This message has been posted in Response to David Farrar post of:The motion has been seconded
No, I do not support the motion to create a plank in our new Unity08 platform that incorporates the legal predicate that the U.S. Constitution does not empower the state to tax an individual's labor.
Please mark the five stars appropriately. Thank you.
While tax simplification is a worthwhile goal, this plank is a distraction. If we are to have a plank it should be a broader tax simplification belief, not a particular plan.
--Think also of the comfort and rights of others
This is the way to go. We cant'take on the whole institution but we can make it more user friendly and fair to all.
The Courts, fine sir; decide laws promulgated by the legislative branch of government, Civics 101. The Courts have decided that the Constitution does not give the state the authority to tax labor. This plank simply reconfirms what the Constitution has promulgated and the Court has upheld.
Secondly, we stand ready to consider your motion for a broader tax simplification belief should you propose one. In the meantime, please consider supporting our motion as simply a beginning point to a final destination.
ex animo
davidfarrar
This interpretation of the law has only been upheld by a lower court. If this loophole to slip out of taxes exists, than congress will write law to close these loopholes and that law will be challenged.
Law should be simplified, but no canidate should be allowed to enforce a loophole that will bring the system crashing down. If anything, the tax law should be rewritten to close such loopholes. If there is a real constitutional argument, it should first be brought before the supreme court. Your plank has the fingerprints of internet crazies and anarchist extremists. Here is my plank which I posted on another thread:
Tax Platform:
-Taxes policy should be designed to simpify the tax system and minimize loopholes available to those with expert tax representation.
-Tax policy should be progressive: the responsiblity of funding government should fall on those who benefit from the properity of our nation.
-Radical tax reforms should be seriously considered, this includes but is not limited to: flat taxes, sales taxes, VATs and the elimination of income taxes.
-The IRS must be efficient, fair and independent.
Before I cite four supreme court decisions, I will try a little common sense.
If you invest $20, and get a $30 return, you would expect to pay income tax on $10, right? Now, you invest your labor and get a $30 return, how much of that $30 is taxable income? You are going to say $30. That answer would give your labor a value of $0. If your labor is worth nothing, why is your boss paying you? In fact, if your employer is not paying you LESS than what your labor is worth, how can he possibly make a profit on it? In effect, what we as wage earners are paying income taxes on are GROSS RECIEPTS. There is no gain in wages, it is an equal exchange.
Southern Pacific v. John Z. Lowe,Jr. 1918
"Certainly the term "income" has no broader meaning in the 1913 Act(income tax) than in that of 1909(corporation excise tax)"
Merchant's Loan & Trust Company v. Smietanka 1921
"there would seem to be no room to doubt that the word(income) must be given the same meaning in all of the Income Tax Acts of Congress that was given to it in the Corporation Excise Tax Act and that what that meaning is has now become definitely settled by decisions of this court."
"After full consideration, the court declared that income may be defined as gains derived from capital, from labor, and from both combined, including profits gained from sale or conversion of capital." is quoted in eisner v. macomber and the court went on to say "a mere conversion of capital assets were not to be treated as income", which would include the "common sense" demonstration above, i.e., gains derived from labor would be your employer's gains, not yours.
Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Company
defines taxable income as "accession of wealth, clearly realized, and over which taxpayers have dominion". The failure of wages to fit this definintion is that there is no "accession of wealth" involved in wages. Wages are an equal exchange of money for labor. No wealth is gained. They are merely the monetization of labor. If you make a red chair, and sell it, take the proceeds and by a blue chair, where is the "accession of wealth"? As currently applied, you are taxed on the sale price of the red chair, while you have in fact gained nothing. As I said before, wages are not being taxed as "income" under any definition. They are being taxed as GROSS RECEIPTS, a policy no other entity, or corporation is subject to. In fact, we could argue that what we are paying is property tax. Our labor is our property. When we sell it there is no gain, we have merely converted our labor/property into money. If you sell your house you only pay taxes on the gain, not on the entire price.
Parenthesis added
While I have no problem addressing you issues with this proposal, I would like to ask for your help. You see, we all here are experimenting somewhat with trying to bring about an effective political system online. It seems some who do not support this proposal have gone to the "Yes" site and reduced the star rating by simply hitting a lower number. Admittedly, that is a flaw in this web design. If you have done this, admittedly, by mistake, please go back and cancel your negative vote on the "Yes" site. It is here on this site alone where your "No" vote is rightfully registered. I appreciate any help you might be able to offer to clear up this confusion. In the end, there should be nothing but (5) stars registered on both sites, along with the numbers voting.
