Saturday, March 31, 2012




A Tax Honesty Primer
Introduction
[Original Mar 2, 2004...latest update Jan 18, 2020]


[For the free PDF edition, CLICK HERE.]  [For the paperback from Amazon, CLICK HERE.]


I've been a law-abiding Nontaxpayer for over 24 years. I don't fear my employees at the IRS.

This is neither legal nor tax advice; Americans have the God-given right called freedom of speech. Neither corrupt government nor collusive 'tax professionals' can stop us from speaking, or thinking. This site does not incite law-breaking, violence, or even tar-and-feathers for thieves in Congress or their bag-men at IRS.

Congress has long cultivated the IRS to be a lawless, unethical, highly politicized terror agency, as May 2013 news stories reveal. On June 13, 2013 a member of Congress, which is the IRS's employer, is suddenly questioning what its gunmen are doing, practicing with AR-15 rifles.  See the article HERE

Per Section 7608(a)(1) of the Code, only those IRS operatives engaged in enforcement of Subtitle E (alcohol, tobacco, firearms) are authorized by law to carry any kind of firearm.  Hitler's Gestapo could not have done a more preposterous job of probing into Americans' private lives, communications -- even their private thoughts and intentions! -- as IRS has done in this latest round of scandals in 2015-16.  Meanwhile, these criminal operatives party hearty at Taxpayer expense.

[Don't take my word for it; watch a video HERE of Tax Honesty spokesman Joe Banister, former IRS Criminal Investigation Division Special Agent at the 2012 Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, explaining to fellow law enforcement personnel how corrupt the Congress' IRS scam is.]

[Or go to the website of Christian mom, author, and former IRS Fraud Examiner Sherry Peel Jackson, who served 2.5 years in prison for blowing the whistle on the criminal nature of the IRS. www.sherrypeeljackson.org ]

This primer is long. I haven't had time to edit this as well as I'd like. but I do attempt to improve and shorten it at every opportunity.  Some subjects in life can't be conveyed in sound bites; if you're not a reader, take it in installments.

If reading just isn't your cup of tea, go watch television and stay in the 'fair share' line.  But don't complain about America becoming the next Russia; it's YOUR fault for financially supporting it, in ignorance.

This Tax Honesty Primer is for Americans like me, who are as mad as hell at the corrupt, brazen Washington D.C. al Qaeda that believes they can do whatever they please no matter how unconstitutional (i.e., ILLEGAL) and yet coerce Taxpayers to keep pulling the load like stupid oxen. You're not an ox; even if you graduated from government schools, you have a brain. It's not illegal to use it.

It doesn't take that many courageous, self-governing citizens to turn the tide of history, even if most people are afraid of their employees in Washington. At least in my own family life and finances, I have worked hard and studied long, to have the liberty that was once America's promise. I live in greater liberty than my grandparents knew. The Internet is the great leveler against corrupt, powerful people who have enslaved working citizens for many generations. The law is on the side of right - on OUR side.

When government becomes as massive and corrupt as Washington D.C. is, the last thing we need is lawless people as a counter-punch; we need rule of law for everyone. If you read this primer, I hope you'll agree to make honesty your personal goal. I've read the Tax Code and cases for 25 years, more than four times as long as I studied engineering at university. Two years into my due diligence, I stopped keeping records, filing, and fearing my employees.

For 24 years, I haven't financially supported criminals. I don't worry about today's news cycles or political fights because I don't have a dog in that fight anymore; I don't allow Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Barry Obama, Harry Reid, John Boehner and other corrupt scum to skim my checks for their illicit uses.

If you're still trapped in the 'fair share' (of gang rape) line, still getting your reaming every paycheck, then you may hold it against me. Please don't. Like millions of non-filers who are law-abiding Nontaxpayers, I'm happy and relieved that for over two decades I haven't been underwriting socialist, illegal federal projects, agencies, offices, powers, programs, perks, pork, and regulations...all the things that have Taxpayers wrapped in chains.

Face it: you're paying for your own chains, and you haven't done your homework. Before America becomes the next Red China, why not start doing your due diligence as an American?

A succession of presidents and congresses has made a mockery of what America and liberty once meant. The corruption is defended by most federal judges in America, but it's still corruption. I believe every American must begin to stand against the corruption, and that each citizen has to be convinced of the rightness of his own actions.

As you'll soon see, I also think the vast preponderance of the law is on the side of Tax Honesty, and always has been. You've just been ignorant (not stupid, just uninformed), so you've been snookered. Every paycheck.

Tax Honesty has a larger purpose than just allowing us to keep more of what we earn. Congress didn't use magic to increase the size and powers of federal Leviathan by over 1000% in just three generations.

Compare the incredibly long list of hundreds upon hundreds of departments, powers, agencies, bureaus, and projects that Congress has created, compared to the 17 enumerated, specific powers we granted our federal creature in the Constitution.  It's a malignant, never-ending cancer.

As illustrated from the OMB's federal budgets, about 75% of federal expenditures are illegal. This means these funds are going to things that are not even reasonably inferred from those 17 enumerated powers. Illegal. For almost 150 years, Congress has become increasingly like every other government on earth: a shakedown and extortion racket.

Still, the problem is created not by the Taxspenders, but by the Taxpayers. Think about any spoiled brat you ever encountered; the kid is a piece of work, right? But the parents are to blame. That huge, out-of-control government that millions of us love to complain about only exists today because Taxpayers keep sending in trillions!

Legal or illegal expenditures, it doesn't matter; the bureaucrats and terrorists spend it this year, or their department gets less next year. This is the way of all government personnel and programs (yes, even the bloated, bureaucratic, corrupt military machine that President Eisenhower warned us about in 1961). Taxpayers are funding HUGE violations of the Constitution; they need to STOP it.

Please stop listening to the phony-baloney, plastic-banana WWF matches that comprise today's news cycles (with the exception of some FOX programming). This political theatre is meant to keep you confused and/or asleep. I include most GOP jingos in that assessment (i.e., Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity) and certainly any 'financial peace' expert who teaches you how to save $395 while letting you continue to be bamboozled by the IRS scam for tens of thousands per year.

None of these people will speak plainly about truth, nor will they perform due diligence to report truth. The real game: those $3,900,000,000,000 need to keep gushing in every year, skimmed off your paychecks. The bad guys want to keep spending and living as they do now, or even better. If you don't like carrying the load, that's tough. "It's the law", says your CPA...and the 'financial peace' gurus.

Yet every one of them has been sent irrefutable evidence similar to what you'll read here. They simply don't want to spoil their great gigs...even preachers of 'financial peace' refuse to do what Joe Banister and other former IRS whistle-blowers have done: tell the truth about the largest terror operation in America, sponsored by the U.S. Congress.

Though they aren't necessarily like him morally, in one sense these 'consultants' are like Bernie Madoff: their income derives from your unwillingness to do your homework. Even if they manage to get free of deep debt, most Americans continue to believe Congress' IRS scam all their lives...without ever cracking open a Tax Code.

This is human nature; cause-and-effect. Read Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament; they didn't just come up with this at Tammany Hall or in FDR's "New Deal" era. Corruption is as old as mankind.

Setting aside theories for or against paying "your fair share", bloated government and corruption are guaranteed as long as Taxpayers keep letting their checks get skimmed by people who lie for a living.

Earth's Largest Crime Cartel

"Silence can only be equated with fraud where there is a legal or moral duty to speak, or where an inquiry left unanswered would be intentionally misleading. . . We cannot condone this shocking behavior by the IRS. Our revenue system is based on the good faith of the taxpayer and the taxpayers should be able to expect the same from the government in its enforcement and collection activities." U.S. v. Tweel, 550 F.2d 297, 299. See also U.S. v. Prudden, 424 F.2d 1021, 1032; Carmine v. Bowen, 64 A. 932.

Forget the War on Drugs; D.C. is earth's largest crime cartel. In cash equivalent and corrupting power, the present federal revenues take equals over 11,000 major drug cartels operating inside the D.C. beltway. Let that sink in! Yet, for over two decades I haven't been financially supporting the cartel. Not anymore. After I proved to myself that the Tax Code is perfectly constitutional, I had no problem with the Tax Code. I obey it, but I don't let scammers skim my checks.

Admittedly, being a Texan (no state income tax) and being self-employed, this is much easier for me than for some. But truth is still truth; the law applies equally to every citizen who fights for equal protection under the laws. This is America, not Mexico or China. This primer will explain what I have researched and discovered about Congress' taxation scheme.

You'll see why I came to the conclusions I came to, and why the IRS hasn't touched one dollar in my accounts or one hair on my head in 24 years although I was very vocal with them by certified mail for over a decade (they've been quiet for 14 years now).

IRS Practices Evasion Every Day

I've made enough every year to be a Taxpayer if I wanted to be, but the law doesn't require it of me, so I’m a law-abiding Nontaxpayer. I've owned marked-up copies of the Tax Code, and have enjoyed studying tax law and history for 26 years, since two years before I stopped filing.

I haven't filed IRS forms or paid income taxes in 24 years, after getting nothing but Tax Honesty evasion from the following among our employees at IRS:

- Michael Thomas (IRS Austin)
- Nancy Sessions (IRS Austin)
- Beverly Coogan (IRS San Antonio)
- Aaron Hamor (IRS San Antonio)
- R.A. Mitchell (IRS Dallas)
- C. Sherwood (IRS Dallas)
- Grace Metro (IRS Dallas)
- Debra K. Hurst (IRS Dallas)
- Dennis Parizek (IRS Ogden)
- Deborah Egan (IRS Ogden)
- Susan Meredith (IRS Fresno)
- Teresa Webb (IRS Memphis)
- Stephanie Borop (IRS Nashville)
- Queen Vaughn (IRS Nashville).

