Ct. 641, 59-1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 9338 (1959)). A citation to that case was added to the article. Yours, Famspear 19:19, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

In reference to the definition of "state" i have a couple questions. If the term "includes" is intended to be expansive as indicated, why within the same section do we find this definition of "state"?

Which does include the 50 states.? TITLE 26 > Subtitle F > CHAPTER 61 > Subchapter B > § 6103Prev | Next (5) State The term “State” means— (A) any of the 50 States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Canal Zone, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and

why would a writer include "the 50 states" specifically in the included areas IF "includes"/"including" should be considered an "expanding" term?

given

In Billings v. U.S., 232 U.S. 261, 34 S.Ct. 421 (1914), the Supreme Court clearly acknowledged this basic and long-standing rule of statutory construction: "Tax statutes . . . should be strictly construed, and, if any ambiguity be found to exist, it must be resolved in favor of the citizen. Eidman v. Martinez, 184 U.S. 578, 583; United States v. Wigglesworth, 2 Story, 369, 374; Mutual Benefit Life Ins. Co. v. Herold, 198 F. 199, 201, aff'd 201 F. 918; Parkview Bldg. Assn. v. Herold, 203 F. 876, 880; Mutual Trust Co. v. Miller, 177 N.Y. 51, 57." And

"The primary and general rule of statutory construction is that the intent of the lawmaker is to be found in the language that he has used. He is presumed to know the meaning of the words and the rules of grammar" United States v. Goldenberg, 168 U.S. 95

It would appear to me that to try to infer that it includes "others areas" as well would be in direct contradiction to the rule of strict construction. 69.245.136.69 01:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Dear user at IP69.245.136.69; Regarding to your question: "If the term "includes" is intended to be expansive as indicated, why within the same section do we find this definition of 'state'?" I think you may be confused. The section is question is section 7701. You are citing section 6103. That's two different sections.

At any rate, there are lots of legal terms that have more than one legal definition, just as there are lots of "regular" words that have more than one definition. Get out a large, standard collegiate dictionary and look up the word "run."

"Ambiguity" is not a valid legal issue or concern with respect to the term "state" as used in section 7701 of the Internal Revenue Code. In general terms, ambiguity means doubtfulness or doubleness of meaning, indistinctness or uncertainty as to meaning. Some tax protesters have raised the silly argument that the term "state" somehow excludes the fifty states, and every single court that has decided the issue has ruled that the term "state" in section 7701 does not exclude the "fifty states." After many, many attempts by tax protesters over the past thirty years or so, not one single Federal court has ever ruled that "state" in section 7701 somehow excludes "the fifty states." Ambiguity does not exist merely because you or I or someone else might argue over the meaning of a word; if it did, then by definition any word would be ambiguous, as long as somebody tried to argue over the meaning. For a legal term to be considered ambiguous, the courts have to view it as ambiguous.

The meanings of the terms "includes" and "including" in section 7701 were settled long ago (even the United States Supreme Court ruled on this, as stated in the article, I believe).

When you cite court cases, you need to cite court cases that decide the issue at hand. The issue at hand is whether "state" as used in 7701 (and not some other provision of law) somehow excludes any of the fifty states. In every case, the courts rejected that argument.

One of the problems faced by tax protesters is the failure to use proper legal reasoning -- the failure to understand that under the U.S. legal system (and, I suspect, the systems of other countries), not "just any old argument" will do. In law, you will never get to the right answer if you're asking the wrong questions. Let's look at your question here:

why would a writer include "the 50 states" specifically in the included areas IF "includes"/"including" should be considered an "expanding" term?

Why are you asking this question? The term "includes" is not used that way in section 6103, the section you cited. The term found in 6103 is the word "means" - not the word "includes." In the Internal Revenue Code, the term "means" usually is followed by verbiage which is construed by the courts to be a comprehensive list. For example, suppose a statute said "four means the integer that immediately follows three." In this definition, the phrase "the integer that immediately follows three" is the ONLY thing that can be "four."

Now, compare that with this example. "For purposes of this section, state includes the District of Columbia." OK, we know that in ordinary parlance, Oklahoma is a state. Montana is a state. California is a state. And so on. But in ordinary parlance, the District of Columbia is not a state. What this definition is saying is "hey we know that, but for purposes of this section we are including DC in the class of objects that is treated as a "state." Nothing in this definition excludes "Oklahoma" from the definition of state. Nothing here says Montana is not a state, etc., etc. Further, to make sure there is no legal ambiguity, Congress "included" (there's that word again) in section 7701 the specific statement that the words "includes" and "including" "shall not be deemed to exclude other things otherwise within the meaning of the term defined." That's a plain English signal from the Congress as to its intent in the use of the terms -- and the courts have interpreted those terms uniformly and consistently in the Internal Revenue Code. There is nothing you or I can do about that at this point. Indeed, the more the tax protesters try to litigate arguments on this point, the worse it gets for them. This is what legal scholars refer to as "well settled law."