In hind sight, it probable would have been better simply to remind everyone reading my motion site to simply register their vote with the five stars present at that site.
ex animo
davidfarrar
While I have no problem addressing you issues with this proposal, I would like to ask for your help. You see, we all here are experimenting somewhat with trying to bring about an effective political system online. It seems some who do not support this proposal have gone to the "Yes" site and reduced the star rating by simply hitting a lower number. Admittedly, that is a flaw in this web design. If you have done this, admittedly, by mistake, please go back and cancel your negative vote on the "Yes" site. It is here on this site alone where your "No" vote is rightfully registered. I appreciate any help you might be able to offer to clear up this confusion. In the end, there should be nothing but (5) stars registered on both sites, along with the numbers voting.
In hind sight, it probable would have been better simply to remind everyone reading my motion site to simply register their vote with the fivr stars present at that site.
ex animo
davidfarrar
Due to the limitation of the voting procedure I have laid out for this motion, I must ask you to please go back to my original post: The motion has been seconded and simply register your opposition to this motion by appropriately making the five stars below the topic's original post.
Thank you for your participation in this matter.
ex animo
davidfarrar
Please examine in detail the material as presented on my post at "Good one, HC" to addres your specific request to provide a bit of case law outlining our position.
I agreed with you, this interpretation of the law has only been upheld by a lower court. But I would object to your characterization of this principle of law as a mere,"loophole".
In addition, I would agree with you that should the Supreme Court uphold this lower court's decision, should the government appeal this decision, something the government may not want to do, Congress would soon enact other taxes to make up for the shortfall. Fair enough. This would, in turn, provide the appropriate opportunity to enact into law the rest of your "Tax Platform", which I, too, support.
All you have to do now is make the motion.
ex animo
davidfarrar
Can you provide a link?
I would ask you to table the motion in favor of a more general tax plank. If people like my proposal, let me know and I'll start a thread.
You have hit upon the very essence of establishing an effective online political party. In short, there is no deliberative online rules of order that I know of. I would suggest you go to The motion has been seconded and post your motion to table there. Assuming your motion receives a second, and you instruct the reader to mark the five starts appropriately, and assuming your motion passes, I will recognize your motion to table. Failing this procedure, I know of no other.
It has become increasingly clear we cannot rely upon Unity08's leadership to implement effective deliberative software to allow its delegates to move forward in this area. Sadly, they seem intent on following the old paradigm of "We lead, you follow" that has allowed the extreme fringes of the other two major political parties to become dominant. I had hoped for so much more from Unity08.
ex animo
davidfarrar
This message is in Response to GreenManorite's post:Can you provide a bit of case law to outline your position.
The 16th Amendment clearly empowers Congress to impose taxes on income. In Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co., 348 U.S. 426 (1955), the Supreme Court laid out what has become the modern understanding of what constitutes 'income', declaring that income taxes could be levied on "accessions to wealth, clearly realized, and over which the taxpayers have complete dominion." Under this definition, any increase in wealth—whether through wages"..."are all within the definition of income, unless Congress makes a specific exemption as it has for items such as life insurance proceeds received by reason of the death of the insured party"...
However, the salient issue seem to be whether Congress -- which clearly has the power to do so -- has, in fact, actually created a specific law levying individual wages as taxable income. It is to this judicial precedent the jury in U.S. District Court in Louisiana voted recently to sustain in the Cryer case.
As you have correctly pointed out, the next step in the Cryer case is for the IRS to appeal this decision to the next court of higer competent jurisdiction. It is also the strong feeling of the Defendant in this case that the IRS will not appeal this decision, and others like it, because it too is only too aware of the unconstitutionality of the IRS levying taxes on individual wages without specific authority to do so by Congress.
My best advise in this matter is to stay tuned.
ex animo
davidfarrar
Eventually the IRS will have to appeal if these jury cases continue to succeed. Until an appeals court rules, I am very skeptical. If the ruling was upheld, Congress would revise the code by the end of the week with better language.
The IRS, as you correctly surmise, is simply playing the odds at present. After all, how many of us normal people can afford to fight the IRS in court? And of the very, very small number of attorneys who can afford to take their own case to court, the IRS knows they would have at least a 50/50 chance of winning any such case. Appealing any of these cases might simply represent a loose/loose situation to the IRS at this time.
Secondly, even if this case was upheld by the Supreme Court, admittedly, an unlikely occurrence; I am not so sure Congress would act immediately to open up this can of worms, not without opening up the whole debate of taxation, fair taxes, a flat tax, a sales tax, et cetera.
In my research into the adoption of the 16th Amendment, it became clear to me that had people who voted for its adoption known that it would eventually be used to tax their own wages, as opposed to simply taxing corporate profits and the rich, which was the original intent of the amendment, it never would have been adopted.
In any case, this does seem to me, an excellent opportunity for Unity08 to adopt a plank in its political platform that would guaranty wide voter support and force Unity08 into the discussions around every supper table in every household in America right on up to election time.
It is for this reason, I urge you to go back to The motion has been seconded and vote five stars in support of this motion.
ex animo
davidfarrar
This message is in Response to Elyjosy's post:Taxes
I hope you went to The motion has been seconded and marked the five stars in support of this motion.
ex animo
davidfarrar
You may want to revisit the IRS thread, as more case law has been presented there in the last few days.
