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Feb. 7, 2001 - Bill Cooper
01:00:12
Legality of taxes #3
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of the world.
I'm going to play a little bit of it.
you.
You're listening once again to the Hour of the Time.
the evening ladies and gentlemen you're listening once again to
the hour of the time
we are brought going to be every year
a series of broadcast from now up into including a political thing
on the criminal activities of the nazi gestapo jackbooted bugs called the
Internal Revenue Service.
you They're unconstitutional and what they're doing is unlawful.
We're going to expose every single bit of it.
We continue now with the testimony of Mr. Larry Becraft.
He is an attorney at law who's been involved for many years in income tax.
Cases.
I will kind of recover some of the grounds that Bill was talking about.
One of my favorite states to show today, as an example of a state that failed to ratify the 16th Amendment, is that of Kentucky.
You heard Bill a few moments ago talking about what Kentucky did.
February 8, 1910, the proposition.
Now the House, before that time, had adopted the 16th Amendment, and obviously they had mailed evidence of the ratification By the House in Kentucky to Philander Knox in Washington, D.C.
Why do we know that?
Because that is part of the documentation that Bill discovered down at Archives, just down the street.
Well, what did the Kentucky Senate do?
Well, the Kentucky Senate, on that date, voted on the amendment.
And the government claims the Kentucky Senate adopted the 16th Amendment on that date.
But when you go to the legislative journals, you see, as Bill said, There were nine votes in favor, 22 opposed.
Now, I don't know about you, but I think that we can definitely consider that it is quite obvious and crystal clear that Kentucky did not ratify the 16th Amendment.
So now we're down from 38 to 37.
Well, let's take another one of my favorite states that I like to talk about.
Oklahoma.
What did Oklahoma do?
Very similar to Kentucky.
One house of the Oklahoma legislature Ratified the 16th Amendment, and it was perfect.
However, when the action of that body, the resolution, was sent over to the other body, maybe the Senate, what they did is they deliberately changed the wording of the 16th Amendment.
Now, the 16th Amendment had a very clear purpose.
In 1894, the United States Supreme Court had struck down, as unconstitutional, The 1894 Federal Income Tax.
Because of the decision in this, what we call the Pollock case, the 16th Amendment had been proposed to kind of circumvent the constitutional problem created by this decision.
So in 1913, it was alleged that the 16th Amendment was ratified.
It reads, there's 30 carefully drafted words.
Congress shall have the power to lay and cut taxes on income from whatever source Without apportionment among the several states and without regard to any census or enumeration.
That's a whole bunch of words.
That's 30 words.
They have a very specific meaning.
However, the Oklahoma legislature came out and changed the amendment to read the exact opposite.
Rather than requiring or eliminating the apportionment requirement for income taxes, the Oklahoma legislature demanded that income taxes be imposed.
And subject to the regulation of apportionment.
That's kind of complex language.
But it clearly demonstrates that you cannot consider, a rational person cannot consider that Oklahoma ratified the amendment because it means the exact opposite of what the 16th Amendment itself says.
Now we're down to what?
36 states?
Let's deal with, let's just pick another state out of the blue.
California.
California deliberately engaged If you sit down and read what they allegedly adopted, besides the defects the bill's talking about, there's no evidence of a vote by the California legislature, you cannot make sense of what the California resolution allegedly adopting the 16th Amendment means.
It appears to be the product of a drunken sailor.
Now, that brings us down to 35 states.
Do we not have an argument?
Remember, the government says it's not some flaky idea I concocted.
It's not a wild theory that Bill Benson concocted.
But the government says the power to tax incomes is predicated upon the 16th Amendment.
Well, let's accept their proposition.
If they say that the taxing power is predicated on the 16th Amendment, then if we have evidence that discloses the failure of the American people, the failure of the states to ratify the 16th Amendment, wouldn't it be logical to argue that there is no power to tax?
Yes, very logical.
Well, now I have just shown to you very quickly that three states failed to ratify the Amendment.
And it looks like to me we've got a very solid legal argument that we can go to court with and say, hey, you can't convict these people.
You can't impose taxes on these people.
Well, that's exactly what we did.
Bill Benson finished the state of Washington December 22nd, 1984.
We assembled, he and I and another friend of ours assembled on December the 28th.
1984 in Kokomo, Indiana, and we made a decision.
The first case we're going to raise this issue in is the Jamie Ferguson case, which was then set for trial January the 15th of 1985.
New Year's Day, 1985, I draft the first motion to attack the ratification of the 16th Amendment.
We go to court on January the 15th, 1985.
Bill comes to court with eight or nine states that are defective, and we present our evidence to the judge.
And between that date of January 15, 1985, all the way up through the next three years, in a variety of cases across the country, we raised this question of the non-radication of the 16th Amendment.