One telling tactic of tax protesters is the constant, repetitive citing of cases that are not on point. Rather than simply citing a quotation from some court case that may or may not have even involved Federal income tax or the issue of the section 7701 meaning of "state" or "includes," you should look for cases where the taxpayer argued precisely what you are arguing. Then look at the result in that case: What did the court rule? When you analyze case law, you must understand the concept of Stare decisis. None of the cases you cited include a ruling, a precedent, a holding under the doctrine of stare decisis that supports the hilarious argument that the term "state" in 7701 somehow could exclude any of the fifty states. Yours, Famspear 02:17, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

PS: Dear user at IP69.245.136.69: I do not want to imply that you yourself have been making every one of these tax protester arguments to which I referred in my response. I'm addressing a general audience to some extent. Yours, Famspear 02:30, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Second PS: I should also mention that there are a few places in the Internal Revenue Code where the Congress itself was not consistent in the way it used terms like "means" and "including." I can't remember all of them off hand. Also, sometimes Congress uses a device called "emphatic redundancy" (or "intensive redundancy") such as in 26 U.S.C. § 61. There, the Congress uses the term "means" AND the word "includes" AND - to top it all off - follows the word "includes" with the phrase "but not limited to." That's an example of redundancy, just to make the meaning more emphatic. Despite all that verbiage, many tax protesters have still tried to argue that "gross income" -- the term defined in section 61 -- somehow excludes things like compensation for services, even though the statute specifically states that gross income "means all income from whatever source derived" and even though the Congress goes on to specifically list "compensation for services" as an example! Tax protesters lose stupidly continue to litigate this from time to time, and they lose this one every time, just as they lose their other frivolous arguments. Famspear 02:41, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Failed "good article" nomination

This article failed good article nomination. This is how the article, as of March 30, 2007, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: No issues.

2. Factually accurate?: Fails 2d); the article appears to contain substantial original research. To start with, practically all sources are primary sources. Per WP:A, "Edits that rely on primary sources should only make descriptive claims that can be checked by anyone without specialist knowledge." Also, "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources wherever possible." This article should be based on reliable secondary sources, not editors' own synthesis and interpretation of primary sources. Finally, unattributed assertions like "... the logic of the argument is unclear given that ..." and guesses like "... the tax protester argument may be based in part on ..." can be found in the article.

3. Broad in coverage?: This really needs an expert, or an on-topic secondary source to assess.

4. Neutral point of view?: On the face of it, yes.

5. Article stability? Not very; heavy editing this month.

6. Images?: Not really necessary here; but maybe a photo of some tax agency that is argued to be illegal (or whatever)?

When these issues are addressed, the article can be resubmitted for consideration. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to a GA review. Thank you for your work so far. — Sandstein 07:12, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comments on GA review

To our reviewer, editor Sandstein, and to all editors who have contributed to this article: Thanks! First, I must disclose that I wrote a large part of the article. I would like to comment on point 2 regarding factual accuracy. The Wikipedia rule on No Original Research (which apparently has not been completely superseded by the page on Attribution) states (in part):

Although most articles should rely predominantly on secondary sources, there are rare occasions when they may rely entirely on primary sources (for example, current events or legal cases). An article or section of an article that relies on a primary source should (1) only make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and (2) make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims. Contributors drawing on entirely primary sources should be careful to comply with both conditions.[8] [bolding added by Famspear]

Legal cases, original research, and the use of primary sources in articles about law in English common law systems

The various articles on tax protesters and tax protester arguments are primarily about a legal topic, and do require reference mainly to legal cases (case law reports), which of course are both primary sources (in the Wikipedia sense of that term) and Primary authority (in the legal sense). Because of the extreme fringe nature of tax protester arguments, it's a bit more difficult to locate secondary sources (such as articles by law professors or other legal experts) for this kind of subject than it would be in some other areas of Wikipedia, especially perhaps in non-legal areas.

Also, we've tried in the tax protester articles to restrict any analysis of the case law to a distillation of the holdings (essentially, the narrow rulings, the narrow statements of law actually decided in a court case -- see Stare decisis) in each case presented. In other words, the Wikipedia articles on the law (at least in tax law area) are not the Harvard Law Review. We do not generally try to do original research or create new knowledge such as would occur in connection with the work-up for a scholarly law review article. Neither do we try to put cases, A, B, C, and D together to reach a new conclusion E that is not found in cases A through D.

Distillation of the holding is, however, arguably problematic because of the Wikipedia rule that the accuracy must be "easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge." Unfortunately, it can be difficult for a non-lawyer to identify the holding or holdings in some cases (unless an accurate formulation of the holding happens to be printed in a headnote, which of course is common in prints of U.S. Supreme Court cases, for example). A strict Wikipedia rule, however, that you can never distill a holding would preclude any Wikipedia treatment of many legal topics in English common law jurisdictions (e.g., the United States, Canada, etc.), due to the nature of common law itself and the fact that, for the vast majority of case law, there simply is no secondary source or Secondary authority commentary available. Because there are many lawyer editors monitoring Wikipedia articles, this problem is mitigated to some degree.

