The Browns and Taxes.

[George_Vreeland_Hill]

The entire United States Government is guilty of the tax crimes they are blaming Ed and Elaine Brown for.
When I think about it, why should the Brown's or anyone for that matter pay any taxes at all?
After all, much of the tax money we are made to give the government winds up being wasted and/or used improperly.
For example, the FBI wasted over $170 million dollars on a computer overhaul project (started in 2001) that was supposed to give them an instant and paperless way to manage criminal and terrorism cases.
That project was called Virtual Case File, and it was so inadequate and outdated that a new computer system project had to be started from scratch at a much higher cost to taxpayers.
The new system named Sentinel, even had problems.
In 2005, Randolph Hite, director of IT architecture and systems issues at the Government Accountability Office, wrote in a letter that the FBI should proceed with Sentinel, and cautioned that problems likely will surface because of a lack of an enterprise architecture plan.
The Sentinel project's cost is $425 million dollars and will not be running at full capacity until late 2009.   
This is your tax money.
Here is an eye-opener:
The cost of the war in Iraq has cost the taxpayers more than $359 billion dollars.
According to a Yahoo Internet news source on January 18, 2007, that means with that same money, you could provide total health care and insurance for more than 215 million children a year.
Or, you could hire 6,224,739 schoolteachers for a year.
Or, you could provide more than 17 million full four-year college scholarships.
When Bush started this war on the people of Iraq, their country had nothing to do with terrorists. 
The many terrorists around the world were not welcome in Iraq. 
Saddam did not even like or trust bin Laden.
Yet, Bush said this is a war on terror.
Iraq is now a haven for terrorists.
This is your tax money.
In 2003, the Department of the Treasury?s 2003 Financial Report of the United States Government has a short section titled ?Unreconciled Transactions Affecting the Change in Net Position.? 
The unreconciled transactions are funds for which auditors cannot account.
Those funds totaled $25 billion dollars.
The government knows that $25 billion was spent by someone, somewhere, on something, but auditors do not know who spent it, where it was spent, or on what it was spent.
That missing money is your tax money.
Also ....
Between 1997 and 2003, the Defense Department purchased and then left unused approximately 270,000 commercial airline tickets at a total cost of $100 million.
The Defense Department once uncovered its own credit card scandal.
Over an 18-month period, Air Force and Navy personnel once used govern?ment-funded credit cards to charge at least $102,400 for admission to entertainment events, $48,250 for gambling, $69,300 for cruises, and $73,950 for exotic dance clubs and prostitutes.
The CIA has leak scandals that costs tax money.
Congress wastes money.
This branch of government wastes money, and that branch of government wastes money.
Every branch of government is wasting your tax money.
Your tax money is being wasted so badly, that even many towns and cities across the country will use up their construction and other supplies at the end of every year even if they have a lot left over so they can say they need more money for the next year because they don't want to "run out" again.
More money means your tax money.
If I wrote about all the tax money that is being wasted, I would never leave my computer.
So why should the Brown's or anyone else pay taxes?
The money that the government takes for taxes is being wasted.
That is the real crime.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Morse wants Ed and Elaine Brown to go to jail, but it is Morse who should go to jail for defending the government.
Thank you for reading this.
I am,
George Vreeland Hill


     
 

[CNHT]

Ray Buckley.

[SAK]

I hate to make your figures look small.  But here's one for you.

over $5,000,000,000,000.00 -- approximated amount of money lost by the Department of Defense (in just 1999 through 2001...imagine the years following with Rumsy at the wheel!!!)   due to COMPUTER GLITCHES.  That's TRILLIONS of dollars due to "computer glitches."

Watch it on c-span.  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2102260021948650345&q=rumsfeld+trillion&hl=en

Video isn't the best quality -- I'm sure good quality ones are out there but this should be enough for you to get the idea

[erisian]

Another good reason to not pay; you could get life in prison for paying...

First, the legalese:

<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002331----000-.html>

? 2331. Definitions
  Release date: 2005-08-03
  As used in this chapter—
(1) the term "international terrorism" means activities that— 
(A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation
of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a
criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States
or of any State; 
(B) appear to be intended— 
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; 
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or 
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction,
assassination, or kidnapping; and 
(C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United
States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they
are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce,
or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum;...

Let's see, how does Bush score?
(A) check
(B)
(i) check
(ii) check
(iii) check
(C) check
He's batting 1000!