And guess what we had in the way of a response from the American federal judiciary?
Before I tell you what they did, let me tell you what the states have done with similar issues.
Like in Alabama.
If we have an argument, a legal argument, that an amendment hasn't been ratified, we can march into court and our courts will consider that question.
We did it back in 1983, this case called Alabama v. Manley.
We attempted back in 1982 to totally redraft the Alabama Constitution with an amendment.
And the issue was raised in Alabama at the time.
Can we do that?
Is it legal?
And the Alabama Supreme Court said, no way, Jose.
Well, you know, there's a wide variety of state courts that have likewise similarly handled questions of this nature.
So the states, obviously, can tell you that they can consider, judicially, the question of an amendment to a constitution.
Well, we received the exact opposite answer from the federal courts.
The federal courts disclaimed any authority to deal with this question of the ratification of the 16th Amendment.
Now, I can obviously understand the reasons why.
When you take a look at the amount of receipts that the federal government derives from the income tax, you know, it takes a very brave man To sit there and say, this power is out the window.
And of course, that was the reception that we received in a wide number of cases where we raised this issue.
The courts said, oh, we can't do anything about this.
In essence, what the courts told us to do is take this silly little problem down the hall to Congress.
They are the guys that will resolve this question.
Well, Bill Benson happened at the time to live two doors down from a lawyer by the name of Marty Russo.
At that time, that lawyer, Marty Russo, was a representative in Congress.
He was Bill Benson's representative in Congress.
And Bill one evening went down and knocked on Marty's door.
And Marty came to the door and said, Well, Bill, what can I do for you?
And Bill proceeds to outline his whole argument in his book.
He says, I've got all this evidence here.
Marty, we've been to court.
Guess what?
You as a lawyer should know what this means.
The courts are saying that this is a political question.
And Marty thinks about it for a minute.
And he asks, like the courts, whoa, I don't want to have to resolve this question.
This is not a political question.
It's one for the courts, and they must decide the question of whether or not we have an amendment.
Now, I don't know about you, ladies and gentlemen, but I find that this situation that we've got here in America to be deplorable.
Not only has Bill been told by his congressman that it's a political question, I mean, it's a judicial question, one for the courts.
This man right over here with the gray beard, John Justice, back in 1987, And Bill, they sent out volume one of Bill's book to all congressmen, all federal judges, all U.S.
attorneys, all the governors.
And he asked them, under our right to petition the government for address of grievances, he asked for action from the political branch on this question.
Do something about it.
And the voice that we received back, the replies were, We won't do anything about it.
It's a question for the courts.
Now, I ask you this.
You know, the United States Supreme Court says that we have a right to know whether a law exists.
Only makes sense.
We have the evidence that can prove That the 16th Amendment was not adopted as required by the amending provisions of the United States Constitution.
You can rely on that.
And we presented this issue to the courts, and they point their fingers to Congress, and Congress points their fingers back to courts, and those are the only two branches that have anything to do with ratifying an amendment to the United States Constitution.
And I ask this simple question.
Aren't we, if we are entitled to know whether or not a law exists, are we not being subjected to a monumental due process problem, very similar to that faced by Ms.
Quitser?
Remember the lady that was told she doesn't have to file any confessional returns by the Bureau of Indian Affairs?
A couple years later, the IRS says, no, she was wrong.
She was required.
Are we not being subjected to an identical Is this not a monumental due process problem that is being presented to all of the American people as a result of the acts of Congress and the federal courts?
But not only does the American people face this monumental problem, let me kind of really quickly summarize another problem that we all have.
You know, there's two types of taxes that the United States Constitution authorizes Congress to impose.
One's a direct tax, one's an indirect tax.
It's only logical.
It's the income tax that should fall within one of those two constitutional classifications.
The amazing proposition is that if you sit there and read the decisions of the federal courts, what do they say?
Where does the income tax fit constitutionally?
Well, some federal courts say, well, gee, it's a direct property tax.
Other federal courts say the exact opposite.
It's an excise tax.
When you get down to the state level, the states are the exact opposite, but you still see the same problem.
Most of the state courts say an income tax is an excise tax, but again, that's a rule subject to recession, because the minority view is that it's a direct property tax, which, incidentally, is the majority view at the federal level.
Now, doesn't that make sense?
But the only thing that makes sense is this, that here in America, our system has told the American people that if you look into the constitutional foundation for this particular tax, the only thing that you will confront is uncertainty of the law, and uncertainty of the law creates a due process problem.
You know, the folks that have formed the Wallace Institute, we want to do something to correct the ills in America.
I think that there are a tremendous number of problems that are created by the government.
And if we want to increase liberty and freedom in this country, we're going to have to get up off of our comfortable rear ends and do something about it.
