Shock: IRS says 16th Amendment was Ratified

[TomCollins]

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The Supreme Court decided that the 16th Amendment is constitutional? How could a constitutional amendment possibly be unconstitutional?

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Not addressing this 16th Amendment issue specifically, but...there was another thread not too long ago where this sort of reasoning was put forth and, I believe, deflated, because...a law is constitutional or unconstitutional based upon merit, not on what the U.S. Supreme Court decides. SCOTUS is the final arbiter but that doesn't mean SCOTUS has to be correct. SCOTUS has reversed position on some matters although the law itself did not change. I forget the thread but it was an interesting discussion, and I believe the poster known as "She" cited and supported reasoning much better than I have done here, if you might care to look it up. SCOTUS deciding a law is constitutional doesn't make the law constitutional; it just means that that law has to be legally accepted as constitutional (for now).

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I agree with this. My point is just that all constitutional amendments must be constitutional by definition.

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This is incorrect. The 18th Amendment is Unconstitutional currently.

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Well, it's true that the Supreme court has reversed itself without the law changing. Brown vs. the Board of education is a classic example, where the court reversed its previous decision that separate but equal schools were constitutional and that schools could not segregate based on race.

However, as a practical matter, the Supreme Court's decisions are what count. For example, I think DUI checkpoints -- I'm talking about the kind where the cops set up a roadblock and check everybody -- are a clear violation of the 4th amendment. However, the Supreme Court has ruled otherwise, so if I am driving on a road where one of these is set up, I'm still going to have to show my drivers license and have the cop look at my eyes, smell my breath, etc.

[CORed]

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The bottom line is, if you intentionally don't pay your taxes and get caught, you are going to go to prison.

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This just isn't true. A doctor my dad works with, he didn't pays his taxes for like 6 years. The IRS hits him with an audit. He gets his tax lawyer and pays the IRS.

The goofy part is that he ended up paying less than if he would have been filing all along.

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Well, okay, but the doctor handled it intelligently. He hired a lawyer and worked out a settlement. My guess is that if he had gone into court and argued that he didn't have to pay because Ohio wasn't really a state when it ratified the 16th amendment, or some other silly tax protester argument, he would have gone to prison.

[DVaut1]

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The Supreme Court decided that the 16th Amendment is constitutional? How could a constitutional amendment possibly be unconstitutional?

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Not addressing this 16th Amendment issue specifically, but...there was another thread not too long ago where this sort of reasoning was put forth and, I believe, deflated, because...a law is constitutional or unconstitutional based upon merit, not on what the U.S. Supreme Court decides.

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Not only that, but nowhere in the Constitution is the Supreme Court or any other part of the federal government given the power to decide what is and is not constitutional, therefore by the Tenth Amendment the power rests with the states and the people.

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Does your copy of the Constitution not include Article III, Section 2? This argument was settled almost 200 years ago in Marbury v Madison. Arguments about how the Supreme Court doesn't have the authority to decide what's Constitutional are about as specious as the ones which claim the 16th Amendment was never ratified.

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I'm not a big fan of the income tax, but all of the tax protesters' goofy arguments about why you don't really have to pay income tax never cease to amaze and amuse me. The bottom line is, if you intentionally don't pay your taxes and get caught, you are going to go to prison. Your personal opinion of whether the 16th amendment was properly ratified, or that "voluntary compliance" means that you don't have to pay if you don't want to is not going to help. Federal judges know where their salary comes from and with decades of precedents behind them, the chance that any of them are going to buy into the latest tinfoil hat legal theory and overturn the whole federal tax system is approximately the same as your chance of winning two consecutive Powerball lotteries.

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Even ignoring the 16th amendment most Americans still don't have to pay the income tax. The reason they do is misinformation and fear.

See: Sub-chapter N, Section 861 of th tax code.

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Good luck with that. I hope your cellmate doesn't get too "friendly".

[DVaut1]

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Well, it's true that the Supreme court has reversed itself without the law changing. Brown vs. the Board of education is a classic example, where the court reversed its previous decision that separate but equal schools were constitutional and that schools could not segregate based on race.

However, as a practical matter, the Supreme Court's decisions are what count. For example, I think DUI checkpoints -- I'm talking about the kind where the cops set up a roadblock and check everybody -- are a clear violation of the 4th amendment. However, the Supreme Court has ruled otherwise, so if I am driving on a road where one of these is set up, I'm still going to have to show my drivers license and have the cop look at my eyes, smell my breath, etc.

