Occupy the Income Tax

The Occupy movement has not yet fully utilized the two most potent weapons mankind has created in our long, long struggle to be free. We have yet to meld the Constitution with the Internet; the Founding Fathers have not gone viral.

The First Amendment states that there shall be no law abridging the right of the people to peaceably assemble, as Occupiers do to righteous effect. The First Amendment also gives citizens the right to petition for redress of grievances. We can go viral in a single, decisive petition; millions of citizens, voices merged loud and clear. The 99 per cent will be heard, will be answered.

Justly acknowledged for and drawing strength from diversity, it may now be prudent to roar in a single unified declaration. While there are numerous grievances to choose from, we can cease funding the system that oppresses us. We need not pay income tax. There is no law. The government itself insists filing is based on “voluntary compliance” as true patriots languish in small cells for not volunteering.

Petition for Redress of Grievances

Whereas the First Amendment to our Constitution states “Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” we respectfully summit this petition to the President, to the IRS and to the Department of Justice and demand answers to the following seven questions.

1. True or false? In Brushaber, the landmark case regarding the 16th Amendment, the Supreme Court ruled that a new, direct taxing power, not limited by apportionment or uniformity, would “Cause one provision of the Constitution to destroy another” and “If acceded to would create radical and destructive changes to our Constitutional system.”

2. True or false? The Supreme Court, in Brushaber, thus ruled “Taxation on income was in its nature an excise (indirect) tax entitled to be enforced as such.”

3. True or false? The Harvard Law Review (vol. 29, pages 536-8) states, in essence, that “In Brushaber, Chief Justice White, construed the 16th Amendment as a declaration that an income tax is “indirect” rather than making an exception to the rule that direct taxes must be apportioned.”

4. True or false? If the Supreme Court ruled that income tax was “indirect” the tax would have to be uniform and since it is not uniform… it cannot be required.

5. True or false? Testifying, under oath, before the 83rd Congress, Dwight E. Davis, then Head of the Alcohol and Tobacco Division of the IRS, stated, that “Your income tax is 100% voluntary tax and your liquor tax is 100% enforced tax. Now the situation is as different as night and day.”

6. True or false? The Federal Register states “The mission of the IRS is to encourage and achieve the highest possible degree of voluntary compliance with the tax laws and regulations.”

7. True or false? The Internal Revenue Code defines a “withholding agent” as only required to deduct and withhold income tax from nonresident aliens and foreign corporations. Therefore, no law requires income tax be withheld from citizens living in America.

Seven answers, all true and easily documented, if answered, are sufficient to end income tax, expose tyranny and peacefully change the course of history.

This article is reprinted with permission from the author. It also appeared at the AspenPost.
Will Kesler is an anti-income tax activist living in Aspen/Snowmass, Colorado.