But I've taken my own personal survey.
People call me up.
They might have a tax problem or they're contemplating, you know, gee, these questions regarding the income tax.
And the majority opinion or view or goals of the people with whom I talk are these.
Well, you know, I just want the IRS to leave me alone.
You know, I just don't want to be bothered by the government.
Well, you know, there's a class of people that these classes of individuals were best described by one of our founding fathers back at the time this country was founded.
Those are the people that want basically something for nothing.
They don't want to protect their liberty.
They want somebody else to do it.
And they are best described as those individuals that match this description.
If ye love wealth better than liberty, Now, those are the people, once you go out and identify who they are, the best thing to do is move on.
All of us in peace.
Crouch down and lift the hands that feed you and may posterity forget that ye were our
countrymen.
Now, those are the people, once you go out and identify who they are, the best thing
to do is move on.
If we identify an opposite class of people, those who are willing to help us correct the
The Eels of America.
.
We can do it, and I would suggest there's a great potential that within the next five years, if the American people will exercise their political power, if they will confront government and they will do it actively, we can change America.
And we need to become people like Patrick Henry.
You remember what Patrick Henry had to say.
Is life so dear a piece of sweet as if he purchased at the price of change or slumber?
Forbid it, Almighty God.
I ask not what course others may take, but ask for me, ask for me, ask for the other members of the Wallace Institute.
Give us liberty or give us death.
Now if we go out with that same attitude of Patrick Henry, we can change America for the better.
Thank you very much.
To give you some idea of what people are doing by way of tax reform, let's hear from Dan Mitchell, a senior fellow, a senior economist at the Heritage Foundation.
Thank you very much, Bob.
And I want to welcome everyone here.
I know a lot of you have come from outside of Washington, and so I wanted to add my welcome to Washington, D.C., America's work-free drug zone.
And I want everyone to sort of stop and take a deep breath, because there's a little bit of freedom in the air.
Not quite yet, but Congress is about to go out on their Fourth of July recess, or as they call it, a district work period.
And since Will Rogers so aptly said that no man's life, liberty, and property are safe while the legislature is in session, I think we can shortly expect that no bad laws will be imposed upon us during that period when they are all out of town on their district work period.
But, I'm here to talk about what are the alternatives?
What might happen if some of the events discussed by other panelists come to pass?
Folks, before you get all wrapped up in what you are about to hear, let me warn you.
What Daniel Mitchell is about to propose is not only unconstitutional, but extremely dangerous to our freedoms.
For those of you who know and understand the Constitution as I do, you will spot the unconstitutionality of this proposal instantly.
And then as you listen to him as he goes along, you will also spot the danger.
Tremendous danger to us all.
I don't know how the Heritage Foundation can call this man what he has just introduced, been introduced to be.
Unless, number one, none of them have studied the Constitution.
And in truth could not possibly know anything about it.
Or number two, this is a subversive proposal meant to do the damage that if it ever becomes law it is most certain to do.
So pay attention to this and understand that a national sales tax or a flat tax is unconstitutional.
And they've been talking about the unconstitutionality of it through this whole presentation.
It's a direct tax.
The federal government does not have the authority given to them by the Constitution to tax you at your cash register within the territorial boundaries of your state.
They only have authority over interstate commerce and international commerce To levy excise taxes and only upon the first sale within that international or interstate commerce.
So, if you don't understand all this, get out your copy of the Constitution and study it thoroughly.
And listen to this guy.
And understand that he could be proposing this innocently, not understanding the limits placed upon the federal government by the Constitution for the United States of America.
or he could be the enemy.
We have viewed at the Heritage Foundation, we have viewed the tax system through a prism
of the Constitution.
Not in the sense of the issue talked about here, but in the sense that we believe that a tax system should fulfill the Constitution's promise of equal treatment under the law.
In other words, the law should apply equally to all.
Now, what this means is that there should be no special treatment or subsidy or reward for some people who happen to have a special access to the powerful in Washington, and neither should there be any special penalty imposed upon those who happen to be in disfavor among the elites in Washington.
And that means that you should have a system that doesn't penalize you on the basis of how you earn your income, It shouldn't penalize you on the basis of how you spend.
And it shouldn't penalize you on the basis of the level of income or wealth or consumption that you have.
You want the law to treat everyone equally.
What does that mean?
It means that whatever your tax code is, if you're taxed economic activity, only one time, and it's bad enough to give the government one bite at the apple, don't give them twice, and then tax at one rate.
And if you have a tax code that fulfills those two very simple principles, you're going to have something that, as an economist, I would love to drone on endlessly about how that's going to be good for our economy.
Perhaps even more importantly, from a moral and from a philosophical and a constitutional perspective, we will have satisfied the notion of equal treatment under the law.