While I agree, the motion was made under a heading that has significantly changed due to the erudite posts of Republic, the motion's predicate: Congress does not have the authority to tax individual wages as "General Income," under authority of the 16th Amendment still stands.
The contention that the 16th Amendment was never designed to give Congress the authority to tax individual wages is well established. I challenge anyone to prove otherwise. Due to this lack of authority, Congress has never enacted positive law authorizing the IRS to tax individual wages as "General Income," with the possible exception of all U.S. Territories, presumably, including Washington D.C., and even that, to many, is illegal under the 16th Amendment. What we have here is a breach of this nation's sovereignty, dereliction of duty by Congress and the Supreme Court, and grand theft by federal authorities, resulting in the inevitable weakening of this nation's democratic principles.
The intent of this motion is to address this nation's increasingly unfair tax burden upon its citizens and to reestablish the rule of law by the people, of the people, and for the people under which this nation is rightfully governed.
ex animo
davidfarrar
"Let justice be done, though the heavens fall,"
I cannot understand all the confusionI hear about the tax system. The present system at it's core is an unjust system which is used by the powerful in Government to try to control peoples lives, Be it the Corporations who get tax cuts for doing what the politicians want or using tax monies to give to certain citizens to basically buy their votes.
I am not sure of the statistics but i would be willing to bet that MOST people in this country pay little or NO taxes.
The fairest thing I have heard is the FAIR TAX. The things I have heard BAD about it are mistaken ideas due to non education about the tax or outright lies perpetrated by those against it.
Naturally, the first cry is that it is unfair to the POORER amongst us. That's hooey!
The prebate is never talked about.And the mere fact that RICHER people, or shall we say, those with more to spend, do and will in fact spend more thus paying more of the taxes.
Please before demogoguing this system of Taxation, learn about it. An awful lot of Mathematicians and Economists have created this after a lot of research. It IS worth their and your time.
... and would certainly be better than our present income tax. But, I for one, see one major hurdle it would have to jump over before its adoption at the present time.
Most local municipalities have a fair amount of consumption taxes already in place and would add to the over all burden, making it unacceptable to the average taxpayer who would be confronted with this added burden with every purchase, day in, day out, three or four times a day. As a result, people would almost certainly quickly raise up in revolt, demanding a reduction, if not a complete elimination of the federal sales tax and re-adoption of the income tax. While I would see nothing wrong with this reaction, it does mean the present political elite would fight to the death for its defeat.
ex animo
davidfarrar
This is exactly what i was talking about. Don't take this the wrong way but evidently you are not aware of exactly what the fair tax is. I cannot take the time and space to explain it all on this medium but rest assured that ALL concerns about "additional" taxes are addressed in the Fair Tax. It is NOT an additional tax. Just to put it shortly. This has nothing to do with any "STATE" or "LOCAL" tax.
It simply stops ALL Fereral taxes from being taken from your paycheck. No Income Tax filing ever again. YOu get every cent of what you earn in your paycheck as far as Federal Tax goes.
MOst people do not realize that everything they now buy has "hidden" costs in it. This hidden cost is what has been passed on from each person who manufactured or handled this product and pays income tax. They simply pass on this burden to YOU. This amount is approximately 23% . You pay that now but don't realize it. The idea is that without these manufacturers and handlers paying income tax, the product cost would be decreased. A competative FREE market would dictate the cost of things. The Fair Tax is an INCLUSIVE TAX. If you pay $100.00 for an item now, you would pay $100.00 under the Fair Tax.
The suggested 23% "Comsumption Tax" which is what the Fair Tax is, would simply be paid to the Government. Based on Fed. Gov. guidelines everyone would receive a "prebate" from Gov. Every Month based upon the gov.stated cost of necessities for each person in the family. (What it is estimated that each family spends for food clothing, etc.)
I am getting carried away here, lol. Too much to put on here.
One key element of the Fair Tax that NEVER gets talked about is that the 23% sales tax is on NEW ITEMS only. Anything you bought used would have NO Fed. Tax..
One more thing, The economists who worked this out said the gov. would collect more $ because everyone would be paying the sales tax to include visitors to our country. And companies that run overseas would have much more reason to manufacture things here. And that it would be such an economic boost to the country that for a while there might not be enough labor to fill the jobs created.
Might I suggest that all who read this buy a book by Neal boortz and Congressman John Linder called "THE FAIR TAX BOOK"
It would not add to the overall burden, it would shift the burden from our paycheck to our store receipt. If people were made immediately aware of their tax bill, every day, they would be far less likely to demand unnecessary gov't services that would raise them. This would also give the people the ability to "strike" the tax, by reducing their purchases to a minimum, giving the people another means to vote.
The "present political elite would fight to the death" ANY significant tax reform, because it will threaten their power.