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Tax resistance

Central topics Image File history File links Gnome-globe. ... A tax resister resists or refuses payment of a tax because of opposition to the institution collecting the tax, or to some of that institution’s policies. ... Image File history File links TR_icon_s. ... Civil Disobedience (Thoreau) Conscientious objection to military taxation History of tax resistance Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act Tax resistance — Tax resisters The Cold War and the Income Tax: A Protest Henry David Thoreau Civil Disobedience is an essay by Henry David Thoreau. ... Conscientious objection to military taxation (COMT) is a legal theory that attempts to extend the concessions to conscientious objectors that many governments allow in the case of conscription to the realm of taxation — thereby allowing conscientious objectors to insist that their tax payments not be spent on the military. ... Tax resistance has probably existed as long as those in a position of power have imposed taxes. ... The Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act is legislation proposed in the United States Congress that would legalize a form of conscientious objection to military taxation. ... A tax resister resists or refuses payment of a tax because of opposition to the institution collecting the tax, or to some of that institution’s policies. ... Organizations Association of Real Estate Taxpayers National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee Northern California War Tax Resistance Peacemakers Women's Tax Resistance League Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... The National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund (NCPTF) is a non-profit organization located in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1971 to address conscientious objection to military taxation. ... The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC - pronounced newt-rick) is an American activist group that promotes tax resistance as a way to protest against and/or disassociate from war and militarism. ... Northern California War Tax Resistance (NCWTR) is an activist group in the San Francisco bay area that promotes tax resistance as a way to protest against and/or disassociate from war and militarism. ... Peace is generally defined as a state of quiet or tranquillity, as an absence of disturbance or agitation (Latin derivation Pax = Absentia Belli). ... The Women’s Tax Resistance League was a direct action group associated with the Womens Social and Political Union in the British women’s suffrage movement that used tax resistance to protest the disenfranchisement of women. ... Campaigns Beit Sahour — Champaran and Kheda Satyagraha Salt Satyagraha Beit Sahour (Arabic: بيت ساحور pronounced ) is a Palestinian town in the West Bank, situated to the east of Bethlehem. ... The first Satyagraha revolutions inspired by Mahatma Gandhi in the Indian Independence Movement occurred in Kheda district of Gujarat and the Champaran district of Bihar between the years of 1918 and 1919. ... Scenes on the eve of the Salt Satyagraha, Gandhis famous 240 mile march on foot to the sea at Dandi. ... Related topics Christian anarchism — Civil disobedience Conscientious objection — Direct action Divestment — Economic secession Nonviolent resistance — Peace churches Religious Society of Friends “Render unto Caesar...” Tax avoidance and tax evasion Tax protesters — Underground economy Christian anarchism (also known as Christian libertarianism) is the belief that the only source of authority to which Christians are ultimately answerable is God, embodied in the teachings of Jesus. ... It has been suggested that Civil and social disobedience be merged into this article or section. ... A conscientious objector (CO) is an individual following the religious, moral or ethical dictates of his or her conscience that are incompatible with being a combatant in military service, or being part of the armed forces as a combatant organization. ... Direct action is a form of political activism which seeks immediate remedy for perceived ills, as opposed to indirect actions such as electing representatives who promise to provide remedy at some later date. ... In finance and economics, divestment or divestiture is the reduction of some kind of asset, for either financial or social goals. ... Economic secession is a term that John T. Kennedy introduced to refer to a libertarian/anarchist activist technique. ... Nonviolent resistance (or nonviolent action) is the practice of applying power to achieve socio-political goals through symbolic protests, economic or political noncooperation, civil disobedience and other methods, without using violence. ... Peace churches are Christian churches, groups or communities advocating pacifism. ... The Religious Society of Friends (commonly known as Quakers) began in England in the 17th century by people who were dissatisfied with the existing denominations and sects of Christianity. ... Christ and the tribute by Masaccio “Render unto Caesar…” is a phrase attributed to Jesus in the synoptic gospels. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... This box:      The underground economy or shadow economy consists of all commerce that is not taxed. ...

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A tax protester is an individual who denies the obligation to pay a tax (for which the government has determined that person is liable) based on a belief that the government is acting outside of its legal authority when imposing such taxes. Alternatively, the term has been used to describe a person who participates in a tax demonstration, even if the individual did not deny tax obligations. A man carries a sign at the September 24, 2005 anti-war protest, a demonstration in Washington, D.C. American Civil Rights March on Washington, leaders marching from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 1963. ...

United States

In the United States, the term has been used by the Internal Revenue Service and by courts to describe those who believe that tax laws do not apply to them, or to their income. The related term "tax resister" refers to people who do not tend to dispute the legal validity of a tax such as the income tax, or its legal applicability to them, but who intend to defy tax collection for conscientious reasons (for instance, pacifists who do not want to pay for war). Seal of the Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the United States government agency that collects taxes and enforces the internal revenue laws. ... This article is about courts of law. ... Income, generally defined, is the money that is received as a result of the normal business activities of an individual or a business. ... A tax resister resists or refuses payment of a tax because of opposition to the institution collecting the tax, or to some of that institution’s policies. ...