Now, much of what the Heritage Foundation has done Within the guidelines of those principles has been to work on the flat tax.
But what happens if, knock on wood, good news happens, and somehow the courts or the politicians say, well, you can't have any direct tax on income, and that means even a simple, fair, low-rate income tax or the flat tax can't happen.
What does that mean?
Well, fortunately, there is more than one way to skin the cat.
Now, mind you, when we were out there talking earlier, Bob, what would happen if the income tax went away?
I do briefly get tempted to think that we could somehow survive, as this country survived from 1776 to 1913,
with neither a sales tax or an income tax.
But I guess, maybe a little old-fashioned, we didn't have any kind of big broad-based tax.
We might not have any money to get the corrupt socialist governments to pump up their economies around the world.
We might not be able to pay people to have children out of wedlock and destroy families in the inner city.
We might not have money for the Department of Education that bonds down teachers with red tape so they have a harder time educating our kids.
And so of course I guess we do need some revenue source so the government can continue to carry out all these very important functions.
Well what is the alternative?
There is an alternative that I think very clearly satisfies those principles that I laid out earlier, and that's a national sales tax.
Now, before I tell you what a national sales tax is, let me tell you what it isn't.
Because if I tell you what it isn't, that's going to tell you that it's a pretty good idea.
First of all, it's not 17,000 pages of code and regulations that accompany our income tax.
And this, by the way, doesn't include all the tax court decisions and IRS letter rulings.
It is not 5.5 million words, many of them inconsistent with each other, that define our current income tax code and regulations.
It is not the 569 different forms that our current income tax requires that are available on the IRS's own webpage.
And to give you actually an idea of how bad the system is, I just can't resist, it's one of my, I guess it's not a favorite anecdote, maybe it's the least favorite anecdote.
In 1997, Money Magazine, Sent a hypothetical family's tax return to professional tax preparers.
CPAs.
People who presumably knew what they were doing.
They got back 45 answers.
All 45 were different.
All 45 were wrong.
And fewer than 1 in 4 were even within $1,000 of the right answer.
And by the way, who even knows whether Money Magazine's panel of experts came up with the right answer?
And this actually caused a little bit of a stir in Washington.
Our elected officials got right to business.
And they passed the 1997 Taxpayer Relief Act.
Well, I think the only relief it gave was to tax lawyers and accountants.
Because that one law created 285 new sections of tax law and amended 824 others.
And so when Money Magazine in 1998 did the same survey of sending out a hypothetical family tax return, and remember, hypothetical family, not General Motors, Not Bill Gates, but a hypothetical family.
This time, they got back 46 answers.
Once again, all 46 were different from each other, and all 46 were wrong.
And this time, infinitives 1 and 4 being within $1,000 of the alleged correct answer, the closest answer to the alleged correct answer was off by $610, and the average mistake was more than $5,000.
That's the tax code that we have today.
This is what a national sales tax would not be.
And by the way, of course, I love the fact that under our current tax code that your normal constitutional protections do go out the window.
You are presumed guilty until you prove yourself innocent.
So in other words, you have fewer constitutional protections than Timothy McVeigh and OJ Simpson and everyone else out there who robs, kills, rapes, murders, pillages, you name it.
Of course, I guess What the IRS does is pillaging, but I'll try to keep those editorial comments out of here.
So, that's what National Retail Sales Tax is, and what is it?
What it is, is very simple.
And I'll just assume that it's a 20% rate.
You know, obviously the rate would depend on the size of the government.
But, since I'm not a math genius, let's keep 20% in case I have to do any calculations.
A 20% tax on all final consumer purchases of goods and services.
Now this is a little bit different than what you're probably familiar with if you're from one of the 45 states with a sales tax.
Everything would be taxed.
In most states, for instance, you don't tax services.
In most states, you have special penalties on some products, like tobacco, that are viewed as politically incorrect.
But the view of a national retail sales tax is that we want to fulfill that constitutional promise of equal treatment, and so you don't want special subsidies for some products or services, special penalties imposed on others.
So one flat, low rate imposed on all final consumer purchases.
Why do I say final consumer purchases?
Why not purchases from one business to another?
You don't tax purchases from one business to another because that causes cascading and double taxation.
And it creates an incentive then for businesses to become this giant vertically integrated conglomerate.
And the example that I will give you that I think makes the most sense, at least to me, is that if we tax the sale from the Tree Farmer, again, I don't know what you call Tree Farmers, but the Tree Farmer, to the Lumber Mill, and then you tax again the transaction from the Lumber Mill to the Furniture Maker, and then you tax the transaction from the Furniture Maker to the Wholesaler, and then again from the Wholesaler to the Retailer, and then you levy another tax at the level of the Retailer.