I wrote to them, always by certified mail, asking: "Where is the section of law making me legally liable for keeping records, filing returns, and paying your demands? Some things are called out as taxable activities in the Tax Code; in fact, many activities. But most aren't...including my line of work. So can you show me where the law creates a liability for my own kind of gainful activity, as it does for all those others?"

If you ask such a question, don't hold your breath waiting for an answer. Just like their bosses, my members of Congress whom I contacted, all the IRS operatives listed above have engaged in willful tax honesty evasion, sending one of two bogus non-responses: 1) "we haven't finished our research; we'll get back to you", or 2) "we forwarded your request to the office shown below".

Remember that game from the playground? Hot Potato. In law enforcement, it’s called fraud and conspiracy. I refuse to finance more corruption by letting Congress skim my checks. After a decade of being very vocal with them on this point, D.C. al Qaeda has never touched me, my money, or my property.

[They have, however, committed indictable, criminal acts of fraud according to the Texas Penal Code. I'll tell you about that later. Let's go one step at a time.]

Some People ARE Made Liable in the Code

Notice I'm not suggesting that there's no law making anyone liable for income tax. Reading the Tax Code, I can find sections that require a person to keep certain records, file certain forms, etc....IF they live and/or work in D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico, or the Northern Mariana Islands. Or if they're involved in manufacture or sale of alcohol, tobacco, or firearms.

Or if they're an officer or employee of the federal government. Or if they're a nonresident alien or a principal of a foreign corporation with income derived from sources within the United States. ...or IF they receive items of taxable income from foreign sources...or foreign mineral income... or income from foreign oil and gas extraction...or income from a foreign controlled corporation as fiduciary agent of the corporation, or from insuring U.S. risks under 26 U.S.C. 953(b)(5). Or...heh...if they receive items of income from maritime (international) trade in opium, cocaine or other controlled substances. [Who the heck would report activities like that?]

Anyway, my point is that Tax Honesty does not maintain that “there's no law!” as some like to caricature Tax Honesty. I simply say that the Tax Code is very specific, and that I do OBEY it, and that I try to make our federal employees obey it also. They use scary letterhead with a little black vulture on it, but letterhead doesn't usually frighten a person who has a copy of the Tax Code in hand, and knows how to read the English language.

How Did Income Taxes Spring Up in One Generation?

Phil Hart's book outlining the history of Congress' IRS scam explains it.  The 16th Amendment was passed in 1913, yet it took a generation for most Americans to be snookered into believing it was their civic duty to fund a RICO scam. Also see the Donald Duck article at the bottom of this blog, to see that Amity Schlaes concluded the same thing in her book The Greedy Hand.

It seemed odd to me: although the tax industry apologists and gurus love to claim that the 16th Amendment made everyone liable, the history of tax revenue numbers don't support that assertion. What happened? An entire generation passed before Congress, the tax industry, and government schooling could flummox the whole productive population. If you read Phil Hart's book you'll be blood-spittingly furious at the U.S. Congress...and at every tax accountant and attorney you know.

If you read the other books that I list at the end of this Primer, and especially if you become an AmericaAgain! member or supporter, you'll be doing something about all this criminal activity in Congress.

The AmericaAgain! Mechanism

The federal government can lawfully exercise only the 17 powers specifically enumerated to it in Article I Section 8. This is the most basic American civics. To exercise its lawful powers, Congress must collect taxes, fine; we agree. But depending on how fat an imperial ‘force projection’ military one assumes, the total LAWFUL powers of federal government would require $400-$800 billion annually to fund. Yet, Congress is now collecting over $2.9 TRILLION annually, with about half a  trillion of that being taken from individuals as income taxes.

So before listening to guru sites like 'Quatloos' assertions about Tax Honesty proponents being cheaters, liars, and crooks -- you should consider the prior question: who is committing real crimes here? Before asking whether it's illegal or immoral for an individual to refuse to pay tribute to the IRS – first ask, what is Congress doing with the funds that it already collects?

Based on the black-letter U.S. Constitution, about 75% of the powers that federal government currently exercises is illegal according to Article I Section 8.  Why should citizens give them even more?

To put it another way: If every Taxpayer – even those relative few who engage in taxable activities stipulated in the Tax Code – stopped paying income taxes tomorrow, the federal government would STILL be collecting three times the revenues required to fund the LAWFUL activities of federal government according to the Constitution, which is the highest law in America.

In other words, Congress is running a $2.9 trillion per year crime cartel, yet the defenders of today's tax industry scam want you to believe that law-abiding Nontaxpayers are the real criminals, refusing to give the tax industry mafia a few thousand dollars more each year to feed their habit.

There's an even more sinister aspect to Congress' organized crime activity.  Congress owes $160 trillion in unfunded liabilities (like a credit card bill) for its illegal socialist activities such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Federal Unemployment Compensation, and prescription drugs -- not to mention interest on the national debt and past war expenditures.

If Congress decided to tax 100% of everything we make while ending all government operations -- magically applying the entire U.S. Gross Domestic Product to paying off Congress' debt -- it would still take over eight years to pay off that debt. 

Of course that will never happen. Using its FED printing cartel, Congress has already demonstrated how it intends to kick the can down the road and over the cliff.  It will keep printing worthless Monopoly money until someone blows the whistle on the largest financial fraud in history.

Far beyond Tax Honesty, the American people require a law enforcement mechanism to assure that members of Congress will not continue to flaunt the Supreme Law as though it is just a quaint anachronism and an occasional nuisance. The U.S. Constitution is the highest law in America, and the law must be obeyed.

It is the right and solemn duty of the People to assure that the federal government obeys it, by having the Courts of the sovereign States enforce its terms on individual members of Congress. This is the purpose of the planned AmericaAgain! Indictment Engine (TM).  You can learn more at the TACTICAL CIVICS™ site.

Tax Honesty is not a 'position', theory, or belief

Every critical point I make in A Tax Honesty Primer is a citation of primary sources: the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court, citations from the Internal Revenue Code, Code of Federal Regulations, Internal Revenue Manual, Black's Law Dictionary, and Sutherland's Rules of Statutory Construction.

You won't find any theories or my 'beliefs' in this Tax Honesty Primer. You'll find citations of those authorities listed above, and also names and an on-the-record statement from former IRS agents, attorneys, auditors, an IRS Commissioner, and the only official Historian of the IRS in the agency's history.

A few housekeeping points

Before we go into the red-pill adventure in the Tax Code, cases, and supporting evidence and rulings I’ll chase off cockroaches and lazy web-surfers with a few points of housekeeping:

Point #1
Tax Honesty is the opposite of 'tax protesting'; it is responsible citizenship. It's neither anti-government nor anti-tax; rather, Tax Honesty is anti-corruption and anti-terrorist.

Point #2
As a corollary to Point #1, we all agree that lawful taxation is necessary to fund the lawful functions of government.

Point #3
Tax-theory gurus will keep being convicted for selling loopy theories, but Tax Honesty doesn’t support tax-protest theories, theories about the 16th Amendment, theories like "wages aren't income", or 5th-Amendment rights theories. Nontaxpayers must not take "positions" or seek to do away with the Tax Code or the IRS. As I see it, Tax Honesty supports the Federal Tax Code as written.

Point #4
You can find in-depth treatment of specific issues at the links. WhatIsTaxed focuses on data mining the Tax Code and federal regulations; Synaptic Sparks explains the legal principles of Tax Honesty.

Point #5
If you work in the tax industry (government or private-sector) and want to leave the Axis of Evil, I'm happy to answer your e-mails but don't e-mail to debate me. You’re defending a scam and I took the red pill. Go pound sand.

Your threat "I'll visit you in prison!" is ludicrous; of 67 million non-filers, fewer than 250 are even recommended for indictment by IRS annually and they’re people who: 1) demand refunds, 2) file and sign things but then refuse to pay, or 3) follow wacky theories.

IRS recommends eight times as many filers for indictment each year, as non-filers. So with 67 million non-filers to 115 million filers, that means you’ll visit four of your filer friends in prison before you visit one non-filer like me there. Learn how your profession has slumped towards Gomorrah in Mike Brewster’s book Unaccountable: How the Accounting Profession Forfeited a Public Trust.

If you intend to continue holding clients down while IRS does bad things to them, don't delude yourself that you're an honest professional performing a needed service. That’s baloney.

The annual Tax Terror Season

If you’re still a Taxpayer, you’re terrorized by your employees at IRS because they drag out a few high-profile ‘tax cheat’ trophies every Tax Terror Season (Jan 1- Apr 15). It’s the same idea your CPA or tax preparer uses when they repeat the "death and taxes" line; the tax industry plays good cop to IRS’s bad cop. Your Taxpayer heart pounds, you borrow the money for the next IRS payment, your CPA makes his Bentley payment, and you trudge ahead in the ‘fair share’ line.

Dinosaur government and 'tax professionals' in the tar pit

According to a former IRS Fraud Examiner (later Tax Honesty spokeswoman), there were 67 million non-filers as of 2005 compared with ‘only’ 30 million non-filers by Commissioner Rosotti’s 1998 estimate.

