Exerpt from GiveMeLiberty.org
June 10, 2005
33 years ago, high officials in the Executive branch, including the President of the United States, committed a crime against the People and covered it up. However, thanks to “Deep Throat,” who was one of the Executive branch’s own criminal investigators, the crime was uncovered, the guilty were punished, and for the first time in our history, a sitting President was forced to resign, rather than face prosecution and imprisonment.
We should thank the Creator for people like Deep Throat who love their country – and not the government, recognizing the difference between the two and the inherent danger in the latter.
Until last week, Mark Felt remained anonymous, probably out of fear for his life, but certainly for fear of persecution for revealing the truth about the misdeeds of his high ranking superiors. At 91 years of age, Mark Felt finally identified himself as Deep Throat.
Sixty
years earlier, coincident with the First World War, another, far more
serious crime against the People was committed by high ranking
officials of both the Executive and Legislative branches of
our government. It too, was covered up.
And just like Watergate, it was uncovered by one of the federal
government’s own criminal investigators. The year was 1999. The
investigator was Joseph Banister (Special Agent of the Criminal
Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service).
However,
that’s where the similarities end.
Unlike Deep Throat, who secretly handed the results of his
investigation to a newspaper reporter, Banister chose to quietly
submit the results of his legal investigation to his government
superiors, along with a request for answers to certain questions.
Unlike Deep Throat, who was able to finish out his civil service
career and retire, the highly decorated investigator Banister was
forced to resign within a week of submitting his research report.
Unlike Deep Throat, who induced a national commotion by his
revelations about the unlawful cover up of a politically motivated “run-of-the-mill”
criminal act which was committed by high-ranking public officials who
were in office at the time -- and were subject to legal (and
political) accountability, Banister revealed the truth about a
well-packaged web of official deceit, fraud and constitutionally
violative acts that had spanned almost a century and was gradually
sold to the People across generations, using the veil, and force, of
government and the law itself.
Unlike Deep Throat, who revealed the truth about a lie that was only
superficially concealed and was never deeply ingrained in the body
politic, Banister revealed the truth about a lie that has been around
for decades and is deeply believed.
And
unlike Deep Throat, who hid in the shadows of history and
successfully avoided both publicity and persecution, Banister, who
dared to document this crime and directly confront those in
government who were complicit in its perpetuation, is now being
persecuted – and prosecuted for his part in bringing this crime
to the attention of our nation.
The crime uncovered by Banister is summarized as follows.
As
a fundamental starting point, it must be stipulated that the U.S.
Constitution does not, and more importantly –
can not -- authorize Congress to impose a direct tax on human
labor.
If a 1% tax on a person’s
labor were to be held constitutional, a 100% tax on labor would also
be constitutional, subject only to the whim of the political majority
or the desire of government bureaucrats. In other words, the
Constitution does not, and cannot, authorize Congress to use its
limited taxing power to force the People to labor for the government.
In
1909, the meaning of the word “income” did not mean money
received by a worker in direct exchange for that person’s
human labor. It meant money derived from capital
or labor or both, as, for example, money (profit) derived
by Wal-Mart or Merrill Lynch from the labor of its workers. At
the turn of the previous century, it was well understood that the
legal term “income” did not mean the wages or salary
earned by the worker for his own labor.
Today, due to the well-packaged web of lies that has been sold
gradually to the masses over generations, most people today
incorrectly believe “income” means not only money
derived from someone else’s labor, but also money earned
by workers in direct exchange for their own labor.
In 1909, the U.S. Congress passed a proposed “income tax” Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the purpose of which was simply to clarify the fact that Congress had the power under the existing clauses of the Constitution to tax income derived from real estate, stocks, bonds and other forms of capital, without apportioning the tax among the taxpayers --- that is, without requiring every taxpayer to pay the exact same amount.
So far, so good. There was nothing untoward about Congress proposing an Amendment to the Constitution for clarification purposes.
The crime and the cover-up began in 1913 with actions taken by both the Executive and Legislative branches.
In 1913, just thirty days before he was set to leave office, the U.S. Secretary of State, Philander Knox, declared by his certification that the proposed Amendment had been legally and properly ratified by 3/4ths of the state legislatures, despite the well documented fact that he had been informed by his solicitor general that the Amendment had not come close to being ratified. The Congress adopted the Amendment as the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Within months of the fraudulent declaration by Knox, Congress crafted and passed the Income Tax Act of 1913, which included a definition of “income,” that stretched the meaning of the legal term “income” well beyond the constitutional meaning and well beyond the documented intent of the framers of the Amendment, as recorded in every official and professional document of the era: the Congressional Record, congressional committee reports, law reviews, journals of political science, newspapers of record and so forth.