Guess what?
You're taxing the one product that the consumer buys at the end, what, five or six times?
And that would obviously create a huge incentive for one company to simply vertically integrate and have all of those operations under one roof.
And we don't want the tax code to be dictating how the economy is functioning.
We want the tax code to do one thing and one thing only.
Collect whatever amount of money the government demands, hopefully a small amount, but that's up to the political process.
And to do so in a way that is going to be as least intrusive, and as least damaging, and as least distortionary to the economy, while also fulfilling the promise of treating all citizens equally under the law.
What sort of compliance would you have with the National Retail Sale Tax?
You, as an individual, would have none.
Zip.
Nada.
No more tax system for you.
The closest you come to a tax system as a consumer, as an individual, under a National Retail Sales Tax, is you buy products.
And it's a tax that's part of that product.
And by the way, it's very important, that tax should be visible.
You don't want to make the mistake that the European socialist stagnant economies have made with value-added taxes that are built into the price of a product, and so when you buy it, you don't know how much the government is taking from you.
Whereas if you have a very clear National Retail Sales Tax, where it's on your cash register receipt that you pay 20% more because the government wants to spend this money, then you have a way of deciding, is this price that I'm paying too much for government?
Is government giving me 20 cents on the dollar worth of goods and services?
Now, I would think the answer would be no, and we put pressure to bring that rate down, but again, that's a question for the political process.
So you would have nothing to do with the tax code as an individual.
If you're a business, You would basically do what you do now if you're in one of the 45 states with a sales tax.
Except it would be much simpler because you wouldn't have to calculate which products have taxes and which products don't.
You would simply collect 20% on everything you sell.
You would submit a monthly statement or form to the tax collection authority.
And by the way, you can have this tax collection authority actually done at the state level.
Or you could have it be done federally.
The sales tax legislation that has been offered and discussed in Washington proposes to give a commission for states to actually be the collection agency.
And so you wouldn't even need anything remotely resembling the IRS that we have now in Washington.
And that literally is it.
I mean, I'd love to talk for another hour explaining all the details and intricacies of a national retail sales tax, but there aren't any.
We can have a simple tax code if we make a decision that we want to get politicians out of the business of trying to steer our behavior and micromanage the economy.
And we can have a simple tax code if we decide that we want a tax system that treats everyone equally.
All the complications, all the mess, all the distortions that we have with our current income tax all exist because we have deviated from those principles.
And so it's really up to us.
Do we want the simplicity?
Do we want the fairness?
And if we don't get rid of the 16th Amendment, you can get that through a flat tax, or you can get it through a sales tax, and you certainly would only get it through a sales tax if we can somehow get rid of the 16th Amendment.
And actually, I do want to give one word of caution.
Just getting rid of the 16th Amendment, I fear, is not enough, because we won that case in 1895, the Pollock case, but only by a 5-4 vote, and that was back when the Supreme Court justices probably knew there was such a thing as the Constitution.
I worry that if you have people like David Souter deciding this case today, He would say, oh, well, the Constitution already gives us the right to levy an income tax.
That decision back in 1895 was a mistake.
So I encourage all of us, let's not just fight to put the 16th Amendment six feet under the ground in a lead-lined casket surrounded by concrete with salt over the earth.
Let's try to put something in the Constitution making it unambiguously clear, so clear that even David Souter can't rule otherwise, that an income tax can never come back to haunt America.
Let me go ahead and close, I guess, on an optimistic note.
Again, there's not a whole lot more to discuss on a sales tax because it's so simple.
I actually think that even if we don't succeed with what we're trying to do with the 16th Amendment and the income tax, that events are moving in our direction.
And why do I say this?
I say this because of the Internet.
And it's not for the reason that was discussed earlier, that information is more freely available.
I mean, I think that's great.
The American people do have a chance through the Internet of finding things that the elites don't want them to know.
But I think the beauty of the income tax from the internet, from the perspective of the income tax, is that with each passing year, it is becoming harder and harder and harder for the Internal Revenue Service to enforce a tax code that is so fundamentally broken and corrupt in terms of the values it has.
When you have the internet, all you have to do is just go to one of those search engines and type in tax shelter.
And frankly, the number of replies you get will be dictated simply by whatever the maximum capacity is of that server, whether they give you 10,000 replies, 100,000 replies.
It used to be that rich people, that the income tax was largely voluntary for rich people in the sense that they could always go to Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Netherlands and Tilly, the Isle of Man, there are all sorts of places that rich people have always been able to go to hide their income and assets from the government.
Which is one of the reasons why, of course, the class warfare people were always so wrong when they said that we need to have higher tax rates to soak the rich.
But, of course, it actually turned out that the supply side was right all along.