That's an astounding growth rate. With an estimated 124 million filers, this means that at least one in three Americans is no longer underwriting the corrupt Congress’ bailout and check-skimming machine.

As James Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg predicted ten years ago in their book The Sovereign Individual -- the internet is making bureaucratic, redistributionist governments unsustainable; the dinosaurs are in the tar-pit. Today’s financial news signifies the struggle for survival between Taxpayers and Taxspenders; this battle is reaching critical mass in The Age of Obama.

In the Bush II era, we saw textbook fascism: massive expansion of the police state and military, restrictions on liberty of travel, eavesdropping on our calls and emails, and more. During the 8-year Obamanation, we saw textbook communism: destruction of private property, nationalization of major industries, and crippling new regulation and taxation to make the slaves pay for their own chains.

With open communism returning to Congress now (as in the 1930s), this is a critical phase in modern history: the D.C. al Qaeda will attempt to stay alive and grow like cancer into every area of life where it doesn't already control.

Even as tens of millions of Americans become Nontaxpayers, millions of Taxpayers are going broke, live under IRS duress or 'payment plans', and curse life in America. Face it: this is just wrong. It's not only injustice; it's 'professionals' abetting corruption. These 'tax professionals' help the U.S. Congress obscure the real issues; they appeal to collusive federal judges' rulings about "frivolous tax protestors".

They know that, like those collusive judges, this is all about their careers continuing on your back. You are their pack-mule; their free lunch. Their next payment for the high-rise office, the Bentley payment...the Cancun condo. This isn't even about law for them; it's all about those trillions of dollars per year. Increasingly in the Age of Obamanation, Taxpayers realized this.

It's about time! Yes, something is happening in America -- and around the world. Pushback. Here in the American republic, the Ron Paul Revolution', TEA Party movement, heated battle about the government's socialist takeover of healthcare and 'legalizing' sexual perversion as 'marriage' -- and finally the election of Donald Trump -- are all facets of a trend against Leviathan.

The Internet is liberating citizens to dig up corruption; to unearth who did what in history. To bring the best lights we have to shine on the money-trail. The parasite sector will now be put on defense, at long last. They won't like it. Well, tough.

Since his election, Obama has made no attempt to hide his socialist plan. Buying and controlling corporate giants using your tax dollars whether you agree with socialism or not. We will see how much relief Trump actually delivers; presidents have great power for evil, but little power to make major improvements.

This Leviathan push will not abate on its own; every free-rider in every housing project, welfare line, illegal alien safe house, military retirement plan, legal and accounting office or seminar room, and in every congressman's and senator's lair, and every meeting of ACORN or MoveOn.org: these are the takers. Yes, even much of the huge, bloated American military machine; it's all about a cushy life at Taxpayer expense.

I think the poor Taxpayers are finally at the breaking point...and willing to do some homework. That's what this site is all about; my effort to help you avoid the loopy theorist sites form BOTH sides of the Tax Honesty war. Yes, this is a civil war of sorts; the fight for your checking account. You against them. Taxpayer against Taxspender, and all the shills of the Taxspender such as the tax preparation industry and academia. The American people must take a stand against out-of-control government.

No law makes most Americans liable for income tax

Does that statement sound unbelievable? It's been asserted and then proven beyond reasonable doubt to juries across America over two decades:

Thomas Reeves of Paducah, KY made the same assertion in 1988; the jury acquitted him. Franklin Sanders and (16) co-defendants in the Memphis area made the same assertion in 1991; the jury acquitted them. Gabriel Scott of Fairbanks, AK made the same assertion in 1992; the jury acquitted him. Lloyd Long of Chattanooga, TN made the same assertion in 1993; the jury acquitted him. Frederick and Christopher Allnut of Baltimore, MD made the same assertion in 1996; the jury acquitted them. Gaylon Harrell of Logan County, IL made the same assertion in 2000; the jury acquitted him. Donald Fecay of Detroit, MI made the same assertion in 2001; the jury acquitted him. Vernice Kuglin of Memphis, TN made the same assertion in 2003; the jury acquitted her. Dr. Lois Somerville of Lake Mary, FL made the same assertion in 2003; U.S. District Judge Patricia C. Fawsett acquitted her. Former Treasury Department CID agent Joe Banister made the same assertion in 2005; the jury acquitted him. Attorney Thomas Cryer of Shreveport, LA made the same assertion in 2007; the jury acquitted him.

Every case stands on its own fact situations, of course.  But a person also shouldn't listen to freeloaders who put a guilt trip on those who don't file, suggesting that "Nontaxpayers don't pay their 'fair share' for roads, schools, and trash pickup!" Learn what all those jurors learned: those things are not funded by federal tax revenues. You're being extorted and raped. Start reading!

Do you believe in the Tax Fairy?

The law and the IRS can be left exactly as they are, with just one simple change: IRS employees must obey the law and not commit fraud or extortion. As Taxpayers grow more disillusioned with the corruption and outright theft by government at every level, they are easy prey for the politicians’ pitch about a coming 'solution' that they call a 'Fair Tax'. Don't believe it! A national sales tax would carry America from the frying pan into the fire.

For powerful refutations of the Tax Fairy scam, see THIS article and THIS one.

America's Parasite Sector: IRS is the tip of the iceberg

Ask anyone who invested with Ponzi-scheme huckster Bernard Madoff: the very nature of sucessful fraud is that it does actually defraud. The mark actually believes the fraudster, sometimes for many years. So this will be weirder than hearing that your spouse of 25 years has been cheating on you since your wedding night...stranger than finding out that your best friend is an axe-murderer.

Cognitive dissonance is what happens when everything you ever knew about something is turned upside down. You may get a bit light-headed and confused; that's normal. When you start considering doing something about it, if you're not very courageous you may get anxiety attacks and lose sleep. That's normal too.

Upton Sinclair said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Your CPA may refuse to discuss Tax Honesty, threatening "I'll see you in prison!". He doesn't want his professional career exposed as corrupt; what do you expect him to say?

The defenders of "pay your taxes" are legion. Congress' IRS scam is almost impossible to expose because it feeds a massive parasite population that you've likely never considered. Most of us produce something of use to others, or we fix things, or grow things, or sell useful stuff. But today, there are literally tens of millions of parasite-sector Americans:

- corrupt politicians including federal judges
- their bloated staffs and other bureaucrats
- thousands of gov't contractors employing millions of Americans
- IRS employees
- large accounting firms and individual accountants
- tax law firms and their employees
- tax software companies
- tax training (seminar & publishing) companies
- tax preparation services
- university endowments in tax law & accounting
- tax-deferred investment groups
- tax-shelter mutual funds
- the tax shelter real estate sector
- equipment, vehicle, and aircraft leasing companies
- manufacturers and vendors of all depreciable equipment
- IRS 'workout' services that advertise "we're former IRS agents"
...and the two really big Kahunas:
- America's mortgage industry
- America's non-profit industry, religious and secular

Had you ever seen the connection to all those industries? Not likely. Now you know why you hear "pay your taxes" and "render unto Caesar" from counselors who've enjoyed great public trust and respect. If they run from Tax Honesty, you'll know they don't deserve that trust and respect. They've chosen a parasitic life.

In an interview in the May 25, 1956 issue of U.S. News & World Report, IRS Commissioner T. Coleman Andrews said, “There is a veritable army of people, organizations and businesses with a powerful vested interest in keeping the noses of the rest of us to the grindstone...let no one underestimate the power of the [tax industry].” There was one honest Commissioner of the IRS, anyway.

Loopy Tax Protestor Gurus vs. Crooked Tax Industry Gurus

Let me say again: this is not legal or tax advice. Learn as you read, and don't let this be all you read. Take everything with a grain of salt until you test statements against one another, and against the law as written.

With respect to the income tax, law means the actual words of the Tax Code; nothing else is law. Not an IRS letter or demand, and not an IRS pamphlet or flyer about "your rights as a Taxpayer". Those are P.R. eyewash from an administrative branch agency, the stimulus gang's bag men. IRS publications have ZERO legal weight.

Under our rule of law everyone – including IRS employees – must obey the law. Remember that next time your employees try to terrorize you. Incidentally, I also don't put much stock in 'tax protestor' theories and those who peddle them. As I did my research over the years, I found a great deal of hokum and snake-oil in the early Tax Honesty movement, what was probably accurately termed 'tax protesting'.

I found a gazillion theories: twisting some quote or ruling out of context...making up bizarre theories about capitalization...about admiralty law...about the UCC...about wages not being income...about U.S. citizenship being of the devil...about the 16th Amendment never being properly ratified (maybe not, but it's immaterial)...about the Tax Code being unconstitutional...about Section 861 being a secret silver bullet...blah blah. I'll stick to the law as written; the rulings that make sense in context.

I'll follow that money trail to see how Leviathan did what it has done. As an engineer, I like to see things make sense. You know...Occam's Razor and all that.

When you reach the citations of U.S. Supreme Court rulings below, and you're trying to decide who has more clout in the system, keep the following section of the Internal Revenue Manual in mind:

Internal Revenue Manual 4.10.7.2.9.8
Importance of Court Decisions

A case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court becomes the law of the land and takes precedence over decisions of lower courts. The Internal Revenue Service must follow Supreme Court decisions. For examiners, Supreme Court decisions have the same weight as the Code.

So, the U.S. Supreme Court trumps the IRS; remember that as you read this.

AAAaaaauuuuugh!! I can't find my socks!!!