I would argue that although the article does indeed heavily rely on primary sources, that in and of itself does not make the material "original research" as that term is used in Wikipedia.

I would also argue that the article does not make "analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims" as that phrase is used in Wikipedia.

I would argue that if the article contains original research (in the Wikipedia sense), it would be because of rule that states that edits relying on primary sources should make only descriptive claims that can be checked by anyone without specialist knowledge. Perhaps the wording of the established Wikipedia exception for case law should be clarified to explicitly state that holdings in case law in English common law systems can be used in Wikipedia without violating the "no original research" rule, even though it is sometimes difficult for non-specialists (non-lawyers) to identify case holdings. Otherwise, an awful lot of Wikipedia articles on the aspects of common law systems (including the United States, Canada, and so on) could be deleted or rendered somewhat useless (not just articles on taxation).

Anyway, thanks to all who have contributed to the article, and thanks especially to editor Sandstein for the review. Now it's time to go back to work and address the points editor Sandstein has identified. Yours, Famspear 20:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Post-script: Reviewer Sandstein's points in point 2 about the verbiage in the article are also well-taken. I have now deleted both sets of comments from the article. I think both sets of comments had originally been contributed by me. This is why it's good to have an independent person review your work. Thanks, Famspear 20:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I may have been overly cautious here. I was quite uncomfortable to characterise an obviously very well thought out article as "original research" – another reviewer might well feel otherwise, and your point that it does not as such synthesise its primary sources is well taken. Still, I have an odd feeling about an article of this length that relies on primary sources almost exclusively. This causes the whole selection and presentation of arguments to constitute original research of sorts, much as we would characterise as research any scholarly paper that sums up the state of case law in any field of law. Aren't there any, say, law review articles or treatises about this tax protesting phenomenon? Or can we point to any particular court case that enumerates these arguments? Sorry that I can't help out much here. I'm a Continental European jurist - this whole phenomenon of tax protesting (in its quasi-subcultural form) is pretty much unknown around here. Sandstein 21:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear editor Sandstein: I believe I and the other editors who contribute here on a regular basis perhaps need to find more time to look for more secondary authority -- especially law review articles -- on the tax protester phenomenon.

Although much of my commentary above was about case law and the problem of correctly extracting the holdings from case law, I note that much of the article actually cites statutes and regulations (which of course is more primary sourcing, and primary authority). Thus, your GA point about heavy reliance on primary authority is certainly something that I and other editors do need to address, for that reason alone. Thank you again. Yours, Famspear 21:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I never really understood #5 for a GA, unless it was in a edit war. I'd hope that it would remain heavily edited until it was FA. :-) Morphh ^(talk) 0:49, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear editors: Regarding the preponderant use of primary sources in the article and the need for more secondary sourcing, I now have a small amount of secondary authority (scholarly law review materials) on tax protester arguments. I'm swamped with "tax season" right at the moment, but hopefully I can get to the article in the next few weeks and see if some of the law review material can go in this article (although I suspect that some of the material will relate instead to the article on Tax protester constitutional arguments. Yours, Famspear 15:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sales tax is without parallel too the Argument.

A California citizen has no obligation to pay any sales tax. The license (Re. Franchise Tax Board) or permit (Re. Sales Permit) of the shopkeeper obligates the seller to that pay the tax, which, without comment, he foists off on the buyer. IRS "withholding" was an expediency invented during wartime and was legislated to expire at the close of hostilities in 1945. Enforcement by fines and civil actions against Employers for the failure of an employee to follow IRS demands, and sanctions against Employers as tax collectors were codified in about 1990. This is from my experience in testing the law, not from an authority. This page relates another's experience: http://www.devvy.com/vivien_20001031.html LAquaker 20:42, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but that link goes to material purporting to relate to Ms. Devvy Kidd, a tax protester. You might argue that a California citizen has no obligation to pay sales tax, but only in the limited sense that you might argue that an employee does not have a direct "obligation" to the IRS to "pay" Social Security tax or Medicare tax. It's just that the seller (in the case of sales tax) is required to collect the tax from the purchaser, file the sales tax return, and send the tax to the State or, in the case of Social Security tax or Medicare tax, the employer is obligated to withhold the tax from the employee's pay, file the Form 941 return, and send the tax to the IRS (actually, to a depositary bank, which then forwards the money to the government). In substance, the California citizen is subject to the California sales tax, just as an employee is subject to the laws on Federal income tax withholding, Social Security tax withholding, and Medicare tax withholding.

This ain't rocket science. The Federal tax withholding requirements may or may not have been legislated to "expire" at one point (I haven't checked, and I don't care). The main point is that the Federal withholding requirement is the law today, and has been the law since at least 1954. Enforcement of the Federal withholding requirements was in place by statute (and codified) long, long before the year 1990. For example, the main statute imposing personal liability on employers for willful failure to withhold and turn over withholding taxes is 26 U.S.C. § 6672, which has been on the books continuously since at least August 16, 1954.Famspear 18:37, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually LAquaker, you are correct, but it goes further than that. Famspear is full of bull sh**. Government did not give you your rights, READ THE BILL OF RIGHTS. The constitution is the contract between the United States people and the people of the States. If the government should fall to protect your god given rights, then ALL obligations that government says you have are void.