You lower tax rates and the rich wind up paying more because they find it, all of a sudden, it's not as profitable for them to hide their money overseas and to hide their money in tax shelters.
But the point is, is that the tax shelters and the tax havens and the ways to protect income and assets that used to be an exclusive preserve of the rich are now increasingly becoming more and more something that's available to the average
American.
Now, I'm not saying that this is fair and right.
I do think that laws should apply equally to all, and everyone should obey those laws,
assuming they are moral and just laws.
And when you have a tax system that is as bad as the one we have now, and individuals are being able to hide their money and evade the responsibilities they have under the law, that simply creates a more onerous and more oppressive regime among the tax collection authorities and the politicians, because they are trying harder and harder to get that same amount of money.
And that, to me, is why I am hopeful I won't guarantee it by any means, but I am hopeful that the fact that it is becoming increasingly easy for people to hide their money from an unjust and unfair tax system.
I'm hoping, not because they'll understand what's right, but simply for self-preservation and the desire to keep that money coming in that they can then spend to help themselves get re-elected.
I am hoping that the politicians will realize we can't keep the income tax anymore.
And actually, everyone else gave their website.
I want to encourage you to find one thing.
We put out a book at the Heritage Foundation, The IRS vs. the People.
And Richard Rahn, who's actually, yeah, in a lot of the chapters, most of them actually focus on flat tax, but one of the chapters was by Richard Rahn, former Vice President and Chief Economist of the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce.
And his chapter was on this very topic of how the politicians are going to have no choice But to get rid of the current tax system for this argument of self-preservation.
And if you go to www.heritage.org, you can get this book, as well as, of course, all the other papers we've done.
I've done a paper, Flat Tax or Sales Tax, Win-Win Choice for Americans.
Heaven knows, we must have hundreds of papers on there, and so if you have lots of time on your hands, feel free to scroll on forever.
But I definitely want people to get a hold of the Richard Rahn article in that book, The IRS vs. the People.
Because that chapter, I think, is a very optimistic, very uplifting look at what the Internet is going to mean for finally giving us tax freedom.
And I guess in closing, I want to sort of add my words to the spirit that's already been expressed up here.
Think back to, what was it, 1774?
Not only am I not a math genius, but I'm not a history genius either, but I think that's when Lexington and Concord took place.
When you had Americans, I guess at that time, British subjects, Who took up arms against the most powerful empire the world had ever seen because they valued their liberty.
And then when you had the founding fathers sit down to write the Declaration of Independence, these were people of means.
These were the successful people, the elite of their day.
And they decided we're going to go ahead and risk everything.
Matter of fact, I'll probably butcher it and paraphrasing it, but they said we pledged Our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
And if they, who had so much, and who were the elite of their day, could put everything on the line, and risk everything, including their very lives in some cases, in order to fight for freedom, then for heaven's sake, can't all of us not pledge our lives and our fortunes and our sacred honors even, but let's at least give a little bit of time To spread the word about freedom and what freedom would mean and how we can have a tax system that is better than the awful one we have today.
Thank you very much.
One for Larry Becraft.
If I do not file with the IRS and I get a computer-generated letter from them, How do I go about protecting my private property?
Complicated questions.
It's difficult to answer.
When you get a computer-generated letter from the IRS, where is your return?
You haven't filed.
Basically, what they're going to do is they're going to send around a special agent, if you become one of the people that are targeted for criminal investigation.
They could ultimately investigate what you made and bring charges against you.
And the alternative, instead of going the criminal route, the government might go, the IRS might go the civil route.
What they'll do is they'll send you a 90-day letter, drag you into tax court, or you will have to go to tax court, and you'll probably end up with a whole bunch of big bucks that the IRS will attempt to collect from you.
Now, in situations like that, you can consult people like Bill Conklin, and they can try to work out some arrangements, you know, try to minimize your damage.
All of this will continue.
I look across the tax movement and I see a bunch of people that are, you know, like I described a few moments ago.
They want to hide.
They want to avoid.
Well, if you're not out there actively trying to do something to bring this thing to an end, that type of activity of the criminal investigations and the civil investigations will continue.
The only way to stop it is for you to do something.
And we can stop it.
As I said, you know, let's take five years and let's apply ourselves.
Let's attack what we perceive as the ills of America.
And clearly the tax system is one of the great problems in America.
And if we will lift a finger, if we will do something like the Civil Rights Movement did, they went out there in a very small or smaller faction of the American people than we are.
Brought about change in their favor.
If you want to avoid getting that little notice from the IRS, if you want to avoid getting that tax bill, if you want to avoid being criminally prosecuted, there is but one way for us to end it.
It has to go out there and bring the tax to an end.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
There's a related question for Bill Conklin.