Whether you're a filer or non-filer, you should own a current copy of the Tax Code. Don't waste hundreds of hours being dragged by the nose through Congress's maze of smoke and mirrors; instead, do as I did:

a) bought a copy of the latest IRC; I use Thomson Reuters' single-volume edition.
b) bought a highlighter and a set of color-coded plastic index tabs
c) went through the whole book and found only (124) lines in the 9,500-page Code that specifically indicate activities imposing a legal duty to keep records, file, and pay. I highlighted and tabbed those sections.

Don’t believe the tax industry line about how “huge and confusing” the Tax Code is. Baloney; they just want you to stay scared and confused.

Here's a fitting analogy. When Smith wants to buy some new socks from Sears, does he fall on the floor in a tearful heap wailing "AAAaaaauuuugh!! That confounded 10,000-page catalog!! No American can understand it!! Even the people who wrote it can't give me a straight answer!!! It's HUGE!! Waaaaaaaaaahh!!" ?

Of course not; that would be very silly. Smith just opens the catalog to the page for men's socks, orders what he needs, and treats the gazillions of other things in the huge catalog as if they don't exist. It's the same with laws, including the Tax Code. If a law doesn’t apply to who you are or what you do, then you can treat that law as though it doesn’t exist.

To put it another way: do you worry about not "obeying" Federal Aviation Regulations for Airframe & Powerplant Mechanics? No, unless you're an airframe and powerplant mechanic working on aircraft that fall within the regulatory aegis of the FAA. Every other American treats those federal codes as if they don't exist.

The same is true for federal laws and regulations concerning nuclear power plant operators, or producers of explosives or distillers and sellers of alcohol, or what-have you. If a law pertains to you, obey it; but you can safely ignore it if it doesn't pertain to you.

As you'll see the US Supreme Court ruling repeatedly below, and the Internal Revenue Manual demanding of every IRS employee below -- laws of taxation must be clear, and the person from whom a tax is sought must be shown in specific language to be taxable. Everyone else can just leave the big, fat book aside; it doesn't apply to them.

My CPAs over the years, if they had been competent and honest, should have known that it never had applied to me. But most in ‘the system’ won’t tell you that because they’re like nerds with pocket protectors standing in every aisle at Sears. Huge catalog in hand, their career is showing you what page to look on so you can buy your socks. If you figure out the game, they’re out of work.

Don’t expect them to support Tax Honesty. We’re all human. Even pirates need to eat.

Like all laws, the Tax Code applies only to certain subjects

As you’ll see presently, well-settled law including U.S. Supreme Court rulings over a century hold that when a tax law lists some things as taxable, then things NOT listed are NOT taxable. As I read the citations below, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, the law must specifically point out what activities and situations are taxable.

See if you agree: with your own copy of the law marked up to show specifically listed taxable activities, you can confirm what the Tax Code requires of a 'taxpayer'; who the law makes a 'taxpayer' -- versus what your CPA, H&R Block guy, an IRS employee, or tax dishonesty guru Dan Evans may claim. A common response from those in the system when Tax Honesty arises is, "render unto Caesar!”.

Really?  Obviously we’re not ancient Rome; Americans are not ruled by Caesars but by rule of law.  That means government is ruled by our federal and State Constitutions and We The People are ruled by all laws and regulations ONLY to the extent that they obey those constitutions!

The Internal Revenue Code (26 USC) is the codification of the statutes that establish a legal duty for certain people to keep records, file forms, and pay income tax...but only those people whose activities or situations meet the taxing provisions in the Code, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Black's Law Dictionary, and Sutherland's Rules of Statutory Construction (as you'll see, below).

Thus, a person who meets those Tax Code provisions specifically called out in law, but refuses to pay the taxes stipulated is properly called a tax evader. On the other hand, anyone not made liable in the specific language of the Tax Code is free to be a Nontaxpayer, legally free to ignore that law just as (s)he ignores all other law codes that don't apply to him or her.

IRS Whistleblowers

The Code of Ethics for Government Service requires any government employee or official who obtains evidence of a government violation of law to report the violation, not to cover it up or participate as a conspirator as IRS employees do every day.

A government official or employee who violates laws is not to be obeyed but reported for those violations and indicted where applicable. The IRS has had a few honest and courageous employees over the years.

In her sworn testimony before the Senate Finance Committee in 1997, Shelley L. Davis, the only official IRS Historian in the history of that agency, said the IRS is systemically lawless and corrupt.

Former IRS employees have learned the truth about Congress’ IRS scam, left the agency and are now spokesmen for Tax Honesty including Treasury and CID agent Joe Banister, IRS agents Clifton Beale and John Turner, IRS fraud examiner Sherry Jackson, IRS attorney Paul Chappell, and IRS auditor Matthew McErlean.

In the same 1956 interview for U.S. News & World Report, IRS Commissioner Andrews said, “I don't like the income tax...every time we talk about these taxes we get the idea of ‘from each according to his capacity and to each according to his needs.’ That's socialism! It's written into the Communist Manifesto...Maybe we ought to see that everybody who gets a tax return receives...a Communist Manifesto with it, so he can see what's happening to him."


The heart of the trap: “Everybody has to pay their taxes!”

I’m not a tax lawyer, CPA, tax accountant, nor do I offer legal or tax advice. I’m a follower of Christ first, a Texan second and an American third. We have the God-given right to speak about our rights and duties for self-government; the government and tax industry practitioners and terrorists can't restrict that right.

Perhaps your HR manager, CPA, or tax preparer has shown you the Tax Code section, “...every individual having for the taxable year...” and suggests that this means every person that makes money, saying everybody has to pay 'their taxes'.

Well, yes and no; it's an ambiguous statement. I do have to pay 'my taxes' if that means every sales tax, excise tax, property tax, import duty, etc... that I owe by law. But I don’t have to pay "my taxes" as defined by the fraudulent, mercenary tax industry, even if not found in law.

The tax industry and online gurus who inveigh against Tax Honesty love to peddle the lie that the Tax Code reads like the Revenue Act of 1894:

"There shall be assessed, levied, collected, and paid annually upon the gains, profits, and income received in the preceding calendar year by every citizen of the United States . . . from any profession, trade, employment, or vocation carried on in the United States or elsewhere, or from any other source whatsoever, a tax."

Can't be any more all-encompassing than that, right? If everybody just owed a tax, the whole Tax Code would always have been about half a page long, right? Everybody has to pay, period. No, that's an extortionist's lie.

As Phil Hart explains in his book, the present income tax scheme was devised by a very sneaky Congress after the Supreme Court ruled that the language above was unconstitutional (in fact, the court forced Congress to return what it had collected from the people under the 1894 act). To hide the truth -- very few occupations trigger a Tax Code liability section -- the crooks in Congress made the Tax Code increasingly large and complex.

Still, it appears to me that beneath those tens of thousands of pages of gobbledygook the Code is as it always was: very limited in its scope, just as the framers meant internal taxation to be. As the US Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled, it only applies to activities specifically called out in the law; to persons having taxable income. Persons made liable for an income tax in the Code; persons defined in Section 7701(a)14 as Taxpayers.

Are income taxes voluntary? An entrapment scheme?

How could so many people be so blind to fraud and theft of this magnitude? Well, in the first place, I began to realize (as I showed you) how many industries and careers are in cahoots pushing the propaganda. Parasites need to eat, just like productive people do.

The top ranks of media are in league with friends in Congress; the lower ranks are terrorised of being ruined by IRS. So it makes sense that a lot of people insist that everyone paying income taxes is a legal duty.

But some people maintain that "income taxes are voluntary", basing their theory on snippets of rulings like that in the 1960 Flora case:"Our system of taxation is based upon voluntary assessment and payment, not upon distraint.” Flora v. United States, 362 U.S. 176 (1960)

Wait a sec, now...what does that ruling mean? I think those who claim that all income tax is voluntary are reading too much into the Flora decision. Obviously, for anyone whose activities are specifically listed in the Tax Code, paying income taxes is not voluntary!

Still, I was flabbergasted when I realized what the court's ruling in Flora did mean: because I had no legal duty according to the Tax Code, for 20 years I really had been volunteering; self-assessing and signing up as 'taxpayer' just because I was defrauded and terrorized by Congress and the tax industry.

I have never engaged in any activity specifically called out in the Tax Code. I just volunteered out of ignorance and terror. Just as you have always done, right?

As I will reiterate often in this primer: some activities are listed in the Code as having a legal duty to keep records, file, and pay. I'm not one of those that says "there is no law for any American to pay income taxes". Baloney; I can show over a hundred places in the Tax Code that stipulate an activity, occupation, or domicile class -- specifically making that person liable for keeping records, filing forms, and paying a tax.

But my gainful activities aren't listed anywhere; so for two decades, I was just self-assessing and signing promissory documents under penalty of perjury without ever having even seen a copy of the Code, much less having read it or researched it. Scammed by Congress, the IRS, and the parasitic tax industry including my CPAs over the years, I was just doing what everybody else did. I was ignorant, like Bernie Madoff's victims for decades.

The court did not say in Flora that even if by law I don't owe a tax, but everybody makes me think I do, that once I self-assess, sign under penalty of perjury, and mail the tax return, that I then owe what I promise anyway! That would be fraud, extortion, and entrapment.

Okay...so what is going on with you filers? Is it government fraud and entrapment for 115 million people to file things without looking into the Tax Code even the least bit? Is it government fraud and entrapment for a Taxpayer to let the state and federal Leviathan skim 40% of his livelihood, without seeing if he ever owed it by law?