-----

Material Support:
<http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002339---A000-.html>
TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 113B > ? 2339A
  ? 2339A. Providing material support to terrorists
  Release date: 2005-08-03
   (a)  Offense.—  Whoever provides material support or resources or conceals
or disguises the nature, location, source, or ownership of material support
or resources, knowing or intending that they are to be used in preparation
for, or in carrying out, a violation of section 32, 37, 81, 175, 229, 351,
831, 842 (m) or (n), 844 (f) or (i), 930 (c), 956, 1114, 1116, 1203, 1361,
1362, 1363, 1366, 1751, 1992, 1993, 2155, 2156, 2280, 2281, 2332, 2332a,
2332b, 2332f, or 2340A of this title, section 236 of the Atomic Energy Act of
1954 (42 U.S.C. 2284), or section 46502 or 60123 (b) of title 49, or in
preparation for, or in carrying out, the concealment of an escape from the
commission of any such violation, or attempts or conspires to do such an act,
shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both,
and, if the death of any person results, shall be imprisoned for any term of
years or for life. A violation of this section may be prosecuted in any
Federal judicial district in which the underlying offense was committed, or
in any other Federal judicial district as provided by law. 
(b)  Definition.—  In this section, the term "material support or resources"
means currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial
services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safehouses, false
documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities,
weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel, transportation, and other
physical assets, except medicine or religious materials.
---
Sections in above list violated by the Bush regime:

<http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000175----000-.html>
? 175. Prohibitions with respect to biological weapons
  Release date: 2005-08-03
   (a)  In General.—  Whoever knowingly develops, produces, stockpiles,
transfers, acquires, retains, or possesses any biological agent, toxin, or
delivery system for use as a weapon...

<http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000956----000-.html>
? 956. Conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim, or injure persons or damage property in a foreign country
  Release date: 2005-08-03
   (a)
(1) Whoever, within the jurisdiction of the United States, conspires with one
or more other persons, regardless of where such other person or persons are
located, to commit at any place outside the United States an act that would
constitute the offense of murder, kidnapping, or maiming if committed in the
special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States...

<http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002340---A000-.html>
? 2340A. Torture
  Release date: 2005-08-03
   (a)  Offense.—  Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to
commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20
years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by
this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of
years or for life. 
(b)  Jurisdiction.—  There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in
subsection (a) if— 
(1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or 
(2) the alleged offender is present in the United States, irrespective of the
nationality of the victim or alleged offender. 
(c)  Conspiracy.—  A person who conspires to commit an offense under this
section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of
death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which
was the object of the conspiracy.

___

In all of the above sections which start with "Whoever", there are no
exceptions made for any government or military personnel.
___

How about some war crimes for dessert?
This is the statute that Noam Chomsky was referring to when he said that "Bush
has made himself eligible for the death penalty, and since he has given his vigorous
support of the death penalty, I hope he would take advantage of the
opportunity." or words to that effect.

<http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002441----000-.html>
TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 118 > ? 2441
  ? 2441. War crimes
  Release date: 2005-08-03
   (a)  Offense.—  Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States,
commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b),
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years,
or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the
penalty of death. 
(b)  Circumstances.—  The circumstances referred to in subsection (a) are
that the person committing such war crime or the victim of such war crime is
a member of the Armed Forces of the United States or a national of the United
States (as defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act). 
(c)  Definition.—  As used in this section the term "war crime" means any
conduct— 
(1) defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed
at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the
United States is a party; 
(2) prohibited by Article 23, 25, 27, or 28 of the Annex to the Hague
Convention IV, Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, signed 18
October 1907; 
(3) which constitutes a violation of common Article 3 of the international
conventions signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such
convention to which the United States is a party and which deals with
non-international armed conflict; or 
(4) of a person who, in relation to an armed conflict and contrary to the
provisions of the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of
Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices as amended at Geneva on 3 May 1996
(Protocol II as amended on 3 May 1996), when the United States is a party to
such Protocol, willfully kills or causes serious injury to civilians.
----

There's that "Whoever" again, and it is very clear in this context that
no government or military personnel are meant to be exempted.

___

What's the point?

1) The United States government under the Bush regime is an international
terrorist organization as defined by 18USC ? 2331.

2) It is a federal crime, punishable by life in prison if death resulted, to provide
material support to terrorist organizations under 18USC ? 2339A, and probably
other statutes.

3) The United States government under the Bush regime has violated and
continues to violate 18USC sections 175, 956, and 2340A.

Therefore, by paying federal taxes, you are committing a violation of
18USC ? 2339A, since you know that your money will be used to support an
international terrorist organization. Deaths have resulted from the
violations committed by the Bush regime. Therefore, by paying federal taxes,
you are making yourself eligible for a life sentence in federal prison.

[Kat Kanning]

We need a new sign:

Paying income tax
         =
Funding terrorism

[FrankChodorov]

We need a new sign:

Paying income tax
         =
Funding terrorism

have the Browns' ever made this type of philosophical claim rather than just a precedural claim?

