Anti-Tax Group Makes 'Final Warning' to Federal Government

I would call "personal services" an "item" of income, not a "source" of income.

As if calling it an item instead of a source actually mattered, you seem to have missed the opening sentence.

"The following items of gross income shall be treated as income from sources within the United States:"

It defines the following "items" AS "income from sources".

Hylton v. United States(1796), 3 U.S. 171

"A general power is given to Congress, to lay and collect taxes, of every kind or nature, without any restraint, except only on exports; but two rules are prescribed for their government, namely, uniformity and apportionment: Three kinds of taxes, to wit, duties, imposts, and excises by the first rule, and capitation, or other direct taxes, by the second rule. "

"the present Constitution was particularly intended to affect individuals, and not states, except in particular cases specified: And this is the leading distinction between the articles of Confederation and the present Constitution."

"Uniformity is an instant operation on individuals, without the intervention of assessments, or any regard to states,"

"[T]he DIRECT TAXES contemplated by the Constitution, are only two, to wit, A CAPITATION OR POLL TAX, simply, without regard to property, profession, or any other circumstance; and a tax on LAND."

McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819)

"The power of taxing the people and their property is essential to the very existence of government, and may be legitimately exercised on the objects to which it is applicable, to the utmost extent to which the Government may choose to carry it. The only security against the abuse of this power is found in the structure of the Government itself. In imposing a tax, the legislature acts upon its constituents. This is, in general, a sufficient security against erroneous and oppressive taxation."

LICENSE TAX CASES, 72 U.S. 462 (1866)

"It is true that the power of Congress to tax is a very extensive power. It is given in the Constitution, with only one exception, and only two qualifications. Congress cannot tax exports, and it must impose direct taxes by the rule of apportionment, and indirect taxes by the rule of uniformity. Thus limited, and thus only, it reaches every subject, and may be exercised at discretion."

PACIFIC INS. CO. v. SOULE, 74 U.S. 433 (1868),7 Wall. 433

"Congress may prescribe the basis, fix the rates, and require payment as it may deem proper. Within the limits of the Constitution it is supreme in its action. No power of supervision or control is lodged in either of the other departments of the government."

Lane Co. v. Oregon (1868), 74 U.S. [7 Wall.] 71:

[T]he people, through the constitution of the United States, 'established a more perfect union by substituting a national government, acting, with ample power, directly upon the citizens, instead of the confederate government, which acted with powers, greatly restricted, only upon the states.' In no other way can the supremacy of that constitution be maintained. It creates a government in fact as well as in name, because its constitution is the supreme law of the land, 'anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding;' and its authority is enforced by its power to regulate and govern the conduct of individuals, even where its prohibitions are laid only upon the states themselves.

United States v. Cruikshank(1876), 92 U.S. 542:

"The people of the United States resident within any State are subject to two governments: one State, and the other National. ..."

Springer v. United States(1880), 102 U.S. 586

"The central and controlling question in this case is whether the tax which was levied on the income, gains, and profits of the plaintiff in error, as set forth in the record, and by pretended virtue of the acts of Congress and parts of acts therein mentioned, is a direct tax."

"Our conclusions are, that direct taxes, within the meaning of the Constitution, are only capitation taxes, as expressed in that instrument, and taxes on real estate; and that the tax of which the plaintiff in error complains is within the category of an excise or duty."

"[W]henever the government has imposed a tax which it recognized as a direct tax, it has never been applied to any objects but real estate and slaves."

"If the laws here in question involved any wrong or unnecessary harshness, it was for Congress, or the people who make congresses, to see that the evil was corrected.
The remedy does not lie with the judicial branch of the government."

POINDEXTER v. GREENHOW, 114 U.S. 270 (1885)

It was said by Chief Justice CHASE, speaking for the whole court in Lane Co. v. Oregon (1868), 74 U.S. [7 Wall.] 71, 76, that the people, through the constitution of the United States, 'established a more perfect union by substituting a national government, acting, with ample power, directly upon the citizens, instead of the confederate government, which acted with powers, greatly restricted, only upon the states.' In no other way can the supremacy of that constitution be maintained. It creates a government in fact as well as in name, because its constitution is the supreme law of the land, 'anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding;' and its authority is enforced by its power to regulate and govern the conduct of individuals, even where its prohibitions are laid only upon the states themselves.

Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, 157 U.S. 429 (1895)

"The people of the United States constitute one nation, under one government, and this government, within the scope of the powers with which it is invested, is supreme."

"Without the States in union, there could be no such political body as the United States. Both the States and the United States existed before the Constitution. The people, through that instrument[the Constitution], established a more perfect union by substituting a national government, acting, with ample power, directly upon the citizens, instead of the confederate government, which acted with powers, greatly restricted, only upon the States."

POLLOCK v. FARMERS' LOAN & TRUST CO., 158 U.S. 601 (1895):

"We have considered the act only in respect of the tax on income derived from real estate, and from invested personal property, and have not commented on so much of it as bears on gains or profits from business, privileges, or employments, in view of the instances in which taxation on business, privileges, or employments has assumed the guise of an excise tax and been sustained as such."

"If that[rents from land] be stricken out, and also the income from all invested personal property, bonds, stocks, investments of all kinds, it is obvious that by a r the largest part of the anticipated revenue would be eliminated, and this would leave the burden of the tax to be borne by professions, trades, employments, or vocations; and in that way what was intended as a tax on capital would remain, in substance, a tax on occupations and labor. We cannot believe that such was the intention of congress."

"We do not mean to say that an act laying by apportionment a direct tax on all real estate and personal property, or the income thereof, might not also lay excise taxes on business, privileges, employments, and vocations. "

Our conclusions may therefore be summed up as follows:
First. We adhere to the opinion already announced,-that, taxes on real estate being indisputably direct taxes, taxes on the rents or income of real estate are equally direct taxes.
Second. We are of opinion that taxes on personal property, or on the income of personal property, are likewise direct taxes.
Third. The tax imposed by sections 27 to 37, inclusive, of the act of 1894, so far as it falls on the income of real estate, and of personal property, being a direct tax, within the meaning of the constitution, and therefore unconstitutional and void, because not apportioned according to representation, all those sections, constituting one entire scheme of taxation, are necessarily invalid.
Mr. Justice WHITE, dissenting.

16. The injustice of the conclusion points to the error of adopting it. It takes invested wealth, and reads it into the constitution as a favored and protected class of property, which cannot be taxed without apportionment, while it leaves the occupation of the minister, the doctor, the professor, the lawyer, the inventor, the author, the merchant, the mechanic, and all other forms of industry upon which the prosperity of a people must depend, subject to taxation without that condition.

KNOWLTON v. MOORE, 178 U.S. 41 (1900)

" It is true that in the income tax cases the theory of certain economists by which direct and indirect taxes are classified with reference to the ability to shift the same was adverted to. But this disputable theory was not the basis of the conclusion of the court. "
"The constitutional meaning of the word direct was the matter decided. Considering that the constitutional rule of apportionment had its origin in the purpose to prevent taxes on persons solely because of their general ownership of property from being levied by any other rule than that of apportionment, two things were decided by the court: First, that no sound distinction existed between a tax levied on a person solely because of his general ownership of real property, and the same tax imposed solely because of his general ownership of personal property.

BRUSHABER v. UNION PACIFIC R. CO., 240 U.S. 1 (1916)

"the conclusion reached in the Pollock Case did not in any degree involve holding that income taxes generically and necessarily came within the class [240 U.S. 1, 17] of direct taxes on property, but, on the contrary, recognized the fact that taxation on income was in its nature an excise entitled to be enforced as such"

Stratton's Independence, LTD. v. Howbert(1913), 231 U.S. 399:

"'[I]ncome' may be defined as the gain derived from capital, from labor, or from both combined, and here we have combined operations of capital and labor. As to the alleged inequality of operation between mining corporations and others, it is of course true that the revenues derived from the working of mines result to some extent in the exhaustion of the capital. But the same is true of the earnings of the human brain and hand when unaided by capital, yet such earnings are commonly dealt with in legislation as income."

Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co.(1916), 240 U.S. 103:

"the provisions of the 16th Amendment conferred no new power of taxation, but simply prohibited the previous complete and plenary power of income taxation possessed by Congress from the beginning from being taken out of the category of indirect taxation to which it inherently belonged, and being placed in the category of direct taxation subject to apportionment"

COOK v. TAIT, 265 U.S. 47 (1924)

"[T]he principle was declared that the government, by its very nature, benefits the citizen and his property wherever found, and therefore has the power to make the benefit complete. Or, to express it another way, the basis of the power to tax was not and cannot be made dependent upon the situs of the property in all cases, it being in or out of the United States, nor was not and cannot be made dependent upon the domicile of the citizen, that being in or out of the United States, but upon his relation as citizen to the United States and the relation of the latter to him as citizen."