Well, okay; technically it's extortion and racketeering. But the larger aspect of this scam is that YOU, the Taxpayer, have failed to perform due diligence as a free, self-governing citizen under our American system of popular sovereignty. Call it ignorance, apathy, or state-sponsored terror.

There are over 67 million of us that aren't afraid of our employees, even if they try to frighten us with the little black vulture letterhead and envelope with the very cleverly-designed black bar on the fringe...what a tricky, subliminal terror tactic, that black bar!  And on you 115 million terror victims still in the IRS gulag, those black branding items work beautifully.  They instill FEAR.

But we law-abiding Nontaxpayers don't have CPAs telling us what we "must do by law" so they can keep their cushy careers. Unless they are committing immoral or illegal acts, no free people can possibly live in fear of their 'public servants' yet honestly call themselves free. I helped destroy our Constitutional Republic as an ignorant filer, funding criminals for 20 years. Thus I felt it my duty, after 6 years research, to begin writing and editing this Tax Honesty Primer, to partially atone for my 20 years of earlier abdication.

Now I study to the best of my ability, to learn how this republic of sovereign States and sovereign People was transformed into a socialist empire of mobsters at the federal, state, county, city, and school board levels -- who are now joined by a huge parasitic segment within the private sector as well.  Read Tom DiLorenzo's 2012 book entitled Organized Crime, to learn just how criminal and criminogenic our "public servants" have become.  It's chilling and amazing -- and all funded by you, Taxpayer.

So what made me a Taxpayer all those years?

First I had to ask myself: was I a Taxpayer? That may seem like a silly question, but it's the first critical lynch-pin upon which Congress had been hanging my checkbook for 20 years. The Internal Revenue Code defines taxpayer as “any person subject to any internal revenue tax” at 26 USC 7701(a)14, and as “any person subject to a tax under the applicable revenue law” at 26 USC 1313(b).

Okay, but I could never find a section of the Code making me subject to the tax. After over a dozen demands, all of those IRS employees listed by name above refused to supply me with any part of the Code showing a section of law establishing a legal duty in the Code for me or almost anybody else, for that matter.

The 'Taxable Income' position

Some books and websites teach the "taxable income" line of inquiry, and in fact that line of reasoning was what led former IRS CID agent Joe Banister to leave the IRS.

But I didn't want to play Congress' semantic games: taxable income is defined in terms of “adjusted gross income” in Section 63..."adjusted gross income" is defined in terms of a “taxpayer” in Section 62a...and Section 6012(a) reads, “Returns with respect to income taxes under subtitle A shall by made by . . . every individual having for the taxable year gross income,” etc. “Individual” is defined in the regulations...and to have a “taxable year” one must be not only an "individual", but a “taxpayer” according to Section 441(b)(1).

Boy howdy; the whole thing is a spaghetti-bowl maze. Makes sense: corrupt members of Congress trying to keep trillions coming in every year have to render the law more confusing to the 'target' until (s)he just gives up, self-assesses like the neighbors do, and pays up.

I went back to looking for who is a Taxpayer; where does the law impose a legal duty on me where I live, doing what I do?  Why wouldn't IRS employees just show me that?

Well, because it doesn't exist.

26USC A(1)(A)(I)(1)...the favorite semantic trap

Most HR managers make a very short discussion out of it; they trot out the very first sentence in the body of the Tax Code...Subtitle A, Chapter 1, Subchapter A, Part I, Section 1: “There is hereby imposed on the taxable income of every married individual...” .

Well, that sure was easy. Everybody owes 'their' taxes, right?

No; remember, the Supreme Court ruled that a universal tax is unconstitutional. Over a century ago, the Supreme Court made the corrupt Congress return what it had sucked in under the unconstitutional universal ("everybody owes") taxing language. The snakes had to find a different path to your wallet; they did so with help from their partners in accounting, law, and tax preparation.

They did it by adding miles of convoluted word games so that no sane person would try to take on the Tax Code maze on his own. For instance, this word 'individual' is an interesting example of fraudulent drafting. Congress pulled this semantic trick because definitions in laws can have a very different meaning from what the same word means in regular conversation. So take another step down the rabbit hole to see how Congress appears to be taxing everyone, while not actually doing that.

If they can use a trick word in just the right place, they won't get their hand slapped again by the Supreme Court. So: the Tax Code right up front says that every individual has a tax imposed; and how does Congress define the word individual in the Tax Code? Hmmmm... It doesn't.

But the Federal Regulations do define individual:

26 CFR 1.1441-1
Requirement for deduction and withholding of tax on payments to foreign persons.

(c) Definitions (3) Individual.
(i) Alien individual. The term alien individual means an individual who is not a citizen...
(ii) Nonresident alien individual. The term nonresident alien individual means a person described in section 7701(b)(1)(B), an alien individual who is...

****

Notice...all just aliens. It only talks about foreign persons. Yes, I know... “Don't look there, you ninny; that says ‘foreign persons’ in the heading”. I know that; but find any other place in the Tax Code or Federal Regulations that defines individual. It doesn't exist.

That's just one way to write a law so that it's NOT unconstitutional, yet you can still hook a great many fish. You have to hand it to those bent multi-millionaires in Congress, they're wily little suckers.

I used search engines on the Tax Code and Federal Regulations. It was easy online to do a Boolean word search for "individual" in the text of the Tax Code. I used the government's own websites, and I also used http://www.whatistaxed.com/ to go through the data mining exercise.

Again, let me make it clear: I didn't need this word-game stuff to prove to myself beyond reasonable doubt that I was never a Taxpayer except by being defrauded into self-'assessing' and signing up for IRS extortion. It's a simple scam: all those years, as I self-assessed and signed, I became what I claimed about myself under penalty of perjury.

The law didn't do it to me; my own ignorance and signature made me a 'Taxpayer' as I self-assessed and signed that return without ever having even seen a copy of the Tax Code.

Who must provide Form W-4 or W-9?

I've asked IRS a dozen times where the Code says that I must, by law, file returns. The law and their operations manual stipulate that they MUST give me an answer, not their PR hooey. Yet in 11 years (I haven't heard from them in over a decade) they gave me nothing but evasion, which in themselves are all violations of their operating rules in their IRM.

Since they refused to respond, I told them to pound sand every time they bothered me. Eventually they stopped.

I was also asked over the years: which payors are required by law to obtain a W-4, W-9, or a TIN? Well, the only place I have found so far is 26 CFR...Title 26 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Who has a legal duty to furnish a number in response to such a request?

26 CFR 301.6109-1

(c) If the person making the return, statement, or other document does not know the taxpayer identifying number of the other person, and such other person is one that is described in paragraph (b)(2)(i), (ii), (iii), or (vi) of this section, such person must request the other person's number. The request should state that the identifying number is required to be furnished under authority of law.

(b)(2)(i): A foreign person that has income…
(b)(2)(ii): A foreign person that has a U.S. office or…
(b)(2)(iii): A nonresident alien treated as a resident…
(b)(2)(vi): A foreign person that furnishes a withholding certificate...

****

Whoa...notice something familiar? There it is again: only foreign persons.

The Rabbit-Trails Go On Forever

These are just a few semantic traps along the rational trail from Tax Code A(1)A(I)(1) onward. Following such trails always left me stuck right about at "taxable income" or at "gross income"...going in a circle.

Sneaky, sneaky...Congress and the complicit parasite sector makes it appear that everybody has to pay.

But again, remember: when Congress tried that (universal tax language) in 1894, the high court slapped their hand. So again, I knew that "everybody has to pay" doesn't meet the Constitution's tests for apportionment and uniformity. The U.S. Supreme Court says they can't do that...so the law DOES NOT SAY THAT EVERYBODY HAS TO PAY.

The semantic traps are built very carefully, to make work for the tax preparation industry, and to confuse Taxpayers. I wanted all possible evidentiary trails played out to their conclusions; so out of morbid curiosity (and sheer terror, in the early years) I still followed ALL the Tax Code rabbit-trails.

I searched every Tax Honesty website I could find, many of which don't exist anymore, and most of which were just loopy.

I read every Tax Honesty book I could find. Similarly, I found most of them to be loopy, but a few were good. I love Phil Hart's book, and several of those that used to be published by Otto Skinner.

I read through every word on the http://www.whatistaxed.com/ data-mining site and on the excellent http://www.synapticsparks.info/ website. I walked through the "gross income" bunny-trail, the "definition of individual" bunny trail, the "Section 861" bunny trail. There are exhaustive analyses (in every sense of the term) on these websites. Synaptic Sparks is particularly comprehensive, and highly recommended.

Busting the Ponzi Scheme

As I'll show shortly, the U.S. Supreme Court has reiterated that if some lines of work are listed in a tax law, then a citizen is free unless his line of work is also found specifically listed in the Tax Code, in clear language. Tax law must be clear; when it isn't clear and the government can't provide the law behind its actions or demands...benefit of the doubt goes to the citizen.

This is well-settled law, regardless what Dan Evans may say.

Evans is a Philadelphia lawyer; the self-proclaimed Internet authority or 'de-bunker' of Tax Honesty. Evans rests his entire position on the fact that judges have ruled against several Tax Honesty 'gurus' as he calls them. But there are four problems with Mr. Evans' hokum:

First, regardless how many federal judges might rule in favor of their own paychecks over yours, the law is on the side of citizens and against the IRS scam (read the Supreme Court rulings and other cites below).