[Kat Kanning]

I don't know.  He believes 9/11 was done by the US government though.  I wasn't thinking of the Browns really, for this sign, even though it's a thread about them.

[FrankChodorov]

I don't know.  He believes 9/11 was done by the US government though.  I wasn't thinking of the Browns really, for this sign, even though it's a thread about them.

but don't you think it would significantly help their cause (certainly amongst the left) if they refused out of moral principles of what the money is being spent on (like you and Russell always mention when speaking to the press) rather than procedural (I am not legally required to as the feds have no jurisdiction, etc)??

[Lloyd Danforth]

Might confuse things.  Plus they have agreed to pay if shown the law that says they have to.

[Kat Kanning]

I think it makes it easier, but this isn't my "show".

Man, I appreciate FrankChordorov much more since that Paul guy.

[error]

Man, I appreciate FrankChordorov much more since that Paul guy.

But..but...Paul wasn't asking you to pay economic rent!

[eques]

Man, I appreciate FrankChordorov much more since that Paul guy.

But..but...Paul wasn't asking you to pay economic rent!

Difference is, occasionally Frank is coherent. 

[FrankChodorov]

Man, I appreciate FrankChordorov much more since that Paul guy.

But..but...Paul wasn't asking you to pay economic rent!

it is not a question of whether or not to pay economic rent but rather WHO should legitimately pay it based on the principle of self-ownership...the excluders or the excluded.

the Browns pay their economic rent.

[eques]

Problem is, the "law" isn't what's on the books.

The "law" is what a judge and/or IRS agent says it is.

Furthermore, if Aaron Russo's research is accurate in America: Freedom to Fascism, then the proceeds of IRS collections go towards something that I consider incredibly immoral--to line the pockets of a handful of elites who believe that it is their manifest destiny to rule the world.

I consider the legal argument to be the fundamentally weak argument, mostly because the "law" is not in the hands of the people, but in the whims of those who have a vested interest in maintaining precedent.  If it's a law they want, Congress could conceivably enact regulations retroactive for all time making the Income Tax legal, despite what the Supreme Court has to say about it (in truth, despite what the Supreme Court has already said about it).

It can be more difficult to make the moral argument, but I think it is the stronger of the two.  Granted, the Browns have a rational, commonsense ground--there is no actual legislation that unambiguously says they must pay, or, at least, it has failed to turn up despite the efforts of many determined individuals to locate such a statute.

[FrankChodorov]

THE GOAL IS FREEDOM
http://www.fee.org/in_brief/default.asp?id=575

Is the Income Tax Unconstitutional?

June 23, 2006
by Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman is the editor of The Freeman and "In brief."

Wishful thinking, always a temptation, is hazardous. Example: An awful lot of people think the income tax as it applies to private-sector wage earners is illegal -- even unconstitutional -- and they assume that if they can only come up with the right legal arguments, judges will strike down the tax and make America a free society once more. Many such people are in prison today.

It would be nice if their wish came true. But it's not going to happen, for reasons I will discuss here. This is another example of Richman's Maxim: There's no shortcut to a free society. Since there will be no magic bullet, we will have to advance freedom the old-fashioned FEE way, by becoming as knowledgeable and articulate in our advocacy as possible in order to attract those who hunger to understand freedom. Nothing less will do.

The Income Tax

So what about the income tax? There is no shortage of arguments that the income tax is illegal, even unconstitutional. It's been said to violate the Fifth Amendment guarantee against self-incrimination, that it's really voluntary, that Federal Reserve Notes aren't money, and on and on. Most curious is the argument that the income-tax law was never intended to tax wages and salaries earned in the private sector because the lawmakers knew such a tax would be unconstitutional. There are several variations on this theme, and here I can discuss only the broad issues. (Admittedly this leaves me open to the charge that I have not addressed a particular variation. But they all suffer from a similar flaw.)

Let there be no misunderstanding over what I am about to say: The income tax is immoral on many levels. It permits the government nearly unlimited access to the people's wealth. It opens the door to inquisitorial intrusion into their private affairs. And it introduces such complexity into the law that everyone is a potential criminal.

Three strikes -- why isn't it out?

Alas, something can be immoral and yet legal and constitutional. That's the fix we're in.

Some people argue that the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution is unconstitutional. But the Constitution sets up an open-ended, if onerous, amendment process. The framers fenced off no subject for amendment (except the importation of slaves before 1808 and equal state representation in the Senate). Maybe they should have, but they didn't. An amendment to the Constitution, therefore, cannot logically be unconstitutional. (An unrelated argument is that the Amendment was not properly ratified by the states. Needless to say, the courts established by the Constitution disagree.)