The sales tax never applies to the buyer (Citizen), only to the seller, and that is ONLY IF the buyer wants to keep their licence. A license is permission to do something, most likely something that would otherwise be illegal. Corporations need permission, non-citizens need permission, but a Citizens of the 50 States do not.

Also, notice how Famspear will never answer your questions. Ask him a Yes or No question, he will ignore it or never give a straight answer. I bet 10 Troy ounces of silver that a long winded non-substantive comment from Famspear, or is fellows, will follow. 129.71.66.108 15:57, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The people, in enacting the U.S. Constitution, agreed to pay taxes. It's pretty clearly set forth in the "taxing and spending clause" which gives Congress an open-ended power to tax. There is no "right" not to be taxed. I'm guessing the California constitution, also enacted by the people, gives California the power to tax. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:12, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Not to be a pedant here, bd, but the Congress's original power to lay and collect taxes in Article I of the Constitution was fairly narrowly prescribed. Income taxes were imposed during the Civil War, but were constitutionally somewhat dubious (because they were not proportional). The current tax on the incomes of individuals dates from the enactment of the Sixteenth Amendment, which gave Congress the power to tax income "from whatever source derived." This article discusses the silly arguments about the definition of "source." For the dubious arguments that the Sixteenth Amendment is not constitutional, see Tax protestor constitutional arguments. ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 16:30, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with part of ObiterDicta's comment, or maybe I'll just be clarifying. According to the discussion by the Court in cases like Pollock and Brushaber, the Congressional power to impose any kind of taxes (other than taxes on exports from a state) -- especially income taxes -- was considered to be relatively unlimited from the late 1700s until the 1895 Pollock decision. And Pollock was something of an anomaly. Indeed the only kind of income taxes that were ruled to be subject to the apportionment rule in Pollock were taxes on income from property (such as interest, dividends and rent). Sorry, I like to split hairs. On the main point, I know that editor ObiterDicta is correct.

Oh, and dear user at IP129.71.66.108: Since the above edit appears to be your very first contribution here in Wikipedia, please be advised you cannot have it both ways (on the one hand, complaining that I never answer questions, and on the other hand complaining about long winded non-substantive comments from me). First, I and other editors am not here specifically to answer your questions to your personal satisfaction. We are here to edit Wikipedia. We may answer your questions if they relate to improvement of the related article. And we will be the judges of whether our answers --long-winded or otherwise -- are "substantive" or not. Famspear 18:44, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statutes mentioning "Internal Revenue Service"

I made a few minor updates on this. Jailed tax protester Irwin Schiff still maintains on his web site that Subtitle A of the IRC does not contain any mention of "Internal Revenue Service." I have added some citations where "Internal Revenue Service" is indeed mentioned in Subtitle A. Although some of these provisions may have been enacted after Schiff wrote his piece, this is fair game even for those new provisions, especially since Schiff has not taken down that claim, which was apparently made in court (without success, obviously). Famspear 03:43, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rhetorical question

How can any discussion of the topic of the income tax qualify as neutral when everyone even questioning the validity and application of the income tax is labeled a "protester." Many people in the "Tax Honesty Movement" have been prosecuted and used as examples by the Justice department as examples to discourage other people from questioning the validity or application of the tax laws just for asking questions. Would an unbiased representation of someone asking questions be labeled a "Protester?" No "Neutral" representation would apply that label. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dtraub (talk • contribs) 12:53, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear user Dtraub: I'm not sure exactly what you're driving at, but I'll try to respond.

A Wikipedia article is neutral when it conforms to the Wikipedia rule on Neutral Point of View. The question of the government's treatment of tax protesters -- or people who are called tax protesters -- is a separate issue.

You might be more or less correct that the legal term term "tax protester" -- which indeed has strong negative connotations in the United States when used to describe people who make legally frivolous arguments about the validity of tax law -- is, in that sense, "non-neutral." The term is, however, a legal term, and is used in court in formal legal determinations. For what it's worth, there is no requirement that the legal system use "neutral terms."

I would like to point out that the government does not discourage all people who question the validity or application of the tax laws in the broadest sense. Indeed, we have an entire portion of the legal system devoted to resolving disputes between the Internal Revenue Service and the taxpayer, including disputes over the validity or application of the tax laws. This system is called the court system. Indeed, the label of "tax protester" is applied only in a small minority of court cases. Sometimes the court rules in favor of the tax collector, and other times in favor of the taxpayer. The United States Supreme Court has even unanimously ruled at least one particular tax to be unconstitutional within the past 20 years or so. It was a harbor maintenance tax, not the income tax -- but that's a separate story.