BROMLEY v. MCCAUGHN, 280 U.S. 124,136 (1929)

"Whatever may be the precise line which sets off direct taxes from others, we need not now determine. While taxes levied upon or collected from persons because of their general ownership of property may be taken as direct, this Court has consistently held, almost from the foundation of our government, that a tax imposed upon a particular use of property or the exercise of a single power over property incidental to ownership, is an excise which need not be apportioned, and it is enough for present purposes that this tax is of the latter class.

It is a tax laid only upon the exercise of a single one of those powers incident to ownership, the power to give the property owned to another. . . . The persistence of this distinction and the justification for it rest upon the historic fact that taxes of this type were not understood to be direct taxes when the Constitution was adopted and, as well, upon the reluctance of this Court to enlarge by construction, limitations upon the sovereign power of taxation by Article 1, sec. 8, so vital to the maintenance of the National Government.
280 U.S. at 136; see The Federalist No. 12 (Hamilton) (distinguishing between "direct taxes" and "taxes on consumption")."

Lucas v. Earl(1930), 281 U.S. 111:

"The Revenue Act of 1918 approved February 24, 1919, c. 18, 210, 211, 212(a), 213(a), 40 Stat. 1057, 1062, 1064, 1065, imposes a tax upon the net income of every individual including 'income derived from salaries, wages, or compensation for personal service ... of whatever kind and in whatever form paid,' 213(a). The provisions of the Revenue Act of 1921, c. 136, 42 Stat. 227, 233, 237, 238, in sections bearing the same numbers are similar to those of the above."

"There is no doubt that the statute could tax salaries to those who earned them "

U.S. v. CONSTANTINE, 296 U.S. 287 (1935)

" The United States has the power to levy excises upon occupations, and to classify them for this purpose; and need look only to the fact of the exercise of the occupation or calling taxed, regardless of whether such exercise is permitted or prohibited by the laws of the United States or by those of a state. The burden of the tax may be imposed alike on the just and the unjust."

Charles C. Stewart Machine Co. v. Davis (1937), 301 U.S. 548:

The tax, which is described in the statute as an excise, is laid with uniformity throughout the United States as a duty, an impost, or an excise upon the relation of employment.

"But natural rights, so called, are as much subject to taxation as rights of lesser importance. An excise is not limited to vocations or activities that may be prohibited altogether. It is not limited to those that are the outcome of a franchise. It extends to vocations or activities pursued as of common right."

Employment is a business relation, if not itself a business. It is a relation without which business could seldom be carried on effectively. The power to tax the activities and relations that constitute a calling considered as a unit is the power to tax any of them. The whole includes the parts. Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U.S. 249, 267 , 268 S., 53 S.Ct. 345, 349, 350, 87 A.L.R. 1191

United States v. Melton, No. 94-5535 (4th Cir. 1996)
ARGUED: Lowell Harrison Becraft, Jr.[one of Schulz & Co. legal beagles], Huntsville, Alabama, for Appellants.

The jury heard not only the United States's evidence against the Meltons, but also the brothers' defense that they believed they were not "persons liable" for federal income tax. The jury rejected the excuse, however, and convicted them on nearly all counts.

[Subtitle A] "Section 1 of the Internal Revenue Code imposes a federal tax on the taxable income of every individual.
26 U.S.C. s 1."

[Subtitle A] "Section 63 defines "taxable income" as gross income minus allowable deductions."
26 U.S.C. s 63.

[Subtitle A] Section 61 states that "gross income means all income from whatever source derived," including compensation for services.
26 U.S.C. s 61.

[Subtitle F] Sections 6001 and 6011 provide that a person must keep records and file a tax return for any tax for which he is liable.
26 U.S.C. ss 6001
26 U.S.C. ss 6011.

Finally, section 6012 provides that every individual having gross income that equals or exceeds the exemption amount in a taxable year shall file an income tax return.
26 U.S.C. s 6012.

