From
The Miscellaneous
Reference Material
For Information Only Library
And We the People For Independent Texas :
"Not every action by any judge is in exercise of
his judicial function.
It is not a judicial function for a Judge to commit
an intentional tort even though the tort occurs in
the Courthouse, when a judge acts as a
Trespasser of the Law, when a judge does not
follow the law, the judge loses subject matter
jurisdiction and The Judge's orders are void, of no
legal force or effect"!
The United States Supreme Court has stated that
"No State legislator or executive or judicial officer
can war against the Constitution without violating
his Undertaking to support it".
"Included in the right of personal liberty and the
right of private property-partaking of the nature
of each-is the right to make contracts for the
acquisition of property.
Chief among such contracts is that of personal
employment, by which labor and other services
are exchanged for money or other forms of
property. If this right be struck down or
arbitrarily interfered with, there is a substantial
impairment of liberty in the long established
constitutional sense.
The right is as essential to the laborer as to the
capitalist, to the poor as to the rich; for the vast
majority of persons have no other honest way to
begin to acquire property, save by working for
money."
"The question should never have been; what is
income?
It should have been; what is "business"?
The Federal Income Tax is now, and always has
been, a tax upon "net-income."
It is a "business" excise tax, upon the "privilege"
of receiving gain [profit] from commercial and
financial activities.
The tax has nothing to do with people, except in
relation to how those people derived
"gains and profits" from the use and employment
of capital and or labor [property]."
"Top Ten Liberties Abuses of the Income Tax
Any tax system creates a threat to individual
liberty because "the power to tax involves the
power to destroy," as Chief Justice John Marshall
observed.[1]
But the federal income tax and its enforcement
harm civil liberties much more than necessary
to raise needed funds for the government.
Certainly, the IRS performs poorly and too easily
abuses the rights of citizens.
But ultimately Congress is to blame for creating
an excessively complex and high-rate tax system.
New laws to increase taxpayer protections and
replacement of the income tax with a simpler,
flatter consumption-based tax could greatly
reduce the following 10 areas of civil liberties
abuse.
1. "Vertical" Inequality.
Although equality under the law is a bedrock
American principle, the income tax treats citizens
unequally.
"Vertical" inequality is created by hugely
different tax burdens on citizens at different
income levels.
For example, households earning between
$30,000 and $75,000 pay an average 10 percent
of their income in federal income taxes, compared
to 27 percent for households earning more than
$200,000.[2]
Fully 36 percent of U.S. households pay no
income tax.[3]
Besides violating the spirit of equal protection
guarantees of the Constitution, such unequal
burdens distort perceptions about the costs and
benefits of government because programs
appear to be free of cost to many.
2. "Horizontal" Inequality.
Even people with similar incomes are
treated unequally by the many
exemptions, deductions, credits, and other
intricacies of the income tax. For example, there
are 59 income tax provisions that vary depending
on marital status.[4]
Likewise, the tax differences between
homeowners and renters with the same incomes
can be thousands of dollars because of itemized
deductions for property taxes and mortgage
interest.
Another disparity is the unequal access to savings
vehicles in the tax code depending on individuals'
work situations and other factors. If all individual
savings were exempt from tax, as under a
consumption-based system, individuals would be
treated more equally.
3. Complexity, Ambiguity, and Uncertainty.
Certainty in the law is a bulwark against arbitrary
and abusive government.
But there is no certainty under the income tax
because it rests on an inherently
difficult-to-measure tax base, uses no consistent
definition of "income" or other concepts, and is a
labyrinth of narrow and limited provisions created
by politicians intent on social engineering.[5]
The current IRS commissioner concedes that the
income tax has become too complex for accurate
administration, which is evident in the 28 percent
IRS error rate on phone inquiries and 60 percent
error rate on audits.[6] Business tax rules are so
ambiguous that many disputes drag on for years
and are valued in the hundreds of millions of
dollars.[7]
Individuals are baffled by the complex rules on
capital gains, pension and savings plans, and a
growing list of targeted incentives.
4. Huge Size and Instability of Tax Law.
Citizens are required to know the nation's laws
and comply with them.
