Shock: IRS says 16th Amendment was Ratified

[The Truth]

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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.

[ShakeZula06]

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News Flash:

The 16th Amendment was ratified and is in the Constitution.


In other news:

Gravity still in effect, sky still blue.


We now return you to 5 radical right-wingers spamming the usual meritless nonsense.


q/q

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Nothing of substance as usual.

[John Kilduff]

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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).

I hope this makes sense and that it addresses the question you were asking. By the way, I have no opinion on the constitutionality or otherwise of the 16th Amendment, as I am not informed on that particular issue or debate.

edit: I just looked it up in Search. The thread was "GOD and the U.S. government". This is from that thread, with embedded quotes, in the post by "She":

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I'm saying the question of whether or not it's "incorrectly decided" isn't relevant to the question Constitutionality.

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This doesn't make sense. If the court incorrectly decides an activity is constitutional, how can it be constitutional? Either the court is not incorrect or the activity is not constitutional.

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A little late to bump this thread, but I just came across this and thought it satisfy. (She)


"The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted. "

Sixteenth American Jurisprudence
Second Edition, 1998 version, Section 203 (formerly Section 256)

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[AlexM]

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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.

[NickMPK]

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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.

[Copernicus]

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

[/ QUOTE ]

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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The issue isnt whether 16 was "constitutional". The issue is whether it was legally ratified because Ohio technically wasn't a state. The arguments are convoluted and ridiculous.

[bobman0330]

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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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If I'm not mistaken, the tax protester argument is that there were procedural deficiencies with the 16th Amendment. So the argument isn't that the amendment is unconstitutional, it's that it's not an amendment at all.

[clowntable]

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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.

[Brainwalter]

Can you elaborate on why clown?

[clowntable]

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