If we do not file a 1040 in April 2000, when contacted by the IRS, how should we then proceed?
Well, like Larry said, the IRS can proceed two ways, both civilly and criminally.
And they don't go criminally in most cases, but they do in some.
What I suggest in my book, and what I think is that people have to take An approach that they're comfortable with.
I think far too many people in this country do one of either two things.
They do nothing.
Or they jump into an approach they don't understand and take a risk that's too high.
The IRS can seize assets.
They can garnish your wages down to about $300 a month.
They can take your house.
They can tow your vehicles away.
And if you resist them towing your vehicles away, they can arrest you for interfering with government property and put you in jail.
The amount of power they have is absolutely unbelievable.
So you've got to understand that when you take this on.
So, how you respond to that letter depends on what approach you want to use.
If you've decided to take an approach as a non-filer, first of all, you should do it on the advice of counsel.
You should never do that without having an opinion letter from an attorney.
If you have an opinion letter from an attorney stating that you waive your Fifth Amendment rights when you file a return, Well, obviously you can't be required to waiver her commitment rights.
One way to respond to that letter, considering, assuming you understand all the implications, which would probably have to be discussed in your individual case, one way to respond to that letter is a cover letter attaching opinion letters from attorneys and other professionals, and that cover letter states, according to counsel, I've filed all required returns and I'm in compliance with the law.
Okay?
If you write a letter back calling the IRS all kinds of names and stating that you're not going to file returns, anything you say can be used against you in a criminal case.
If the IRS needs to prove that you haven't filed a return, it's not too hard to prove it if you write them back a letter and say, I'm not going to file.
I didn't file.
Unfortunately, a lot of people take very dangerous and very hardcore positions they don't understand.
They argue the law with the IRS.
The United States Attorney on cross-examination can beat them up real bad because you're going to understand the law better than the individual who's read some $30 book, which is probably wrong on the law anyway.
You have to be very careful.
In my book, I suggest that if you're an employee, you do not file an exempt or inflated W-4.
The reason, and I've worked on dozens of criminal tax cases, the reason that all employees that I've seen have been indicted It's because of the exempt W-4, not because of not filing the tax return.
And actually, it's an inconsistency to file an exempt W-4 and then not file a return if your argument is the Fifth Amendment, because the government can't require you to file the W-4 either.
And if you don't file a W-4 with the employer, the employer will call the IRS up and say, what should I do?
And the IRS will just say, withhold them at 1 or withhold them at 0.
And then if you want to argue a matter of law about the income tax, you can argue that later in a refund lawsuit, which is safer because it puts you in the driver's seat.
The individual who wants to take an extremely hardcore position needs to remember the song, I believe it was Janis Joplin, that said, once freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.
The guy who really understands his position has the advice of counsel and has nothing left to lose and is willing to spend a little time in a federal camp if it comes to that It's the only guy that should be on the very front lines of this movement.
And that's just the way it is.
Unfortunately, I don't think most people understand that.
But that is where.
Joe Bannister.
Don't you have another moment of truth approaching.
With the information that you now have.
Thank you.
About the validity of the Sixteenth Amendment and the absence of a statute compelling one to file and pay taxes, income tax, do you intend to file in April of 2000?
I wonder if a few people are listening to the answer to this question.
I think I told you during my speech and I've told many people that I've spoken to, I have searched far and wide and used every bit of my own expertise and training to try to find a federal law that requires me to file a federal income tax return.
I have not been able to find that law.
I've also approached my agency that I used to work for and asked for some clarification.
I got a very cursed letter that gave me a little report that said your answer is on page 13 and we don't want to talk to you anymore.
My plan right now is to not file a tax return in April of 2000 unless or until someone from my government We'll show me, so that then I can show everyone else where that law is.
Is that too much to ask?
.
But I've got quite a few comments to make here.
You heard every one of these people agree that nobody can find a law that requires anybody to file and pay the income tax.
Now these are attorneys, ex-special agents of the Internal Revenue Service.
Bill Benson was the chief investigator for his state.
He was involved with prosecutors and law enforcement for most of his life.
Now, we've still got some more to hear, and you're going to get that tomorrow night.
We're going to postpone tomorrow night's photography broadcast to finish up this series so that we can go into the following week fresh.
And that you won't be sitting there over a weekend forgetting what you heard this week and then listening to the tag end of all of it.
Because I don't think that's a very good thing to do.
We're going to continue this and you're going to hear some astounding information between now and April the 15th.
Excuse me folks, I've still got that little cold in my throat and
It's Making it kind of hard to talk without getting a little flim
and you know So anyway, I hope you will excuse that.
My stance has been completely and totally 100% up on the law.
You hear these people say that there's no law requiring anybody to file and pay.