A person could be both a tax protester and a tax resister if he or she believes that tax laws do not apply to him or her and also believes that taxes should not be paid based on the use to which the taxes are put. Some tax resisters have put forth legal arguments for their position — for instance that they cannot pay taxes for nuclear weapons development because this would put them in violation of the Nuremberg Principles — that could be considered varieties of tax protester theories. The Nuremberg Principles were a set of guidelines for determining what constitues a war crime. ...

In the United States at least, the term is misleading, in the sense that there is no law against "protesting" taxes, that being covered by the constitutional right to free speech. It is the refusal to pay taxes that is countered by the force of law.

History

Main article: Tax protester history

While there have been people throughout history who challenged the assessment of taxes as beyond the power of the government, the modern tax protester movement began after World War II. One of the first people to fit this description was Vivien Kellems, a Connecticut industrialist and political activist who in 1948 refused to withhold taxes from the wages of her employees based on the claim that the government had no power to require such withholding. Kellems lost a case contesting her withholding obligation, but later adopted the position that the income tax itself was not being assessed in accordance with the law. A tax protester is a person who denies that they owe a tax assessed against them based on the belief that the constitution, laws, or regulations did not empower the government to asses or collect such taxes. ... Combatants Major Allied powers: United Kingdom France Soviet Union United States Republic of China and others Major Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Winston Churchill Charles de Gaulle Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Chiang Kai-Shek Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tojo Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian... Vivien Kellems, (born in Des Moines, Iowa, June 7, 1896; died 1975) was a Connecticut industrialist who fought the U.S. federal government for over 25 years over withholding under 26 USC §3402, and other aspects of income tax in the United States. ...

The tax protester movement began to develop a greater following in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as various anti-government groups sought ways to avoid paying their taxes. In 1975, the term "tax protester" began to appear in reported court decisions. Members of this group quickly became the target of scam artists who reaped money from books, lectures, and other materials promising to help people avoid having to pay taxes. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals summed up one case as follows:

Like moths to a flame, some people find themselves irresistibly drawn to the tax protestor movement's illusory claim that there is no legal requirement to pay federal income tax. And, like the moths, these people sometimes get burned. Lorin G. Sloan believed these claims and because he acted upon them now faces four months in a federal prison; there can be little doubt that he has been burned.

[. . . .]

The real tragedy of this case is the unconscionable waste of Mr. Sloan's time, resources, and emotion in continuing to pursue these wholly defective and unsuccessful arguments about the validity of the income tax laws of the United States. Despite our rejection of Mr. Sloan's legal analysis of the tax laws, we are not unmindful of the sincerity of his beliefs. On the other hand, we are less sure of the sincerity of the professional tax protestors who promote their views in literature and meetings to persons like Mr. Sloan, yet are unlikely ever to face the type of penalties incurred by him.^[1]

Ideas associated with the tax protester movement have been forwarded under different names over time. These ideas have been put forth, for example, in the broader Christian Patriot and Posse Comitatus movements, which generally assert that the Constitution has been usurped by the federal government. More recently, tax protesters have styled themselves as the Tax Honesty Movement. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The Posse Comitatus (from the Latin phrase meaning power of the county) is a loosely-organized right-wing social movement that opposes the United States federal government and believes in radical localism. ...

Denial of tax liability

Main article: Tax protester arguments

Arguments made by tax protesters generally fall into several categories: that the Sixteenth Amendment was never properly ratified; that the Sixteenth Amendment does not permit the taxation of individual income, or particular forms of individual income; that other provisions of the Constitution such as the First, Fifth, or the "Missing Thirteenth Amendment" eliminate an obligation to file a return; that citizens of the states are not also citizens of the United States; that the statutes enacted by Congress pursuant to their constitutional taxing power are defective or invalid; and that the government and the courts engage in various conspiracies to conceal the above deficiencies. Tax protester arguments are a number of heterodox theories that deny that a person has a legal obligation to pay a tax for which the government has determined that person is liable. ... Amendment XVI (the Sixteenth Amendment) of the United States Constitution, authorizing income taxes in their present form, was ratified on February 3, 1913. ... For other uses, see First Amendment (disambiguation). ... Amendment V (the Fifth Amendment) of the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, is related to legal procedure. ... The Titles of Nobility Amendment (TONA) was, and remains, a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. ... A congress is a gathering of people, especially a gathering for a political purpose. ...