Second, of the estimated 67 million non-filers*, 99.99% of all non-filers are never indicted, much less convicted of anything trumped up by IRS. Just because Dan Evans finds fewer than a half-dozen high-profile 'trophy' convictions per year, doesn't negate 67 million others, living free.

(*2005 estimate by a former IRS fraud examiner who became a Tax Honesty whistleblower; some estimates in 2013-14 were that as many as half of all Americans no longer filed.)

Third, just because judges in 1830s America said that a Black slave had to be returned to his 'master', or judges in 1930s Germany said that Jews had to stay in their concentration camps, didn't place those judges on the side of right (yet at least those evil judges had 'law' on their side; these DON'T; see the US Supreme Court's rulings, below).

Fourth, notice the favorite tactic of Evans and his two or three comrades who used to comment regularly on his website: casting personal aspersions in the manner of kindergarten pugilists who have no game. Their prime 'argument' is ad hominem characterization of those whom they oppose in a puerile, petulant style. Name-calling is hardly convincing evidence that Mr. Quatloos is on the side of right -- and citing "you will lose!" is equally unconvincing, in an age where Congress clearly has no scruples about violating the highest law in America, hundreds of times per day.

So much for the Philadelphia lawyer.

It's not illegal to stop being Bernie Madoff's victim

The rulings I will outline below are well-settled, standing law. I obey the law, and I take comfort in these well-settled principles of how to interpret tax law when you disagree with administrative agency operatives.

Although it's scary at first, it's also very liberating. Following the money and reading the well-settled law brought me clarity and, after a few years, brought me peace as well. It took years to come to grips with the reality that I was a terror victim, scammed by a large parasite population (public and private) all my working life. I knew that the non-productive, parasitic professions and industries were getting to be more popular and ever-larger, while the productive crafts, trades, and learned fields were shrinking. I know who the crooks are now.

As it was for victims of the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme -- it always looks obvious after you solve the crime. Out of us 67 million non-filers, maybe 20-30 million of us are real, law-abiding Nontaxpayers. Maybe even fewer; I don't care. I do know that IRS hauls just two or three high-profile citizens into court each year to make the terror show work on your mind.

Notice, they always pick citizens who follow silly theories, who make big bucks, and who attempt to get juries to see the semantic traps that Congress built into the law. Most juries won't follow the maze, and they'll be envious of the wealthy star or starlet who demands a multi-million-dollar tax refund. All the rest of us 67 million Americans who don't file also don't do kooky theories; we just obey the law as written. We don't ask thugs in a dark alley for a refund.

I looked at all the things shown as taxable in the Code, and I found plenty of them. I started demanding that my employees at IRS show where I was made liable. They never can, yet their operations manual -- and the law -- demand that they do so.

As long as they refuse to listen to me, one of their employers, I'm free to disregard the Tax Code as I disregard any other law that doesn't apply to me. Nowhere in the Code does it speak to my activities in specific terms, yet that's exactly what the law demands!

As you'll see below, the IRS employees' own manual says what they're required to do. I don't give a frog's quivering thigh what Dan Evans says; if my employees refuse to obey law, I refuse to listen to a crook working at IRS. The burden of proof is not on me, it's on the crook. Bernie Madoff's line for all those years was "trust me; everybody knows this is how it is." Yeah, right, scum; get your hand out of my pocket!

Racketeering has gone on in Congress' for much too long. Its IRS check-skimming scam must stop. In tens of million households including mine, it already has.

The law has ALWAYS been on your side

In our system of self-government, We the People are the 'authorities' over government; it's every American's duty to know the basics of laws that affect us; basics of our Constitution, so we can keep government honest and help put crooked government actors in prison.

As you read through the rulings below, notice that the federal courts have been on our side all along. I could have been free years earlier, had I known to read federal tax law and case rulings. Instead, I was terrorized by the tax industry and even by pastors and others whose revenues are tied to tax write-offs.

So who exactly does owe income taxes?

"The individual, unlike the corporation, cannot be taxed for the mere privilege of existing. . . . The individual's rights to live and own property are natural rights for the enjoyment of which an excise cannot be imposed.” Redfield v. Fisher, 292 P. 813, 135 Or. 180, 294 P.461, 73 A.L.R. 721 (1931)

To show a duty for an income tax, the government must first show a statute taxing some activity in which the targeted citizen is engaged; some privilege whose use the citizen enjoys.

"The income tax is, therefore, not a tax on income as such, It is an excise tax with respect to certain activities and privileges which is measured by reference to the income they produce. The income is not the subject of the tax: it is the basis for determining the amount of tax." F. Morse Hubbard, as posted on Pg 2580 of the House Congressional Record (3/27/43) [Emphasis mine.]

In fact, the federal courts agree that common knowledge – the old ‘everybody knows’ doctrine – can't create legal duty; only operation of law or contract can do so: “The taxpayer must be liable for the tax. Tax liability is a condition precedent to the demand. Merely demanding payment, even repeatedly, does not cause liability.” Boathe v. Terry, 713 F.2d 1405, at 1414 (1983)

No matter how angry and terroristic they got, IRS couldn't create liability for me. I finally realized that these people are my administrative-branch employees, not some judicial body ruling over me. I knew that the IRS can't write laws. Like you and I and every member of Congress, they must obey laws. So let's keep going down that rabbit trail...I wanted to see who the Tax Code says has to file returns:

Section 6012. Persons required to make returns of income.

“(1)(A) Every individual having for the taxable year a gross income of the exemption amount or more...”

Boy howdy...there was that word again. We saw what individual means as federal regulations define it...only in terms of aliens and since it IS defined there but nowhere else, that's the binding legal definition of 'individual', for purposes of income taxes.

So the usual scare tactics -- sections of the Code used by tax industry terrorists to 'prove' that I had to file and pay -- those tactics always led back to legal bunny trails; traps that Congress built over two generations. But I wanted to know...surely some people have to pay income taxes...who are those people?

Since 'taxpayer' is defined in 7701(a)14 as one who is ‘subject to any internal revenue law’ the easiest thing is to just find a section or sections of the Tax Code making some people subject to it. The Supreme Court ruled that according to the Constitution, everybody can't be subject to it.

So I'll repeat for the third time: Certain activities and categories of residency do have a liability to keep records, file forms, and pay, according to the Tax Code. That's a critical point you’ll have to repeat as often as you discuss Tax Honesty with those who want to keep the scam alive.

Some people are indeed made subject to the Tax Code, but not everyone is made subject. (Also: this means the Tax Code is constitutional, contrary to what some 'tax protestor' theories claim.)

I found things that make a person into a ‘taxpayer’ as defined in the Internal Revenue Code; things that apparently create taxable income. In my 11 years digging around in the Tax Code, I found a number of such activities and domicile situations:

- If I live in D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico, or the Northern Mariana Islands;
- If I'm involved in manufacture or sale of alcohol, tobacco, or firearms;
- If I'm an officer or employee of the federal government;
- If I operate a merchant vessel;
- If I'm a nonresident alien or a principal of a foreign corporation with income derived from sources within the United States;
- If I'm a resident alien lawfully admitted to a State of the Union, the District of Columbia, or an insular possession of the United States;
- If I entered a voluntary withholding agreement for government personnel withholding either as an ‘employee’ (3401(c)) or an ‘employer’ (3401(d)) (See 26 CFR §31.3402(p)-1);
- If I’ve ever been notified by the Treasury Financial Management Service that I was responsible for administration of government personnel withholding (26 U.S.C. § 3403), or have applied for and received a Form 8655 Reporting Agent Authorization certificate;
- If I'm an officer or employee of the Treasury or any bureau of the Dept of the Treasury subject to IRS authority related to submission of collected taxes delegated by Treasury Order 150-15;
- If I receive items of taxable income from foreign sources;
- If I receive foreign mineral income;
- If I receive income from foreign oil and gas extraction;
- If I receive income from a China Trade Act corporation;
- If I receive income from a foreign controlled corporation as fiduciary agent of the corporation;
- If I receive income from insurance of U.S. risks under 26 U.S.C. 953(b)(5);
- If I receive taxable items of income from operation of an agreement vessel under section 607 of the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, as amended;
- If I receive items of income from a public works contract subject to Federal income and Social Security tax withholding;
- If I own stock in, do business with, or have anything else to do with a corporation in which the [Federal] United States of America owns stock. (See notes following 18 U.S.C. § 1001. Chapter 194, 40 Stat. 1015);
- If I receive wages, remuneration, or other compensation as an officer or employee of an oceangoing vessel construed as an American employer;
- If I receive gambling winnings from the District of Columbia or insular possessions of the United States;
- If I receive items of income from maritime (international) trade in alcohol, tobacco or firearms;
- If I receive items of income from production and/or distribution of alcohol, tobacco or firearms in the District of Columbia or insular possessions of the United States;
- If I receive any items of income from activities taking place within an “internal revenue district” as such districts have been established under authority of 26 USC 7621 (U.S. Customs ports);
- If I receive items of income from maritime (international) trade in opium, cocaine or other controlled substances.

****

Wow...so many taxable activities. But I never found my line of work in there anywhere. In fact, I haven't found the activities of the average American living and working in one of the 50 States. I repeatedly demanded any citation of law from IRS, that makes me a Taxpayer as defined in law, since so many other activities ARE treated specifically in the Code.