But most of those people, not all, Bill Benson does not file and pay.
I guarantee you That Bob does.
I guarantee you that Larry Becraft does.
I guarantee you that D.D.
Kidd does.
I guarantee you that most of these people are filing and paying the income tax.
Now that's nothing but sheer cowardice.
To bend the knee to tyranny and say we can't find a law and you don't have the right to do this It's unconstitutional.
The law is vague.
There's due process problems.
You're making us violate our Fifth Amendment privilege by causing us to fill out W-4s and W-2s and 1040s and all of this kind of stuff because, in all actuality, we're testifying against ourselves.
But!
But!
We all have to work within this crooked, unconstitutional, illegal, and unlawful system.
You know?
And maybe in five years or so, we can get it switched to an unconstitutional, unlawful sales tax.
Federal sales tax.
And people don't sit down and think about these things.
They're going on their emotions.
Instead of their intellect.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, did you know that the income tax started out at 1% and it was only leveled against corporations?
And now look what it is.
Do you think if they started a national sales tax off at 7%, on top of your state sales tax of 7%, mind you, or 8% or 8.5% or whatever it is in your state, Do you really believe in your wildest dreams that it's going to stay at 7%?
Are you really so far gone that you really believe that?
Because I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen.
Every year, they're going to raise the national sales tax until it's worse than any income tax ever could be.
And on top of that, it's unconstitutional.
They don't have the authority in the Constitution to levy a sales tax against anybody inside the territorial boundaries of any state, or a flat tax.
A flat tax is clearly, without any doubt whatsoever, a direct tax upon everybody in the nation.
And they can't do that without apportionment amongst the states.
And then they can only level the tax against the states, and the states have to come up with the money based upon the population of the state.
People don't sit down and think about these things.
They go off on these wild tangents.
And they think they've got a clue, and they don't.
And the biggest problem with all of this is none of them ever sit down and read the Constitution before they start off on these wild goose chases.
None of them.
And I find it absolutely amazing.
And they talk about the income tax being a property tax.
A property tax upon what?
Upon your money.
Well, that might be okay if the federal government had the authority in the Constitution to levy a property tax, but they don't.
Not within the territorial boundaries of any state.
And Federal Reserve notes are not your property.
They're the property of the Federal Reserve.
They have no value.
They are a promise to pay.
A note is a promise to pay.
And they are issued by the Federal Reserve.
But nobody ever gets paid.
You can't exchange them for anything of value.
When you think you have purchased something with Federal Reserve notes, you have not.
You have not.
Now, if you don't believe me, go out and look for a patent deed to your automobile.
Look for an allodial title to your automobile.
You don't have one.
What you have is a certificate of title, which means this certifies that a title exists.
Well, where is the title?
If you own your automobile, how come you don't have it if it's paid off?
You don't have it because it belongs to whoever issued those notes that you use to purchase it with that have no value.
You see, you can't pay for something and own it with a note that is a promise to pay until the promise is Met!
And you didn't meet it with a Federal Reserve note.
You understand?
So you don't own anything.
That's why they can levy property taxes against your land and against your home.
Because you don't own it.
The property tax is actually a lease payment while you are occupying that land and that home.
Now if you don't believe me, just miss one payment and see what happens.
They can come if they want to and take your land and take your home and auction it off to the highest bidder and you don't get a penny even though you may have $200,000 invested in it.
You don't get any of those proceeds.
Well if you really owned the land all that they would really be able to keep would be the taxes that you owed and they would have to be forced by law to give you anything above that amount.
But they don't.
And they don't because you forfeited your lease And they were the ones who actually owned the property all along.
Good night, folks.
God bless each and every single one of you.
Don't miss tomorrow night's broadcast, The Hour of the Time.
And from now on out, don't ever miss a broadcast of The Hour of the Time.
Good night, Annie Poole and Allison.
I love you.
Oh, you can't find a way out.
I love you.
And the only explanation you owe them is if you can't show me a law, get off my property and don't ever come back!
But you better be ready to draw the line, and you better be able to put everything on that line, just like I'm doing.
If you're not willing to die for freedom, you cannot have it.
You cannot have it.
And if you're not willing to die to protect your rights, your person, and your property against tyranny, every tyrant in the world will be on your doorstep to make you their slave.
Take it to the bank.
That's the only thing seen in a long time, or heard in a long time, that's worth gold.
William Jefferson Clinton called me the most dangerous radio host in America.
And now you know why.
♪♪ Land of the free and the home of the brave.
you No.
No, ladies and gentlemen, this is No Balls City.
And it's all a lot of you.
Get out of your cowardice.
That's all it's ever going to be.
It's just a matter of time.
What a day for a daydream.
What a day for a teaching boy.
And I'm lost in a daydream.
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