These arguments generally contain logical fallacies, selective interpretation of perceived syntactic ambiguity in statutes and cases, and convey a general misconception about the structure of the legal system and the operations of the government. A logical fallacy is an error in logical argument which is independent of the truth of the premises. ... Syntactic ambiguity is a property of sentences which may be parsed in more that one way. ...

In another Seventh Circuit case, the Court observed:

Some people believe with great fervor preposterous things that just happen to coincide with their self-interest. 'Tax protesters' have convinced themselves that wages are not income, that only gold is money, that the Sixteenth Amendment is unconstitutional, and so on. These beliefs all lead — so tax protesters think — to the elimination of their obligation to pay taxes."^[2]

Responses to tax protesters

Federal courts have consistently rejected such arguments as frivolous. The Internal Revenue Service assesses tax penalties against taxpayers who file "frivolous" returns that include any of the standard tax protester arguments. Returns that include a defaced jurat embodying the oath verifying the truthfulness of the statements made on the return are almost certain to incur this penalty. In courts, a defense or claim is termed frivolous if it is presented in spite of the fact that both the party and the partys attorney knew that it had no merit and it did not argue for a reasonable extension or reinterpretation of the law or no underlying... Seal of the Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the United States government agency that collects taxes and enforces the internal revenue laws. ... Jurat (through French from mediaeval Latin juratus, one sworn, Lat. ...

Almost every United States Court of Appeals has made a blanket statement repudiating tax protester arguments. For example, see United States v. Buckner^[3]: The United States Courts of Appeals (or circuit courts) are the mid-level appellate courts of the United States federal court system. ...

"For the record, we note that the following beliefs, which are stock arguments of the tax protester movement, have not been, nor ever will be, considered 'objectively reasonable' in this circuit:

"(1) the belief that the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution was improperly ratified and therefore never came into being;

"(2) the belief that the Sixteenth Amendment is unconstitutional generally;

"(3) the belief that the income tax violates the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment;

"(4) the belief that the tax laws are unconstitutional;

"(5) the belief that wages are not income and therefore are not subject to federal income tax laws;

"(6) the belief that filing a tax return violates the privilege against self-incrimination; and

"(7) the belief that Federal Reserve Notes do not constitute cash or income."

A taking is an action by a government depriving a person of private property without the payment of just compensation. ... Amendment V (the Fifth Amendment) of the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, is related to legal procedure. ... Various Federal Reserve Notes Notes are missing serial number imprints. ...

Arguments about constitutionality in U.S. tax crime cases

A defendant prosecuted under Federal tax laws who argues that tax laws are unconstitutional incurs the risk that his or her own words may help the prosecution prove the element of willfulness, even if the defendant's belief is genuine and in good faith. See generally Cheek v. United States and Tax avoidance and tax evasion. Holding --- Court membership Case opinions Laws applied --- Cheek v. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

If a jury finds that a criminal defendant had a subjective good faith belief due to a misunderstanding based on the complexity of the tax law (and not based on an argument about its constitutionality), that belief may be a defense with respect to the element of willfulness, even if the belief is unreasonable.^[4] This is due to the general mens rea requirement needed to hold someone criminally liable and the specific intent needed in the Cheek case and word willfully in the statute (see specific intent crimes). The mens rea is the Latin term for guilty mind used in the criminal law. ... In the criminal law, intention is one of the three general classes of mens rea necessary to constitute a conventional as opposed to strict liability crime. ...

Notes

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the following United States district courts: Central, Northern, and Southern Districts of Illinois Northern and Southern Districts of Indiana Eastern and Western Districts of Wisconsin The court is based at the Dirksen... // Case citation is the system used in common law countries such as the United States, England and Wales, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and India to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters or law reports. ... Holding --- Court membership Case opinions Laws applied --- Cheek v. ...

See also

• Christian Patriot
• Civil disobedience
• Tax resistance

This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... It has been suggested that Civil and social disobedience be merged into this article or section. ... A tax resister resists or refuses payment of a tax because of opposition to the institution collecting the tax, or to some of that institution’s policies. ...

External links

• "The Truth About Frivolous Tax Arguments" — An Internal Revenue Service publication
• "Tax Protester FAQ" — By Daniel Evans
• Income Tax: Voluntary or Mandatory? A law professor explains the errors in some popular tax protestor myths.
• Tax protester sites:
  • American Radio is an internet radio show hosted by well known "Tax Honesty Movement" member Dave Champion
  • Penalty Protestor - Join the Action!
  • Is the Income Tax Unconstitutional? by Sheldon Richman, Foundation for Economic Education: In Brief June 23, 2006
  • BATF/IRS -- Criminal Fraud by Milton William Cooper and Wayne Bentson
  • 31 Questions
  • We The People Foundation
  • “Destroyed Arguments” conceded by tax opponent Larry Becraft
  • "Freedom to Facism" — Website for a film promoting tax protester arguments