Some legal critics of the tax accept the Amendment, but argue that it is misunderstood and therefore the 1913 income-tax law has been wrongly applied to private-sector wages and salaries. But the misunderstanding is in the people who make this argument. Let's get straight why the Amendment was proposed. It is widely believed that the U.S. Supreme Court in 1895 declared income taxation in itself unconstitutional, making the Amendment necessary if the feds were to grab part of our paychecks. This is wrong. The Supreme Court's 1895 Pollock ruling did not strike down the principle of income taxation. All it did was declare taxation of income from real and personal property unconstitutional when it is not apportioned among the states. Taxing wages and salaries was fine as far as the Court was concerned. The only reason it struck down the entire law was that the justices assumed that Congress did not intend that only wages and salaries be taxed.

To understand the Court's reasoning we have to take up the distinction between direct and indirect taxation. The Constitution requires that direct taxes be apportioned according to the populations of the states, while indirect taxes must be uniform throughout the states. This seems straightforward, until you appreciate that the framers had no clear idea what's a direct tax and what's an indirect tax. Such heavyweights as James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Fisher Ames couldn't agree. In America income taxation has long been regarded as indirect, a kind of excise. But in England it has always been regarded as direct.

The Court in 1895 confirmed that income taxation usually is indirect and therefore does not require apportionment, only uniformity. But it found an exception. Taxing income from real and personal property, the Court said (dubiously), is like taxing the property itself, and so, in effect, is direct taxation -- thus requiring apportionment. Since the law passed by Congress in 1894 did not contain an apportionment clause, that part was held unconstitutional, and so the whole thing fell.

Enter the Sixteenth Amendment

The Sixteenth Amendment had one purpose: to eliminate the apportionment rule when the source of the income being taxed turns what looks like an indirect tax into a direct tax. That's why the Amendment says,

    The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. [Emphasis added.]

Ever since, the courts have emphasized that the Amendment gave the federal government no new power to tax. All it did was remove from consideration the source of income being taxed and thereby eliminate a restriction on Congress's taxing power.

The income-tax law passed in 1913 under the newly ratified Amendment was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1916 in the Brushaber case. (Brushaber was a railroad stockholder who objected to taxation of his dividends.) Many people who think they can beat the tax in court look to this case for salvation, but why they do so is mystifying, because it offers no ammunition against income taxation whatsoever. On the contrary, the Court opinion embraces the broadest possible interpretation of the federal taxing power -- a power that, the Court said, predates the Sixteenth Amendment. Here's a sampling from one paragraph. The Court said:

    That the authority conferred upon Congress by 8 of article 1 "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises" is exhaustive and embraces every conceivable power of taxation has never been questioned. . . .

    And it has also never been questioned from the foundation . . . that there was authority given, as the part was included in the whole, to lay and collect income taxes. . . .

    [The Court then acknowledged:]

    . . . the conceded complete and all-embracing taxing power. . .

    . . . the complete and perfect delegation of the power to tax. . .

    . . . the complete and all-embracing authority to tax. . .

    . . . the plenary power [to tax]. . . .

Later in the opinion we find this:

    [T]he all-embracing taxing authority possessed by Congress, including necessarily therein the power to impose income taxes. . . .

In the succeeding 90 years, no Supreme Court has contradicted the holding in Brushaber.

Facing the Facts

Where does this leave liberty's advocates? First, we have to face the facts. Like it or not, the U.S. Constitution empowers the Congress to levy any tax it wants for the "general welfare." Anyone is free to come up with a contrary interpretation, but the constitutionally endowed courts have spoken. Reading one's personal libertarian values into the Constitution in defiance of the text and court holdings is futile. For better or worse the Constitution means what the occupants of the relevant constitutional offices say it means. The battle over the taxing power occurred long ago -- in 1787 between the Federalists and Antifederalists, before the Constitution was ratified. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress had no power to tax; it could only ask the states to raise money. When the Constitutional Convention proposed to give the central government that fearsome power, the Antifederalists objected, predicting that terrible things would issue from such power. As one Antifederalist warned, "By virtue of their power of taxation, Congress may command the whole, or any part of the property of the people." Right or wrong (I'd say right), the Antifederalists lost. We will get nowhere if we pretend this history does not exist.

Confiscatory taxation (but I repeat myself) will never be abolished through legal legerdemain or arguments that are too clever by half. When the people and their political culture (the real, internal constitution) demand removal of this government burden, it will be removed. Therefore, if freedom is to be won, it will only be through the sort of painstaking educational activities that FEE has engaged in for 60 years.