Prologue

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I am a former Federal political prisoner. There are more political prisoners like me in these United States, some also having served jail terms for government-fabricated non-crimes. Webster’s Third New International Unabridged Dictionary (1981) defines a “political prisoner” as “a person imprisoned for a political offense”. In the same dictionary “political” is defined as “of, or relating to matters of government policy as distinguished from matters of law.” (emphasis added). Therefore, the political prisoner is punished for violating government policy-not law. But in their wisdom, the founding fathers decreed in our national Constitution that our people shall retain their sovereignty, unlike the parliamentary system of England and further established our nation as one of law with, the Constitution as the supreme law. All statutory law enacted by the national or state legislatures is, by reason of the basic provisions of the Constitution, and subsequently the Fourteenth Amendment, subservient to, and therefore required to be in conformity with the Constitution. Any vocal dissent or disagreement with government policy (not law) is clearly protected by the second clause of the First Amendment which guarantees our inalienable right to freedom of speech. However, such policy dissent, when directed at government’s violation of law by their unlawful misapplication of the income/excise tax to the earnings of U.S. citizens, which is the subject of this book, is vigorously attacked by our government despite the First Amendment.

An understanding of the distinction between government policy and law is important. Under our constitutional law system, our government, should they wish to punish policy dissent, must attempt to fabricate a legal or lawful basis to do so. As respects personal income taxes, they are required to devise some scheme to convert the policy dissent to a violation of law. They attempt to accomplish this by writing that portion of the Internal Revenue Code which applies to income taxes in such a manner, as this book will show, that it only appears to legally impose taxes on the earnings of U.S. citizens. In fact, this book’s analysis of the wording in the Internal Revenue Code shows that the Internal Revenue Code is in conformity with the Constitutional prohibitions against taxation of U.S. citizens’ earnings or other receipts.

Examples of United States political persecution of various forms of government policy protest by individuals and groups are revealing. The Congressional House Committee on Un-American Activities of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s 1950’s era is well known for its attacks on Communist groups. Political activist groups, both militant and passive, such as the N.A.A.C.P., Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Black Panthers, the Ku Klux Klan, to name a few organizations of both the political right and left, all have leaders who have felt the heavy hand of our government’s political wrath. Some, like Martin Luther King of the S.C.L.C., met death by assassination for their political activism.

In sharp contrast to my book, the dissent voiced by these groups all took the form of a violation of recognized and acknowledged law with which they disagreed. Black activist Rosa Parks admitted that she was in violation of the local statute which required blacks to sit in the back of the bus. She was protesting the inequity, as she saw it, of law. She never questioned its applicability or jurisdiction over her. Although this writer happens to agree with Ms. Parks’ opinion-one which later cost Martin Luther King his life-there was no jurisdictional dispute as to the applicability of the law to her. In that sense, her action was pure protest of existing law. My fight, however, differs in that it is a jurisdictional protest against government misapplication of the income tax law to the millions of U.S. citizens who don’t owe the tax because our Constitution forbids any direct taxation on U.S. citizens’ earnings or other receipts.

The noteworthy distinction between the civil revolutionary groups and some religious fundamentalists is that the former are challenging existing statutory law only on grounds of its’ unjustness as they perceive it; the latter challenge its’ applicability to them, or, otherwise stated, its jurisdiction over them. These religious groups reason that the various state statutes which require registration or licenses with Federal or state education departments are in clear non-conformity with the religious freedom clause of the First Amendment. Such licensure, their argument states, grants sovereignty and, consequently, control to the state, rather than to God, over their children’s education. They see this unacceptable deviation from the necessary nexus between the Bible and their academic goals-as an usurpation of authority which, they say, is guaranteed to the people by the First Amendment.

A third and perhaps unique group of legal activists to which this writer belongs has become increasingly vocal in recent years. We call ourselves “Constitutionists” because of our dedication to the Constitution and its’ mandates. Because our focus is on constitutional limitations applicable to the taxing authority of Congress, we are also called “tax patriots”. I was a leader in one such group of many throughout the country. Our particular brand of education was highly vocal. I engaged in extensive writing on the subject, spoke publicly at seminars and educational meetings and had media exposure. Before I learned how to defend myself through diligent study of the law, my early activity earned me only near bankruptcy and a short, one-year jail term, which did not change the truth of my beliefs or create remorse for my actions. To the contrary, I am even more dedicated today than ever before to spread the truth. Government’s ridicule of us does nothing to change the truth of our position. Interestingly, our dissent differs from the civil revolutionaries, such as Dr. King. Unlike their revolutionary dissent, we have no argument with existing law-we don’t question its wisdom or justice. Our argument is purely jurisdictional, in both a statutory and a constitutional sense. We agree that the statutory law, the Internal Revenue Code, and the Constitution are in conformity with one another, as government states. However, we charge that the Internal Revenue Code has been intentionally written in a deceptive, confusing and difficult-to-understand manner, and that the IRS, acting in their capacity as the collection and enforcement agency for government, has knowingly alleged an inapplicable and unlawful misapplication of the Internal Revenue Code to many millions of American wage and salary earners who have no obligation, either under statutory law or the Constitution, to pay the government any portion of their earnings or other receipts.