Regarding Wikipedia itself, there is also no requirement that sources of material in Wikipedia be neutral or unbiased. Wikipedia articles can be and are full of statements from sources that are "biased" and "non-neutral." As odd as it may first seem, the rule on Neutral Point of View does not require that Wikipedia articles eliminate biased points of view by reliable, previously published third party sources. What the rule prohibits is Wikipedia editors inserting their own biased opinions (sometimes in the form of unsourced "original research" by the editor) into Wikipedia articles.

Perhaps if you could be a bit more specific, I and other editors can tailor our responses. Specifically, (1) what specific language (if any) in the article do you believe violates a Wikipedia policy or guideline, and (2) what is the policy or guideline involved? Famspear (talk) 15:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way, "tax honesty movement" is a neologism coined by tax protesters themselves. It was coined by tax protesters to try to avoid the negative connotation of the legal term "tax protester." From time to time we have had various people sympathetic to tax protesters even try to argue that Wikipedia should not use the term "tax protester," but should instead use "tax honesty movement." That is unacceptable.

"Tax protester" is the formal legal term, and Wikipedia is not going to suppress the use of that term in articles on tax protesters, etc., and replace it with "tax honesty movement". You might want to read up on the history of how the term "tax protester" -- originally a neutral term -- came to have such a negative connotation.

Also, reputable tax practitioners file "protests" on behalf of honest taxpayers all the time. (In Federal income tax law, for example, a "protest" is a formal document filed by a CPA, attorney or other practitioner after the IRS issues what's called a "30 day letter".) The term "protest" in tax law thus retains its separate, non-negative meaning. All this is covered in the applicable article. Yours, Famspear (talk) 15:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way, contrary to your assertion, no one in the so-called "tax honesty movement" has ever been been prosecuted as examples to discourage other people from questioning the validity or application of the tax laws -- or just for asking questions. That has never happened. Not even once.

Indeed, there is no law against merely "questioning the validity" of the tax law, and there is no law against merely "asking questions." The Internal Revenue Service even has specific forms (sometimes informally called "red flag" forms) to be included in Federal income tax returns where the taxpayer is taking a position that might be contrary to an official Treasury regulation (Form 8275-R), or where the taxpayer is taking a position where the tax law is uncertain (Form 8275). Including one of these forms in a tax return supposedly increases your likelihood of an audit.

I have prepared literally hundreds and hundreds of these kinds of returns for corporate, partnership, trust, estate, and individual taxpayers -- showing non-frivolous, non-tax protester positions taken by taxpayers (I happen to be preparing such a return today). In some of these cases, the taxpayer's positions are indeed contrary to an official IRS position on the law.

In over 20 years of practice, I have never even once seen the Internal Revenue Service try to impose a penalty for a taxpayer argument or position taken on one of these returns -- much less see the IRS ever label my clients as "tax protesters." Also, after the 1998 law change, the IRS itself no longer formally uses the term "tax protester" -- although the Department of Justice and the courts and everyone else still does. Of course, the IRS can still impose the monetary penalties if you take a legally frivolous position on a tax return -- and the IRS publishes a pretty long list of arguments that are legally frivolous, under section 6702 of the Code.

There is a big difference between taking a position contrary to what the IRS argues the law is and taking a position that is legally frivolous (a tax protester argument). If every position contrary to the IRS position and every "questioning" of the IRS position were a frivolous position, then taxpayers wouldn't need attorneys and CPAs, and I would be out of a job -- which I am not. Yours, Famspear (talk) 17:47, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Request for comment

A request for comment has been opened on the general topic of tax protester theories, and whether the articles that address them are NPOV. bd2412 T 18:06, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:Tax protester/Request for comment reminder

Just a reminder that I have proposed to call for a conclusion to this discussion on tax protester rhetoric on February 6. If anyone has anything more to add to the discussion, speak now! bd2412 T 16:57, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Request for comment at Talk:Tax protester statutory arguments

Dear editors: A user called “Ram2006” has begun inserting material in the article Internal Revenue Code to the effect that the “title 26” version of the Internal Revenue Code (as opposed to the 1954/1986 Internal Revenue Code as amended) is non-positive law. While it is of course technically correct to say that “title 26” itself is “non-positive law,” the effect of the edit appears to me to be the beginnings of another tax protester rant about the Internal Revenue Code itself not being “the law” or not being “positive law” which of course (in the minds of tax protesters) leads to “there’s no law that makes me liable for income tax.” The positive law/non-positive law tax protester argument is already covered at length in Tax protester statutory arguments. I have reverted Ram2006’s material in Internal Revenue Code a couple of times, but he or she has responded with personal attacks, and insists on re-inserting his/her material.

I have now inserted some verbiage in Tax protester statutory arguments that explicitly states what Ram2006 is stating: that “title 26” is indeed “non-positive law” (a true statement, but it doesn’t mean what the tax protesters think it means, of course). I have added this new verbiage right before the verbiage that explains that the “Internal Revenue Code” itself (not the version published as “title 26,” but the actual 1954/1986 Code, as amended, as scattered throughout the many, many volumes of the United States Statutes at Large published since 1954 is “positive law,” and is of course “the law” enacted by actual Acts of Congress.