But year after year, I only got evasion from IRS employees. So when they made demands I told them to pound sand. After the first few years, my terror victim conditioning wore off. After a decade of their evasions, I realized their scam was busted. I’ve been a happy Nontaxpayer ever since.

"The sky is blue" is not a position; it's fact

All that you have read above, and that you'll read below, is not a “position” or a tax protestor theory; it’s fact and it's the law. Just as I don't bother with federal laws about bulk pesticide disposal, nuclear power plant operation, or airline pilot training standards, I also don't care about the huge Tax Code because it doesn't apply to me or to most Americans.

But I'll reiterate for the fourth time the heart of Tax Honesty...always remember it when you hear any 'tax protestor' theory, or any threat by a tax industry shill: The Tax Code does make some people subject to an income tax. It does make some (very few!) people into 'Taxpayers'. I just showed you a long list. But notice that you and I are not on that list. So I'm a law-abiding, happy Nontaxpayer.

Black's Law Dictionary Agrees...

Black’s Law Dictionary defines the legal principle inclusio unius est exclusio alterius as dictating that:
"where law expressly describes a particular situation to which it shall apply, an irrefutable inference must be drawn that what is omitted or excluded was intended to be omitted or excluded.”

I just showed you many sections of the Code describing 'particular situations to which it shall apply' and since I can find nothing showing that my activities are likewise taxable, “an irrefutable inference must be drawn” that my income is not taxable.

...and the U.S. Supreme Court agrees...

"Keeping in mind the well-settled rule that the citizen is exempt from taxation unless the same is imposed by clear and unequivocal language, and that where the construction of a tax law is doubtful, the doubt is to be resolved in favor of those upon whom the tax is sought to be laid.” Spreckels Sugar Refining Co. v. McClain, 192 U.S. 297 (1904) [Emphasis added.]

“In the interpretation of statutes levying taxes it is the established rule not to extend their provisions, by implication, beyond the clear import of the language used, or to enlarge their operations so as to embrace matters not specifically pointed out. In case of doubt they are construed most strongly against the government, and in favor of the citizen.” Gould v. Gould, 245 U.S. 151 (1917) [Emphasis added.]

“In view of other settled rules of statutory construction, which teach that a law is presumed, in the absence of clear expression to the contrary, to operate prospectively; that, if doubt exists as to the construction of a taxing statute, the doubt should be resolved in favor of the taxpayer...” Hassett v. Welch., 303 US 303, 82 L Ed 858. (1938) [Emphasis added.]

To me, this well-settled law demands that in determining tax liability, nothing can be presumed taxable until finding in law what is specifically indicated to be so.

...and Sutherland's Rules agrees...

Recognised as a core text on statutory construction by the American Bar Association, Sutherland's Rules of Statutory Construction is a ten-volume exhaustive resource providing all the acknowledged principles of American statutory interpretation. In Sutherland 66:1 entitled Strict Construction of Statutes Creating Tax Liability I found the following, precisely in line with the century of Supreme Court rulings just noted:

"It is a settled rule that tax laws are to be strictly construed against the state and in favor of the taxpayer. Where there is reasonable doubt of the meaning of a revenue statute, the doubt is resolved in favor of those taxed. Revenue laws are considered neither remedial statutes, nor laws founded upon any public policy, and are therefore not liberally construed."

...and the Internal Revenue Manual agrees...

Then I realized that even an unsigned, computer-generated demand for money can be extortion. When I've demanded to see the law I'm violating or a law that supposedly made me owe a tax, the IRS operative must obey his/her operations manual and show me the law:

4.10.7.1 Overview.
Examiners are responsible for determining the correct tax liability as prescribed by the Internal Revenue Code. It is imperative that examiners can identify the applicable law, correctly interpret its meaning in light of congressional intent, and, in a fair and impartial manner, correctly apply the law based on the facts and circumstances of the case.

4.10.7.2 Researching Tax Law.
Conclusions reached by examiners must reflect correct application of the law, regulations, court cases, revenue rulings, etc. Examiners must correctly determine the meaning of statutory provisions and not adopt strained interpretation.

4.10.7.2.1.1 Authority of the Internal Revenue Code.
The Internal Revenue Code is generally binding on all courts of law. The courts give great importance to the literal language of the Code.

4.10.7.2.9.8 Importance of Court Decisions.
The Internal Revenue Service must follow Supreme Court decisions. For examiners, Supreme Court decisions have the same weight as the Code.

[In all cases, bold emphasis is mine.]

****

If a section of law actually existed, how long would that take to dig up? A minute or two? Instead, no matter how often I asked that question of the IRS over a decade, they violated their operations manual, violated the law by engaging in extortion, and demonstrated a pattern of willful evasion.

They always passed the hot potato from one regional office to another like bullies in a playground...or saying "we haven't finished our research; we'll get back to you." Every evasive non-response I received to my certified mail demands was additional evidence that they were engaged in willful evasion of law and of their operations manual.

If you watched the 2014 congressional hearings where IRS operative Lois Lerner lied through her teeth, repeatedly perjuring herself, then you know how her underlings operate.

I was Congress' willing dupe for 20 years...and 'tax evasion' was nothing more than obeying the laws while trying to evade Congress' financial fraud, trying to avoid financially supporting violations of the Constitution, and seeking to be free of the state-sponsored terrorism that made the D.C. Leviathan grow like a cancer from the 17 enumerated, severely limited powers that we originally granted to our federal servants.

I always sent all correspondence to IRS by certified mail. I always kept hard copies and offsite electronic backups of everything, also.I'm not paranoid; just a former terror victim, all grown up.

I'm always factual, and my responses to their mail-fraud and terror threats are always polite but as firm as any employer should be when addressing a corrupt employee.

The critical tactical point is this: if we’re ever going to reverse the cancerous growth of the corrupt Deep State, every citizen should be willing to pay any amount due by law. If that amount is zero then I had to be willing to pay zero because only by starving corruption will we ever bring government back within the limits set by the Constitution.

Criminals at IRS are posing as enforcement officers

I doubt that chasing thugs is a wise use of time, but if I wanted to go after extortionists at IRS just for grins, I'd begin by using this section of the Tax Code, since their manual says they MUST show the law under which they're trying to shake me down for cash. If they can't show the law, they're committing extortion:

Section 7214(a) Offenses by officers and employees of the United States
Any officer or employee of the United States acting in connection with any revenue law of the United States (1) who is guilty of any extortion or willful oppression under color of law; or (2) who knowingly demands other or greater sums than are authorized by law ... upon conviction thereof shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.

Realize what that means: if you don't actually owe a tax by law...and if you never did owe such a tax, or have any legal duty to file anything or keep records for government -- then the government employee who keeps harassing you to "comply" is just like any other criminal involved in fraud and extortion.

Taxpayers need to READ...need to LEARN TRUTH...rather than be terrorized into thinking that the victim of terror is actually a "criminal". The situation is precisely the opposite; the "tax cheat" is the woebegone citizen just trying to make sense of how America became communist China right before our eyes, in just one generation!

You are Hereby SUMMONED (to the refrigerator box in my back yard)

Once I learned not to fear scary letterhead not backed by law, the fraudsters started looking pretty silly. For instance, I learned that an IRS ‘summons’ is just a piece of paper, of no legal consequence, as the federal courts ruled in 2005:

“...absent an effort to seek enforcement through a federal court, IRS summonses apply no force to taxpayers, and no consequence whatever can befall a taxpayer who refuses, ignores, or otherwise does not comply with an IRS summons until that summons is backed by a federal court order…[a taxpayer] cannot be held in contempt, arrested, detained, or otherwise punished for refusing to comply with the original IRS summons, no matter the taxpayer's reasons, or lack of reasons for so complying.” U.S. 2nd Appellate Court- Schulz v. IRS (2005)

I could gain a 4-count indictment on IRS Thugs

Here in Texas we have it best of all. Texas law stipulates that it's a criminal offense every time the IRS sends a supposed ‘summons’ or anything else that can be construed by the citizen as originating from the judicial branch; that's the first criminal count for an indictment:

Texas Penal Code CHAPTER 32. FRAUD
32.48. SIMULATING LEGAL PROCESS.

(a) A person commits an offense if the person recklessly causes to be delivered to another any document that simulates a summons, complaint, judgment, or other court process with the intent to: (1) induce payment of a claim from another person; or (2) cause another to: (A) submit to the putative authority of the document; or (B) take any action or refrain from taking any action in response to the document, in compliance with the document, or on the basis of the document. (e) Except as provided by Subsection (f), an offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor. (f) If it is shown on the trial of an offense under this section that the defendant has previously been convicted of a violation of this section, the offense is a state jail felony.

The laws of Texas provide for a second count on the criminal indictment of IRS employees when they filed a "Notice of Federal Tax Lien" in our Texas county records. As I learned, it was no legal lien at all. It was just teams of administrative employees, committing fraud by their manager's orders:

Texas Government Code 51.901.
FRAUDULENT DOCUMENT OR INSTRUMENT.
(c)For purposes of this section, a document or instrument is presumed to be fraudulent if: ...(2) the document or instrument purports to create a lien or assert a claim against real or personal property or an interest in real or personal property and: ... (B) is not created by implied or express consent or agreement of the obligor, debtor, or the owner of the real or personal property... (C) is not an equitable, constructive, or other lien imposed by a court with jurisdiction created or established under the constitution or laws of this state or of the United States.