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This was explained no less than 10 times to John Kilduff in the thread linked below, but since he claims that argument was "deflated" here in this thread, my suspicion is he didn't quite understand:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...part=1&vc=1

Not only will you have to show your drivers license and have your breath checked -- if you get convicted of a DUI, the conviction is going to get upheld. And your appeals about how that police action is unconstitutional will fail. This isn't all that hard to understand, so I'm not quite sure why there are some posters here who willfully (if not gleefully) detach themselves from reality and claim otherwise.

It doesn't matter what I think is Constitutional; it doesn't matter what you think, or AlexM thinks; it doesn't matter what the John Birch Society thinks, or the ACLU. The only opinion that matters is the federal courts.

[John Kilduff]

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Well, it's true that the Supreme court has reversed itself without the law changing. Brown vs. the Board of education is a classic example, where the court reversed its previous decision that separate but equal schools were constitutional and that schools could not segregate based on race.

However, as a practical matter, the Supreme Court's decisions are what count. For example, I think DUI checkpoints -- I'm talking about the kind where the cops set up a roadblock and check everybody -- are a clear violation of the 4th amendment. However, the Supreme Court has ruled otherwise, so if I am driving on a road where one of these is set up, I'm still going to have to show my drivers license and have the cop look at my eyes, smell my breath, etc.

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This was explained no less than 10 times to John Kilduff in the thread linked below, but since he claims that argument was "deflated" here in this thread, my suspicion is he didn't quite understand:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...part=1&vc=1

Not only will you have to show your drivers license and have your breath checked -- if you get convicted of a DUI, the conviction is going to get upheld. And your appeals about how that police action is unconstitutional will fail. This isn't all that hard to understand, so I'm not quite sure why there are some posters here who willfully (if not gleefully) detach themselves from reality and claim otherwise.

It doesn't matter what I think is Constitutional; it doesn't matter what you think, or AlexM thinks; it doesn't matter what the John Birch Society thinks, or the ACLU. The only opinion that matters is the federal courts.

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I think you still don't perceive where I'm coming from on this.

I'm not questioning the authority of the federal courts to make that ruling. I'm not saying their rulings don't carry the force of law. I'm not saying such a DUI defense will stand up in court.

I'm saying their rulings don't MAKE something constitutional or unconstitutional. We must abide by their decisions but their decisions don't invent the constitution, or change whether something is in accord with the constitution or not. Their rulings interpret and carry the force of law but that is different than saying that their rulings MAKE something constitutional or not. Whether something is constitutional or not exists as a fact regardless of their decision; see the citation from American Jurisprudence posted by She. If SCOTUS later reverse its decision, what changed? The underlying constitutionality of the thing? No, what changed was their decision and interpretation, not the constitution itself. Therefore SCOTUS rules on the constitutionality and their rulings determine what we must accept as legal, but their rulings do not MAKE or INVENT constitutionality. If you don't follow or understand what I am trying to say, I guess I don't see much point in discussing it further. SCOTUS decisions *determine* constitutionality; SCOTUS decisions do not *make* constitutionality. Can you see the difference or not?

[bobman0330]

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See edit, forgot it before [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
Actually, I found a video which explains it rather well (but is somewhat boring because there's not the MM kind of hype):
Why you probably don't have to pay the income tax

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OK, I actually watched almost half an hour of this, enough to hear his 861 argument. It's bunk. 861 is intended to deal with source issues. There are more specific (and inconsistent) provisions in subchapter A. The Constitutional arguments he makes are just dumb.

[Mr. Now]

The 16th is not the culprit; it is the 14th which created the Federal citizen.

That amendment is not properly ratified.

See it here:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitut...ndmentxiv.html


And here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourtee...s_Constitution
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Controversy over ratification

A number of individuals argue that the ratification of the 14th Amendment violated Article V of the Constitution. For instance, Bruce Ackerman argues that:

* The 14th Amendment was proposed by a rump Congress that did not include representatives and senators from most ex-Confederate states, and, had those congressmen been present, the Amendment would never have passed.
* Ex-Confederate states were counted for Article V purposes of ratification, but were not counted for Article I purposes of representation in Congress.
* The ratifications of the ex-Confederate states were not truly free, but were coerced. For instance, many ex-Confederate states had their readmittance to the Union conditioned on ratifying the 14th Amendment.[5]


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What's that smell?

Some USA-born Afro-Americans argue, perhaps correctly, that they never agreed to Federal citizenship and therefore are not required to pay.