I have pointed out to Ram2006 that this topic is already covered at Tax protester statutory arguments, to no avail.

I would like to ask fellow editors for clarification on the following points.

1. Are Ram2006’s edits considered to be insertion of tax protester rhetoric for purposes of Talk:Tax protester/Request for comment?

2. If yes, then under the consensus that such edits be “reverted on sight” per Talk:Tax protester/Request for comment, at what point -- if any – could his/her repeated attempts to re-insert the edits be considered vandalism, such that his edits can be disposed of without regard to the three-revert rule? In other words, to what extent, if any, does the three-revert rule apply (or not apply) here?

At any rate, I think that if Ram2006’s edits are allowed to stand, then we are going to have to add balance to Internal Revenue Code article by copying much of the same material shown at Tax protester statutory arguments – defeating the purpose for which the tax protester related articles were created. I would argue that all the material on title 26 as “non-positive law” should go with the related material at Tax protester statutory arguments and not at Internal Revenue Code.

Thoughts? Yours, Famspear (talk) 02:02, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Ram2006 needs to explain what he is trying to convey with the inserted information. If this is a statutory argument (which I see as the only point of including such a statement), then it would seem to belong in the statutory argument article, which it already is. I'm also troubled by the attacks. It does appear that #1 is what is being included, but further explanation would be nice (although by the language presented in the talk, it certainly sounds like it). I'd say for now that we should try to follow 3rr (since enough people are watching it). If there is no discussion by Ram2006 to properly work through the dispute and abide by the consensus, then we can move to the next level and consider it vandalism. Morphh ^(talk) 3:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I made the following response to Ram 2006 on the IRC page:

The statement that "some one has something to hide and that gives me a hint that the Title 26 is indeed illegal and the IRS cannot collect income taxes base on that" is crazy talk, and is exactly the sort of nonsense that we do not allow in Wikipedia articles, any more than we would entertain an argument that bigfoot shot JFK. Allow me to set your mind at ease about the status of the law, because the distinction you raise is meaningless. See United States Code: List of Positive Law Titles With Enacting Cites and Location to Revision Notes, Compiled by Richard J. McKinney, Assistant Law Librarian, Federal Reserve Board, Prepared for a November 9, 2004, program of the Legislative Research Special Interest Section of the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, D.C., Inc.; Last revised in October 2006:

Positive law titles of the United States Code, indicated by an asterisk, are legal evidence of the law and need no further authoritative citation as prior acts concerning those titles have been repealed. Other titles to the U.S. Code are "prima facie" evidence of the law (1 USC §204), and are presumed to be the law, but are rebuttable by production of prior unrepealed acts of Congress at variance with the Code. About half the titles of the Code have been revised, codified and enacted into positive law. The enacting terms used in this list under each positive law title are taken from the enacting clauses themselves. Historical and revision notes which explain derivations to each revised section, as well as editorial and non-substantive changes to them, are frequently set out after each section of a positive law title and are taken from committee reports (usually from the House Judiciary Committee) which accompany the legislation. The committee report number and where else it can be found is also set out.
...
Title 26 Internal Revenue Code; and Appendix.

Although Title 26 has not been enacted, the Internal Revenue Code has been (in 1939 and 1954) and is laid out exactly like Title 26. See act of Feb. 10, 1939, ch. 2, 53 Stat. 1; and act of Aug. 16, 1954, ch. 736, 68A Stat. 3. The Tax Reform Act of 1986, Pub. L. 99-514, §2, renamed the Code as the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, but did not make wholesale changes to it. There are no historical and revision notes and amendment notes only go back to 1954 as if it were a positive law title. The Appendix to title 26 consists of the rules and procedures of the U.S. Tax Court.

- In other words, there is no conspiracy, no enforcement of "illegal law". What we have is a set of laws individually enacted by Congress, but (like most laws in this country) not enacted all at once as an entire title. That's fine, since there is no requirement in the U.S. Constitution (or in any statute) that says that only entire titles are enforceable as laws. As it turns out, Congress enacted the Internal Revenue Code, and then the book-keepers who arrange enacted laws into a searchable index added the title number (a common practice). But "Title 26" reflects exactly the law which a majority of the House of Representatives and a majority of the U.S. Senate voted in favor of, and which the President signed into law, both in 1939 and in 1954. bd2412 T 05:43, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Break out the 861 argument

Given the size of this page, I think now is the time to break out the information on the 861 argument into a separate article. Any thoughts on that? bd2412 T 06:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Famspear (talk) 18:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Or, should we made the PRA/OMB control number argument section a separate article, and keep the 861 stuff here for now????? Famspear (talk) 18:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe make both separate - this article is very long right now, and frankly I think the 861 argument is independently a very interesting topic (and probably can be expanded more). Cheers! bd2412 T 20:44, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I like that idea (making two new articles). Famspear (talk) 21:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tax protester text dumps removed

Dear user at IP69.181.208.167: You may not have realized it, but the material you added is tax protester rhetoric. As explained below, it is blatantly false, it was copied from elsewhere on the internet, it has already been pasted into Wikipedia before (and exposed as being false), and it was removed.