Yet federal tax rules are massive in scope and
constantly changing.
Tax laws, regulations, and related documentation
span 45,662 pages.[8]
There were 441 changes to tax rules in last year's
tax-cut law alone.[9]
That law guaranteed a decade of tax instability
with phased-in changes lasting until 2010. Income
tax instability is typified by changes in taxes on
capital.
There have been 25 substantial changes in the
treatment of long-term capital gains since 1922.
[10]
Pension tax laws have been substantially changed
nearly every year since the early 1980s, creating
regulatory backlogs and leaving employers unsure
about how to comply.[11]
Last year's tax-cut law alone had 64 separate rule
changes for pension and saving plans.[12]
5. Lack of Financial Privacy.
The broad-based
income tax necessitates a large invasion of
financial privacy that a low-rate
consumption-based tax could avoid.
The IRS regularly gains access to a myriad of
personal records, such as mortgage records,
credit card data, phone records, banking and
investment records, real property transaction data,
and personal correspondence.
This broad IRS authority to obtain records
without court supervision has been referred to by
the Supreme Court as "a power of inquisition."
[13]
6. Denial of Due Process.
The Fifth Amendment
right to due process is ignored in many respects
by the federal income tax regime. Due process
requires that government provide accused citizens
a clear notice of a claim against them and allow
the accused a hearing before executing
enforcement action.
But the IRS engages in many summary
judgments, and enforces them prior to any
judicial determinations.
Moreover, the very complexity and ambiguity of
the income tax seems to violate due process.
In 1926, the Supreme Court noted that a statute
that is "so vague that men of common intelligence
must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ
as to its application, violates that first essential of
due process of law."[14]
7. Shifting of the Burden of Proof.
For non-criminal tax cases -- the vast majority of
cases -- the tax code reverses the centuries-old
common law principle that the burden of proof
rests with the accuser.
Except in some narrow circumstances, the IRS
does not have to prove the correctness of its
determinations.
When the IRS makes erroneous assessments, as
it often does, citizens carry the burden to prove
that they are wrong.
Efforts to shift the burden of proof to the IRS in
the 1998 IRS Restructuring and Reform Act did
not accomplish that goal. In addition, the new
rules do not apply to the 97 percent of IRS
actions that are deemed administrative in nature.
[15]
8. No Trial by Jury in Tax Court.
Despite Sixth
and Seventh Amendment guarantees of trial by
jury, the federal tax system carefully sidesteps
such protections.
To contest an IRS tax calculation prior to
assessment, one must file a petition in the U.S.
Tax Court.
But since this is an administrative court, not an
Article III court, no jury trial is required.
To obtain a jury trial and related rights for civil tax
cases, one must file suit in a U.S. District Court.
But before that can happen, the alleged tax,
penalties, and interest must be paid in full.
And if the citizen wins, there is a burdensome
route to retrieving the disputed money. For most
people, those rules effectively eliminate the right
to trial by jury in tax cases.
9. Unreasonable Searches and Seizures.
In most situations, the Fourth Amendment
guarantees that, before the government can
search private property and seize records, it must
demonstrate to a court that there is
"probable cause" to believe that lawless conduct
exists.
However, the IRS's summons authority under tax
code section 7602 allows it to obtain records of
every description from any person without
showing probable cause and without a court
order.
There has also been an explosion in information
reporting required by the IRS and a big expansion
in its computer searching for personal records.
Recently, the IRS won the power to access
financial data on Visa cards issued by foreign
banks.
Many examples of abusive IRS searches and
seizures were revealed in U.S. Senate hearings in
1997.[16]
10. Forced Self-Incrimination.
The requirement to
file tax returns sworn to under penalty of perjury
operates to invalidate the Fifth Amendment
protection against self-incrimination. Citizens face
a legal dilemma.
On the one hand, refusing to file a return would
expose a citizen to prosecution for failure to file.
On the other hand, disclosing information sought
in tax returns constitutes a waiver of Fifth
Amendment protections.
The IRS can and does release that information to
federal, state, and local agencies for both tax and
non-tax law enforcement purposes." ;
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