Although it was not technically harming me, the IRS employees refused to play ball and get that NFTL fraud out of my county records back in 2004, so Texas law gave me a third count for a criminal indictment against the agency:

Texas Penal Code
CHAPTER 32. FRAUD.

32.49. Refusal to execute release of fraudulent lien or claim. (a) A person commits an offense if, with intent to defraud or harm another, the person:(1) owns, holds, or is the beneficiary of a purported lien or claim asserted against real or personal property or an interest in real or personal property that is fraudulent, as described by Section 51.901(c), Government Code; and (2) not later than the 21st day after the date of receipt of actual or written notice sent by either certified or registered mail, return receipt requested, to the person's last known address, or by telephonic document transfer to the recipient's current telecopier number, requesting the execution of a release of the fraudulent lien or claim, refuses to execute the release on the request of: (A) the obligor or debtor; (B) any person who owns any interest in the real or personal property described in the document or instrument that is the basis for the lien or claim. (b) A person who fails to execute a release of the purported lien or claim within the period prescribed by Subsection (a)(2) is presumed to have had the intent to harm or defraud another. (c) An offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor.

Thus under Texas law, IRS commits a crime every time it files a ‘Notice of Federal Tax Lien’ against a Texan. If a court didn't issue a judgment, then no lien can exist. Period. A notice is NOT a lien. No one is above the law in America!

Good luck going after federal mafia in a state court; I'm just showing you the law, not suggesting you try on your own, to go get federal actors indicted in your state courts. Bankers and mortgage companies in Texas should know the law. Instead, they violate their fiduciary duty to customers, and usually help the IRS terrorize them.

Of course it's only out of fear and ignorance, because everyone knows how honest the banking and mortgage industries are. And like the guards at the Nuremberg trials, Lois Lerner and all other IRS employees just claim that they're only following the orders they receive from Congress.

But you've seen the provisions from the Tax Code and the Internal Revenue Manual. Ignorance of the law is no excuse for serial fraud and extortion, as defined in the IRM itself.

The fourth fraud count on the criminal indictment I could have asked the Grand Jury for is the IRS 'team signature' fraud. After looking at over a dozen copies of a Notice of Federal Tax Lien (NFTL) gathered from different people, I discovered one more IRS fraud tactic: Every NFTL is signed in ink by one person using only first initial, and a second person's full printed name appears below the signature.

Is their up-line manager covering their tails in case they are caught? Both operatives can deny having actually filed the fraudulent 'lien', by just blaming the other signer. After thinking about going after the two IRS employees (both women, likely mothers) for criminal indictment, I got cold feet. I couldn't put someone's mom in federal prison since they didn't really harm me; only my reputation. But at least I had the goods on them and they knew it. If they ever brought me to court, I could have  shown this Tax Honesty Primer to the jury.

I'm willing to bet that at least one out of any dozen Americans has the guts and brains to stand up to corruption. Not all judges are corrupt, either. The U.S. Supreme Court had this to say about government employees defrauding citizens:

"This is the approach that has been taken by each of the Courts of Appeals that has addressed the issue: schemes to defraud include those designed to deprive individuals, the people...of intangible rights such as the right to have public officials perform their duties honestly." McNally v. United States 483 U.S. (1987) at 358

If I hadn't started reading a little law and doing a little digging, I would have been defrauded all my working life and the court couldn't have helped me if I hadn't made copies of everything and seen what the IRS makes its employees do. I knew that before they could take any of my stuff, the crooks had to file that bogus ‘lien notice’. I filed a public complaint right away when IRS tried to steal from me that way.

I filed an Affidavit of Material Facts (see a sample in the blog article dated Feb 2010) with our county clerk. Every point in a signed, notarized affidavit that is not specifically answered is established in the record. I was then on the record that I only signed as ‘Taxpayer’ under penalty of perjury all those years out of ignorance and coercion.

After that, I informed my clients and the attorneys for my banks that filing an NFTL is a criminal act in our State. I sent my banks a certified letter informing them that if a fraudster claims funds in my account without a judge's ruling, I'd demand my full deposits from the bank or the FDIC just as if any other criminal stole my funds on deposit.

In the 22 years that I've been a law-abiding Nontaxpayer, I've never been harmed by IRS or had one dollar taken by Congress' terror agents.

I'm not suggesting that no one has; among us tens of millions of non-filers, thousands have war stories about skirmishes with the IRS. But many times more filers have such war stories. 

Americans must not remain terror victims; no American citizen should ever fear his public servants.
Your servants can successfully use terror to make you pay its demands only as long as you're subservient to those who take an oath to obey the law and to serve you.

The 'FairTax' is a Trojan horse

Remember what the income tax war is about: money and liberty. The fraudsters in Congress have had the 'FairTax' scam waiting in the wings for many years...and it's potentially an even worse scam than the one we're finally busting.

Don't buy the Tax Fairy's magic dust.  America would leap from the frying pan into the fire, after the lure of "getting rid of the IRS". Every proposal by a politician has a different plan for the same target: your checkbook. America is the greatest republic on earth, and I thank God every day that I live here. You should, too.

If you want to play offense as well as defense, consider joining AmericaAgain! and forming your TACTICAL CIVICS chapter in your county.

My prayer is that someday We The People can bring Madisonian law enforcement to criminals who have turned Congress into their puppet theater, destroying many American lives, our national currency, and our once respected place in most foreigners' minds.

Restoring Liberty Beyond Busting Congress' IRS Scam 

Besides the Internal Revenue Code and the resources in the links section, I recommend the books listed below, if you want to learn how deep the corruption is, and how long it's been going on.

The pumping heart of American corruption is CONGRESS, not its tax collection agency; it's just Congress' mopping-up scheme to avoid hyperinflating the trillions in counterfeit 'money' it makes available to itself every few months through its co-conspirator, the FED cartel. 

You never learned history in school or college. The generation of Marx, Darwin, and Lincoln was America's watershed into tyranny. What most Americans think began in 1913, was brewing in the dens, offices, and clubs of powerful men for 80 years before Wilson's corrupt administration and the gangsters from Jekyll Island. 

Congress passes 'laws' that industries write for themselves; then it papers over the crimes with 'regulations' written by the industry itself, to supposedly control that industry.  In the prosecutorial world, this is known as capture.  Both political parties are corrupt organizations, and the financial industry is almost entirely criminal in its operation.

The only way to re-capture Congress and federal regulatory agencies from predators is for We The People -- through state criminal courts -- to bust members of Congress for their criminal activities, thus making them choose between pleasing their billionaire handlers, and avoiding seizure of their assets and spending the rest of their life in a state penitentiary.   

The IRS scam plays into this because 75% of federal activity is illegal according to the Constitution, and the only way to end this illegal activity is to cut off its funding.  We've believed politicians' lies for far too long, about "smaller government".  As long as Congress skims every payroll account through its IRS scam, it will continue to haul in five times the revenues needed for its lawful powers. 

If Americans want Congress to do more than the 17 things allowed it in the Constitution, let those special interests seek an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, following the process stipulated in Article V of the Constitution. 

Corruption is common in every government on earth; we can't completely eliminate it but we can certainly reduce it.  Rule of law prevailed as long as America had a Christian core of solid citizens willing to go after bad guys.  But for over a century We The People have slept; perverts and greedy criminals have captured Congress and the federal courts, and have written the regulations that are supposed to liberate us from their depredation.

Now, a vital remnant of Americans will turn the tables on D.C. organized crime. AmericaAgain! and TACTICAL CIVICS will begin by seeking to get the original First Amendment fully ratified.  It was passed by Congress in 1789 and ratified by 12 states already (but only 11 were properly recorded, so it was technically ratified already in 1790, but needs to be ratified again, now by 27 more states; then it will become the 28th Amendment. Our website for that project is https://OurFirstRight.org  

The amendment will require that congressional districts be a maximum of 50,000 people; that means very small, low-budget elections so that citizen-statesmen can run for the U.S. House; you won't have to be a millionaire in the pocket of billionaires, to run for Congress. Best of all: the 31,000 American communities of under 10,000 residents will finally have representation in the U.S. House and the U.S. Electoral College for the first time in a century.

The IRS debacle is run by the crime kingpins in Congress, who have been inviting and enabling this corruption. Anyone can join AmericaAgain! and launch a TACTICAL CIVICS chapter to turn the tide of history just when most Americans think our republic is finished!  

Suggested Reading (Remediate Your Government School 'Education')

First, read my book Tactical Civics, a free 135-page PDF book, available free here. Even before reading that, watch the 21-minute introductory video HERE.

American history is fascinating; if we learn its lessons, we are not condemned to repeat them. To discover Congress' 150 year old criminal alliances with banking and industry, read:

Blood Money: Civil War and the Federal Reserve John Graham (2006)

Fear The People David M Zuniga (2015)

Organized Crime: The Unvarnished Truth About Government Thomas DiLorenzo (2012)

The Case Against the Fed Murray Rothbard (1994)

The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One William Black (2005)

It Takes a Pillage Nomi Prins (2010)

The Great American Stickup Robert Scheer (2010)

Griftopia Matt Taibbi (2011)

To learn exactly what the framers of the U.S. Constitution were thinking when they drafted and refined our supreme Law of the Land, read Free, Sovereign, and Independent States: The Intended Meaning of the American Constitution by John R. Graham (2009)

The GOP has been a front for mercantilist criminals, born under Karl Marx's banner.  If you don't believe me, read Lincoln's Marxists by Walter D. Kennedy and Al Benson, Jr. (2011)