First, the losthorizons web site that you mentioned is run by someone named Peter E. Hendrickson. He is neither a lawyer nor a CPA. He is an ex-con who served time in federal prison several years ago for failure to file a federal tax return, and for conspiracy to place a firebomb at a U.S. postal facility in an incident where a postal worker was injured. I study postings to Hendrickson's losthorizons web site almost every day. Hendrickson apparently developed his Cracking the Code tax protester nonsense after being released from prison. Hendrickson's Cracking the Code theory (which involves the filing of false tax refund claims) didn't even work for him; he lost his own tax case last year, when the federal court ruled that the tax refunds or credits he received using the Cracking the Code theory had been issued to him erroneously.

Further, he is under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service. He went to court to block IRS administrative summonses issued in the investigation, and failed in that attempt. His tax protester theory has never worked for anyone else in court either. Not even once. The courts have rejected his theory every single time. I can give you a list of the court rulings if you like. Hendrickson is under a court order that prohibits him from ever using his own theory on his own tax return again.

The "assetpro" web site and the related site, "irsdetermination.us," are also notorious tax protester web sites that are well known to law enforcement. (I myself am not in law enforcement and I don't work for the government, but I have studied tax protesters for years.)

The material on the Lawrence case that you inserted has already been inserted and removed many times in Wikipedia. It's fake -- something that you copied and pasted from elsewhere on the internet. I have access to the actual court docket in the case. The PRA defense, or OMB control number defense, did not work for Mr. Lawrence (see below), and it has never worked for anyone else.

Also, Oscar Stilley, the lawyer you mentioned in the Lawrence case (and I realize it wasn't your own words, but rather just material you copied and pasted), is notorious among people who study tax protesters. I don't know what his current legal status is, but at one point his attorney's license was suspended for six months by the Arkansas Supreme Court. See [9]. The claim that Oscar Stilley's PRA defense for Robert Lawrence "checkmated" the government is false.

All you have to do is review the actual court record. The IRS agents who had calculated Mr. Lawrence's tax liability discovered errors they themselves had made -- based on information obtained from Lawrence's own tax returns, regarding the taxpayer's tax basis in certain property Lawrence had sold. (Tax basis is basically the amount that you paid for something, subject to certain adjustments. The amount realized on a sale less your tax basis amount equals your gain. If the tax basis amount exceeds the amount realized, then you have a loss.) With respect to certain properties the taxpayer had sold, the IRS agents discovered that he had more tax basis than they had originally calculated -- therefore, lower gains or even losses, and thus lower taxes. The IRS agents themselves brought their errors to the attention of the government lawyers, who then asked that the charges be dropped (and they were). The IRS employees recognized that their calculations had incorrectly Lawrence's tax liability.

Now, Mr. Lawrence subsequently tried unsuccessfully to raise the same OMB control number argument when he appealed the case after it was dismissed. Now, you may ask, why did he appeal, when the charges had been dropped?

Well, after the criminal prosecution was dropped (at the request of the government), Lawrence asked the court to order the government to reimburse him for his legal fees. The court ruled against him on that.

He then appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit -- to try to obtain a reversal of the trial court's refusal to order the government to compensate him for the legal fees he had incurred. At the Court of Appeals, Lawrence contended that he should be reimbursed because the government's conduct against him had been "vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith." Part of his argument on appeal implicated his use of the PRA/OMB control number argument -- the argument that tax protesters falsely imply he somehow "won" in his case.

Here's what actually happened. In March of 2007 the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected the OMB argument made by Lawrence. The Court also rejected his request for reimbursement for the legal fees he incurred. The following is an excerpt from the Court's decision:

According to Lawrence, the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) required the Internal Revenue Service to display valid Office of Management and Budget (OMB) numbers on its Form 1040 [ . . . ]. Lawrence argues that the PRA by its terms prohibits the government from imposing a criminal penalty upon a citizen for the failure to complete a form where the information request at issue does not comply with the PRA. Lawrence never explains how this argument is even relevant to the three counts involving tax evasion, but even as to the other three counts, it must fail [ . . . ] Lawrence's brief represents an attempt to prove that the PRA could present a valid defense to the criminal charges. Yet Lawrence conceded at oral argument that no case from this circuit establishes such a proposition, and in fact Lawrence cites no caselaw from any jurisdiction that so holds. In contrast, the government referenced numerous cases supporting its position that the PRA does not present a defense to a criminal action for failure to file income taxes [ . . . ] Lawrence provides no explanation of how government conduct can be vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith when there is no law contrary to it."

--from page 2 of the Judgment, March 26, 2007, United States v. Lawrence, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, No. 06-3205, docket entry 39 (bolding added).

In other words, the trial court did NOT rule in favor of Lawrence on the PRA/OMB control number argument, and when Mr. Lawrence was dumb enough to appeal that issue, the Court of Appeals SPECIFICALLY REJECTED the PRA/OMB control number argument. He should have left well enough alone.