With
its statutory, unconstitutional definition of “income,”
Congress improperly broadened the definition of “income”
to include money received by a person in direct exchange for that
person’s
labor. In technical terms, Congress included a “non-apportioned,
direct tax”
on the salaries, wages and compensation of all American workers.
Even though the Act exempted from the tax those workers earning less
than $4,000, the government soon began to receive so much money from
the “income”
tax that its revenue increased from about $380 million in 1914 to
more than $3.7 billion by 1918.
The Income Tax Act of 1913 also instituted withholding at the source and the tax return, Form 1040.
With
these features, the Income
Tax Act of 1913 provided the government with a stream of
revenue that enabled it to spend large amounts of money before it had
it. The central government not only had much more money to spend, it
could now do whatever it wanted to do, even if it did not have the
money to do it.
At its heart, the Income Tax Act of 1913 enabled the government to
pledge, as collateral, the labor of its citizens to secure its debt.
The government could now guarantee the repayment of borrowed money by
forcefully taking bread from the mouths of labor. Slavery has always
been the ultimate form of lender security.
However,
the still-standing Constitution prohibited a tax on labor. The
Income Tax Act of 1913 was soon tested in Court. In 1916, the Supreme
Court brought the unconstitutional labor tax to a screeching
halt.
The Supreme Court ruled in Brushaber
v. Union Pacific, 240 U.S.1 (and the cases bundled
with it, including Stanton v Baltic Mining Co., 240 U.S. 103),
that wages are not income within the meaning of the income tax
Amendment to the Constitution, or any other provision of the
Constitution.
The Supreme Court's decision in Brushaber soundly rejected the
government’s self-interested interpretation of the definition
of “income” within the meaning of the Constitution, and
specifically limited “to whom” and “where”
the income tax could apply.
The Brushaber court explicitly concluded that the 16th
Amendment gave Congress no new powers of taxation, meaning that
direct taxes on wages, salaries and compensation received by workers
in direct exchange for their labor fell outside of the meaning of the
16th Amendment, and still must satisfy the fundamental
requirement of apportionment as a direct tax, if, indeed, the
government could overcome the slavery issue.
The Brushaber decision forced Congress to consider changing
the statutory definition of “income,” to bring it in line
with the Constitution.
However, true to form and consistent with the nature of governmental
power, the government was loathe to relinquish the spoils and booty
that flowed from its direct tax on labor, and the power and control
that came with the tax (and its enforcement mechanisms).
The crime continued in the halls of Congress and in the White House
with the adoption of the Income Tax Act of 1916 (amended in
1917). Although the 1916
Act ended withholding of wages, salaries and compensation, and
ordered the money that had been withheld from workers to be returned
to those workers, and the Treasury Secretary issued Treasury
Directive
2635, and saw to it that the
money withheld was returned, the 1916 Act failed to define the legal
term “income.”
While the act carried over the definition of “income”
from the 1913 Act, Congress specifically qualified in Section 25 of
the Act that the "income" subject to the 1913 Act was not the same
“income” to be taxed under the 1916 Act. No further
explanation was provided in the Act.
In other words, after the Supreme Court's explicit ruling in
Brushaber, the government adopted a revised tax law that said,
in effect, “the meaning of the word ‘income’ has
changed, but we are not going to tell you how.”
Confused or ignorant of the law, and too patriotic and engaged with
World War I to question their government, workers toiling above the
$4,000 exemption level kept sending in their Form 1040’s and
paying a tax on money earned by them in direct exchange for their
own labor. As the years went on, the tax rates went up, the
exemptions dropped, and more Americans succumbed to the popular
belief that the law required them to file and pay.
During the great Depression, the crime deepened.
While the more wealthy workers were unwittingly continuing to pay a
tax on money earned in direct exchange for their labor, not just on
their passive income, Congress and the President, again acted without
constitutional authority, and in defiance of the now numerous (and
consistent) rulings of the United States Supreme Court (the latest
ruling coming in 1920 in Eisner v Macomber, 252 U.S. 189).
In 1933 the government adopted a law forcing all workers to
pay an “income” tax by another name, on money earned in
direct exchange for their own labor. The new labor tax
was called a “Social Security” tax. Along with this new
unconstitutional labor tax, withholding was re-instituted in
America.