Although the IRS sometimes suggests correctly, but weakly, in some of their literature, that the filing of income tax returns by most Americans who are engaged in no unlawful or government-privileged activities is voluntary, the IRS’ policy (not law) calls for the mandatory filing of tax returns by all working citizens and the payment of income taxes on their earnings! The extremely clever, insidious and even criminal propaganda which has been spoon-fed to the public for many years, along with the fear and intimidation tactics for which the IRS is so well known, has persuaded all but a very few, such as these Constitutionist groups, that this government policy is, in fact, law, and the statistics showing the effectiveness of this deceit speaks for itself. The success of voluntary (by law) “withholding” as a collection method for income taxes which, by law, are not owed, best illustrates this. Almost every employer in the nation has been duped into incorrectly believing that they are required by law to withhold income taxes from their employee’s paychecks. But if, in fact, the law required them to do so, why are they also simultaneously required to obtain authorization; i.e., permission from every employee to withhold via a signed (by the employee) Form W-4 Withholding Allowance Certificate? Since when is permission from the employee required for his boss (meaning his employer) to obey Federal law? There can be only one answer: no such requirement by law exists. However, the deception is now so complete, through decades of custom, that some employers have gone so far as to enter into conspiracy with the Internal Revenue Service to deny employment to those prospective employees who, through their own independent research, have the gumption to demand, through refusal to permit the withholding, that they be allowed, in accord with statutory law, (and also the Fifth Amendment) to keep all the full fruits of their labor! Such action can only be called, properly, conspiracy to commit theft by the employer and the Internal Revenue Service, to the end that government policy (not law) be enforced! Who, indeed, now becomes the lawbreaker?

Unfortunately, the Constitutionist is at a disadvantage, both in the courtroom, when improperly charged by government, as well as on the lectern as an educator. A closed mind is almost impossible to penetrate, and that closed mind is more the norm than otherwise, due not just to the propaganda skills of the IRS, but also to the support government has from prestigious professionals. Judges, lawyers and particularly tax lawyers, accountants, bankers, insurance companies and most of their agents and financial planners-all of whom have a huge financial interest in maintaining the scam-often conspire effectively with the IRS against the Constitutionist. Huge quantities of tax forms of all kinds, deceptively suggesting false legal requirements, are indiscriminately offered in prominent places readily accessible to public traffic in banks, post offices, libraries and thousands of government buildings for months before the mythical “filing” date of April 15th each year. Radio and TV stations all across the land air more thousands of “taxpayer awareness” or “tax tip” programs, all totally but incorrectly presumptive of a valid and lawful jurisdiction of the Internal Revenue Code to tax the earnings of working Americans!

Compliance with statutory law-that is, law enacted by Congress, this writer believes, is always mandatory; it cannot be voluntary, for if it were, the “law” would not be “law”, but rather mere “suggestion”. Otherwise stated, “law”, by its very nature, is mandatory-that is to say, it requires performance (or, more frequently, in a criminal context, non-performance) of a specified act or acts. Setting aside, for purposes of this discussion, the applicability or jurisdiction of any statute (law), and assuming that such jurisdiction exists, the word “compliance” is harmonious with the word “law”, in that “compliance” with the commands of the law, for those to whom the law applies, is required under penalty of punishment as set forth in the statute (law). So we can conclude logically that the word “voluntary”, being the opposite of “compulsory”, is contradictory when used with the “compulsory” word “compliance”. Yet these two words-“voluntary compliance” are used repeatedly in the IRS propaganda-instruction booklets and educational materials. If the law applies to us to start with, is it not true that we had better comply-that is, if we don’t want to pay the fine or go to jail (or both) for non-compliance? So, how can there be such a thing as “voluntary” compliance? Do they mean to tell us, in all truth, that it is voluntary to comply? Who is kidding who here? For the Constitutionist the answer is clear-the IRS is trying to fool the reader into volunteering to file and pay because the IRS knows very well that the Internal Revenue Code contains no statute requiring U.S. citizens to file or to pay income taxes on their wages, salaries or other receipts. Indeed, it cannot, for to do so would bring such law into losing conflict with the supreme law-the Constitution. Although aware of this statutory subservience and the Constitutional restriction against any direct taxation of the people, our government, through the IRS, has nonetheless intentionally misled the public to believe, through such double-speak as “voluntary compliance”, that they are required by law to file and pay income taxes on their earnings and other receipts. “Voluntary compliance” is only one example of the deception and trickery the IRS employs throughout their literature and educational materials which will be discussed in this book.

Finally, this writer charges that the majority of our Federal judiciary is in complicity with the executive branch of government in foisting this jurisdictional deception unlawfully on a bamboozled citizenry. And of the three branches, the judiciary is the most culpable for this legal travesty, in that they have the professional legal training, as well as the opportunity and the duty, to support the Constitution if they would but have the political courage to do so.

This writer acknowledges the consummate skills employed by government to sell the personal income tax scam to the American public as though it were law. The noted author Carl Sagan, in the February, 1987 issue of Parade Magazine, in an article entitled The Fine Art of Baloney Detection, wrote about this skill as follows:

…Credulous acceptance of baloney can lose you money; that’s what
P.T. Barnum meant when he said, ‘There’s a sucker born every
minute.’ But it can be much more dangerous than that, and when
governments and societies lose the capacity for critical thinking,
the results can be catastrophic…

…One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been
bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the
bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth.
The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to

acknowledge-even to ourselves-that we’ve been so credulous…
(emphasis added)

…Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean
of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance,
dedication and courage. But if we don’t practice these tough
habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious
problems that face us-and we risk becoming a nation of
suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along

As the supreme law of the land, our Constitution means what it says and it says what it means. The continued violation of its mandates and restrictions by government must cease, lest our people lose the last vestige of their sovereignty which was so eloquently embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Concern over the will of the people to protect that precious sovereignty was perhaps prophetically expressed by Benjamin Franklin who was asked by a European constitutional convention observer following the drafting of the Constitution in 1787: “Well, Dr. Franklin, what does your nation have here?” To which the eminent chairman of the convention replied: “A republic, sir…a republic, if we have but the will to keep it!” This writer prays that our people find the courage, perhaps in part through knowledge gleaned from this book, to invoke that will through the veil of fear of the IRS that now permeates our nation, lest our republic, indeed, be forever bamboozled on this vital issue.

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