The material you inserted in the article was false, and was copied and pasted from other places on the internet. This material began showing up on the internet not long after the Lawrence case was decided, and was copied into Wikipedia, exposed as phony, and removed. You may not have realized that the material was false, though. Famspear (talk) 18:09, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, since the Lawrence stuff has been posted so many times at various places in Wikipedia, and on the internet in general, I went ahead and incorporated the Lawrence case into this article. But the material reflects what actually happened. Too bad for the tax protesters. This is in a Wikipedia article now, not just in talk pages. Tax protesters will not be happy campers when they find out what the court actually ruled in Lawrence. Famspear (talk) 18:51, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

IP69.109.114.82 writes: I take offense to the beginings of this diatribe. The fact something is "copied and pasted" from "elsewhere on the internet" is a SILLY reason to dismiss a post to wikipedia. By that logic, he cannot copy and paste relevant parts of the internal revenue code because is is "elsewhere on the internet"

Famspear wrote: First, the losthorizons web site that you mentioned is run by someone named Peter E. Hendrickson.

IP69.109.114.82 writes: Just HOW is this relevant to whether or not the INFORMATION is correct? This is an ad nauseum attack, and a discredit to logic and common sense. He is neither a lawyer nor CPA. John Marshall was NOT a "lawyer", either.

"ho served time in federal prison several years ago for failure to file a federal tax return". Jesus Christ, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela ALL "served time". Get real, we're all adults here, please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.109.114.82 (talk • contribs) on 28 April 2008.

Dear user at IP69.109.114.82: I think you missed the point. Copying and pasting text from a tax protester web site in the way that IP69.181.208.167 did violates Wikipedia rules and guidelines. Please read the rules. Copying and pasting an excerpt from the text of a U.S. federal statute does not violate the rules.

Sorry, you are wrong. John Marshall was indeed a lawyer. I believe it's correct to say that Marshall did not attend a law school (which might be what you're thinking about), but Marshall was indeed a lawyer (in addition to a Supreme Court justice). He was licensed as a lawyer, and he practiced law. You used a bad example. By the way, Abraham Lincoln also did not attend law school. Nevertheless, he was licensed as a lawyer and he practiced law -- fairly successfully. At the time those guys were admitted to the bar most American lawyers did not attend a law school. Let's keep our facts straight.

I don't know what you mean by an "ad nauseum attack." Perhaps you meant something else. For purposes of Wikipedia, Peter Hendrickson is not a reliable source on the issue of federal income tax. He is a self-published ex-con (federal tax conviction). Obviously, Hendrickson's personal history and qualifications are both legally and logically relevant to whether the information Hendrickson spews is correct. More to the point, Hendrickson's personal history and qualifications are relevant to whether he is a reliable source under the Wikipedia rules. And the main issue is not whether the information is correct, but rather whether the source is a reliable source under the Wikipedia rules.

So, you are saying that because Jesus Christ, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela all "served time", that means that (1) Peter Hendrickson's tax conviction, (2) his utter lack of any legal or accounting expertise, and (3) his latest defeat in federal court on his own federal income taxes, under the very Cracking the Code theory that he claimed was legally correct are not logically relevant to whether Hendrickson is a reliable source on the subject of tax law in a Wikpedia article on taxation?

Get real. Famspear (talk) 15:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

By the way, the "lost horizons" web site (the Peter Hendrickson "Cracking the Code" web site) that was referenced is a blacklisted hyperlink in Wikipedia. Notice that I did not write out the full URL of the web site; if I tried to do so, the post would be blocked. The lost horizons web site was blocked by a Wikipedia spam filter a long time ago (not by me, but by an administrator). That should tell you something. Also, the web site has been specifically named by a federal court as being a tax evasion web site. I can give you the citation to the court case if you like. Famspear (talk) 16:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, at the expense of appearing to beat a dead horse, I'll note one of the federal court cases Hendrickson lost: Hendrickson v. United States, No. 06-56129, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In that case, the Court of Appeals threw out Hendrickson's appeal of a federal district court order denying Hendrickson's attempt to quash an administrative summons issued by the Internal Revenue Service to obtain information about Hendrickson's activity from "the EBAY/PayPal fraud investigation team in connection with an investigation into Hendrickson's internet tax evasion business, Lost Horizons." Memorandum, Aug. 13, 2007, p. 1, Hendrickson v. United States, No. 06-56129, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Those are the Court's words, not mine. Famspear (talk) 16:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

A clarification on the copying and pasting issue. For the benefit of the IP editor, material that is generally found on the internet, having been put there by a private author, is presumed to be covered by copyright (U.S. copyright law creates this presumption). The same law expressly holds that the text from statutes, court decisions, and federal agency reports, being a product of the government, is in the public domain and may be freely copied. Cheers! bd2412 T 19:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

This illustrates that editor BD2412 is an intellectual property (copyright, etc.) lawyer and I am just a tax lawyer! But tax law is more fun! Yes? No? Famspear (talk) 20:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)