During World War II, the crime deepened further.
Once again, in defiance of the Constitution and the rulings of the
Supreme Court, the Congress and the President instituted still
another labor tax on all Americans, not just the wealthy,
calling it a, “Victory Tax.” Along with the “Victory
Tax” came withholding of the “Victory Tax” at the
source.
Drunk with power, taking advantage of the People during times of
strife, the government was “piling on” one direct labor
tax after another, calling them “income” taxes, without
ever statutorily defining the term “income.” The “Victory
Tax” was a tax on the money people earned in direct exchange
for their own labor. The People were told that “Victory
Tax” would expire with the conclusion of the War. It didn’t.
Neither did withholding. The Victory Tax continued unabated, becoming
the Federal Income Tax of today.
In 1965, the crime deepened even further.
Once again, in defiance of the Constitution and the rulings of the
Supreme Court, the Congress and the President piled on yet another
direct tax on the labor of all working men and women, calling it a “Medicare
Tax.” Along with the “Medicare Tax” came
withholding of the “Medicare Tax” at the source.
The
Bottom Line
Since 1916, Congress and the
Executive, with the cooperation of the lesser courts, have been
relentlessly tightening the yoke of slavery on all Americans as they
have imposed, and enforced an increasing number of unconstitutional
direct taxes on the salaries, wages and compensation.
Beyond this, our institutions of government have, by duplicity,
threat and force, coerced the businesses of America into
collecting these labor taxes by withholding them at the source –
i.e., from the paychecks of American workers.
As the final interpreter of the
Constitution, we, the People believe the Supreme Court got it right –
a tax on labor – regardless of its label or beneficent intent
-- is a “slave tax,” and is a violation of not only
fundamental, human Rights, it is patently unconstitutional.
Most
Americans, covered with a blanket of propaganda, believe they are
free as they pledge allegiance to their country, a Republic, but
follow the dictates of a government run by elected and appointed
officials whose first allegiance is to their Party.
Make no mistake: money earned in direct exchange for labor is being
seized by the government, without rightful authority, from the
workers of America by force --- that is, by violence --- to be
distributed, with its opportunities for profit, influence and
corruption among our elected and appointed public officials --
political henchmen and party workers, and those that seek to keep
them in office for their own benefit.
The Cover-up
The People have repeatedly Petitioned the government to remedy this oppression, but their repeated Petitions have been met by repeated injury.
Americans
who know the truth about the “income” tax, and who
protest the labor tax and government’s continuing crime by
retaining their money, are dragged first through an administrative
process and then, if necessary through a civil and/or criminal
judicial process – all of which suffer from fatal Due Process
defects because there can be no law authorizing a slave tax.
The taxpayer’s defense is the Constitution and the law.
However, the government does not answer any questions by the
protesting tax payer prior to, or during the administrative process,
other than to say the questions are “frivolous.” During
civil and criminal trials the tax payer is likewise prevented from
citing the Constitution or the law and is, therefore, prevented from
defending himself, because the law is his defense.
Making matters worse, jurors, more often than not, have a vested
interest in the status quo; they come from a population of
people who work for the government, have family members who work for
the government, work for a company that sells goods or services to
the government and/or directly receive some form of payment or “entitlement”
from the government.
The
full extent of the cover-up can best be illustrated by the cases of
Richard Simkanin, Phil Hart, Irwin Shiff and Joseph Banister,
although there are many, many other examples going back to the
1960s.
There can be no illusion or equivocation: Our income tax system is a
crime against We The People and their Constitution. That our
servant government refuses to confront the evidence and address this
issue in a peaceful, responsible manner not only furthers and abets
the crime, but places our country at significant economic and
political risk.
That our servant government would dare to persecute and prosecute
those that have exposed these crimes of unfathomable magnitude, is an
abomination to everything that is just and moral and necessary for
the continuance of Freedom.
It's time to face reality and the likelihood that significant
problems lay ahead unless our government is soon held accountable to
the Constitution, and the rule of law, and unless we eliminate –
regardless of the degree of practical difficulty –
the labor taxes that are antithetical to the very principles upon
which our nation was founded.
It is time to end the fraud.
It's time to end the persecution.
This is America. Let's start acting like it.
Mr. President, It's time to “tear
down this tax.”
Article
Related Links
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1913
Tax Act (partial)
1916
Tax Act
(partial)
1917 Tax Act (partial)
Treasury
Decision 2635
ordering refunds of withholding
Supreme court decision in Brushaber
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