The duty to pay federal income taxes therefore is "manifest on the face of the statutes, without any resort to IRS rules, forms or regulations." United States v. Bowers, 920 F.2d 220, 222 (4th Cir.1990). The rarely recognized proposition that, "where the law is vague or highly debatable, a defendant--actually or imputedly--lacks the requisite intent to violate it," Mallas, 762 F.2d at 363 (quoting United States v. Critzer, 498 F.2d 1160, 1162 (4th Cir.1974)), simply does not apply here.
Each Melton brother had gross income in excess of the amount requiring the filing of a return in each of the years at issue. Therefore, each was a "person liable."

Sure, sure, you are just like the politicians you vote for. Lots of talk, but when it really comes down to it, you are happy they way things are.

I think you have me confused with someone else. In any case, I'm all ears to hear your plan for change. How do you intend to effect your agenda? Be as specific as possible, plaease.

plaease = please

And these are the guys pretending that they're channeling the drafters of the Constitution, and know better than anybody else what the document says? Bwahahahahahaha.

Most militia's in my most humble opinion are simply Patriots willing to fight for & if need be die for our country & our way of life. There are those however that are sure enough extremist/anarchists with a bloodthristy desire to kill & destroy our government. I stand by my earlier comment, however I am optomistic that it can be rectified by political means. I love my country & have faith in it, only time will tell but I am truly ticked off by what they do with our money & how much of they take.

Actually, it was the antics of poorly groomed, toothless, camo wearing rednecks with an agenda of social disruption that turned most of America against the militias.

And if I hurt anybody's feelings, I meant to.

In their case, "fringe" describes not only what must NOT be on a US flag, but their grasp of the law as well.

In their case, "fringe" describes not only what must NOT be on a US flag, but their grasp of the law as well.

BWAHAHAHA!

That brought me a pretty damn great guffaw.

"I think you have me confused with someone else. In any case, I'm all ears to hear your plan for change. "

Hah!!! you think I am going to tell our secret plans to the enemy? lol..just kidding.

Truth is, I don't know yet. I will have to see how things go. All is not lost, for every negative development there are positive ones too. In the mean time I will support anyone who challenges the governmental misuse its constitutionally mandated powers. I will argue with people like you who seem to think its impolite or extreme to demand our politicians stop abusing their power.

If the whole situation gets out of hand I will vote with my feet, as in, outa here. Youse guys will have one less Patsy to shake down. I am not much of the armed rebellion type. If the majority of this country wants to vote away all their freedoms, who am I to say no?

In the mean time I will continue to fight for the constitution.

Something is bubbling right beneath the surface as of late here at FR.

No mercy.
Coming soon: Tha SYNDICATE.
101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that Internet Explorer cannot.

I object to associating conservatives to these idiots.

Something is bubbling right beneath the surface as of late here at FR.

Yup. Some's trying to Delphi us.

"And if I hurt anybody's feelings, I meant to."

Good for you. It's about time someone decided to quit being a wuss and worring about everyones "feelings" all the time in this country!

Wanna join my milita? Camo is mandatory, but you can comb your hair and go to the Dentist if you like?

Actually, it was the antics of poorly groomed, toothless, camo wearing rednecks with an agenda of social disruption that turned most of America against the militias.

That is, no doubt, the picture the mainstream media presented, and it supported the Clinton agenda perfectly. Even Bob Dornan bought into their propaganda, stating that the militia was the National Guard (I suspect his statement, in part, cost him his congressional seat). If the media had been honest, it would have instructed the people that the true militia is comprised of all citizens above a certain age, and that those citizens have both the right and the duty to be armed in case their services are needed to defend their state or nation, or to combat tyranny within their state or nation.

You have to work within the system and pay your taxes unless you are an illegal immigrant, right? Or is it just inevitable that people will not go along with a heavy handed tax system as the IRS and we should just acknowlegde the huge failure and destruction such a system has brought upon us and come up with something a little more in the spirit of the constitution?

Even Bob Dornan bought into their propaganda, stating that the militia was the National Guard (I suspect his statement, in part, cost him his congressional seat).

Wrong. Bob Dornan's seat was in a majority Democrat district. He had to campaign hard every two years to get re-elected. He decided to run for President, stayed in the race well after it was clear Bob Dole was going to win the nomination, and ignored his Congressional district until it was too late.

As for the rest of your post: CP was referring to the groups that call themselves "militias," not the militia at large--and you knew exactly what he was referring to, as well. BTW, I'll bet you can't explain why these so-called "militias" are grossly violating the Constitution.