New Arguments...

[The Dog]

Moderator note (please read carefully):
[Various items omitted]
- There is no evidence Congress meant "employee" to include classes not similar to the items enumerated.
[More items omitted]

I'm puzzled by this.

If Congress did not intend a broader definition of employee, do you not think that at least one Senator or Representative would have complained when either their income or that of their families or staff was taxed?

[John J. Bulten]

See how easy misunderstandings are?

- Investor did not receive a formal warning and has not been added to the troll list.

- Investor is not against "know the law", but (presumably) against "understand the law as explained by CtC". (If on reflection you should come out and agree with the law, as explained by CtC, I would acquit you of this charge.)

- Trolls on LH are those who disagree with CtC and argue frivolously. Investor disagrees with CtC but, because of an open-minded demeanor, his unfounded statements have not risen to the level of blatant frivolity. Disagreement is permitted if one is generally open to dialogue, willing to document claims, and able to avoid implosion.

- "Includes" does not shrink a class, it is expansive to the degree described. I hold that "Single family residence" (SFR) is limited to the manufactured homes described and units of the same general class.

1. The USSC says of "includes", "enlargement ... is its exceptional sense". You say enlargement is its exceptional sense in Utah. Please provide any evidence for your proposition that in general, or in IRC, "includes also" is its normal sense.

2. The USSC says noscitur a sociis is "to avoid ascribing to one word a meaning so broad that it is inconsistent with its accompanying words": i.e., that the phrase SFR does not annul the definition of the term SFR, as I claim it would if all ordinary SFRs are intended. You did not disagree because you did not answer.

Suppose that everything you argue on this is accurate (though not necessarily on point nor proving your conclusion). You seem to read that SFR means all ordinary SFRs, plus any 400sf+ 102in fixed-location manufactured homes which are not ordinary SFRs. However, if all ordinary 400sf+ SFRs plus all 400sf+ manufactured homes are defined as SFRs, the 400sf+ clause is redundant; ditto for the 102in clause, ditto for the fixed location. Using the meaning as "includes also", the definition could, without change of meaning, simply end "... includes any manufactured home." So either this definition is greatly redundant, or your meaning of "includes" is inconsistent. Please provide any escape from this difficulty logically.

Rather, I hold that Congress intends only to include units of the "same general class" as 400sf+ 102-in fixed-location manufactured homes; and since Congress has not spoken on exactly what this class is, it intends the class to be ambiguous and intends (if it should ever be disputed) for the courts to decide it. One reasonable class is "all 400sf+ 102in fixed-location ordinary SFRs".

As you ask, I'll hold on the other cases, other than to note that your proposition (that statutory expressions 2-4 of "includes" are identically synonymous) is not supported by evidence, even though I am supplying evidence for my proposition (albeit in the piecemeal method compelled by this forum).

The ongoing relevance, of course, is the use of "includes" in such laws as 3121(e) and 3401(c). But I'm trying to build agreement on the general rules before we tackle that.

(Dog, what, and bring the whole house of cards down?)

[Investor]

If Congress did not intend a broader definition of employee, do you not think that at least one Senator or Representative would have complained when either their income or that of their families or staff was taxed?

But it's even worse than that. The Section to which he is referring is IRC 3402, which has nothing to do with calculating tax liability - it deals with employer withholding requirements. This is mucking up the water (whether intentionally or not). Even if one were to conclude that they were not an "employee" under IRC 3402 (which is completely incorrect under the "indclude(s)" theory), that would not relieve them of their liability, or their obligation to remit.

[Investor]

Bulten: 1. The USSC says of "includes", "enlargement ... is its exceptional sense". You say enlargement is its exceptional sense in Utah. Please provide any evidence for your proposition that in general, or in IRC, "includes also" is its normal sense.

The case you cited involved Utah state law. I do not know what Utah's legislature has done, I do not know the relevant case law in Utah and most importantly, I cannot imagine anything being less relevant to federal tax law than a case in which Utah state law is being interpreted. Again, I will not waste my time reading this case or the context in which it was decided. Give me something relevant and I will discuss it.

As for proof that the IRC uses include(s) in the sense of "includes also", please see IRC 7701(c), which specifically says so.

Bulten: 2. The USSC says noscitur a sociis is "to avoid ascribing to one word a meaning so broad that it is inconsistent with its accompanying words": i.e., that the phrase SFR does not annul the definition of the term SFR, as I claim it would if all ordinary SFRs are intended. You did not disagree because you did not answer.

Suppose that everything you argue on this is accurate (though not necessarily on point nor proving your conclusion). You seem to read that SFR means all ordinary SFRs, plus any 400sf+ 102in fixed-location manufactured homes which are not ordinary SFRs. However, if all ordinary 400sf+ SFRs plus all 400sf+ manufactured homes are defined as SFRs, the 400sf+ clause is redundant; ditto for the 102in clause, ditto for the fixed location. Using the meaning as "includes also", the definition could, without change of meaning, simply end "... includes any manufactured home." So either this definition is greatly redundant, or your meaning of "includes" is inconsistent. Please provide any escape from this difficulty logically.

As I have already addressed this, I will merely quote myself:

Investor: I believe that you jump to conclusions as pertains to IRC 25(e)(10). You assume that Congress considers manufactured homes, in general, to be within in the definition of “single family residence” and narrows the definition to exclude manufactured homes of less than a certain size. I am not convinced of this and believe that Congress did not consider manufactured homes to fall within the general definition of single family residences and was broadening the definition to include certain manufactured homes, specifically, those of a certain size or larger. Please note that some states treat manufactured homes like motor vehicles for purposes of title and lien perfection. This is not inconsistent with the definition of “include(s)” found in IRC 7701(c), nor is it inconsistent with the common English usage of “include(s)”.

Bulten: The ongoing relevance, of course, is the use of "includes" in such laws as 3121(e) and 3401(c). But I'm trying to build agreement on the general rules before we tackle that.

My point is, even if you are correct about these sections (which you are not), that would not eliminate your wages from Gross Income. So again I ask, what is your point?

Bulten: - Investor did not receive a formal warning and has not been added to the troll list.

- Investor is not against "know the law", but (presumably) against "understand the law as explained by CtC". (If on reflection you should come out and agree with the law, as explained by CtC, I would acquit you of this charge.)

You basically told me that I would be banned if I continued to post and disagree with the CtC position, even though I was as civil as one could be.

Bulten's Warning:- Investor, before posting again, please review http://www.losthorizons.com/Forum3/topi ... IC_ID=1559 .
- Formal warnings and thread lockings will be handed out at my convenience.

[LPC]

Do you also disagree with the USSC's overturn of the state supreme court in Montello?

First off, I do not know Utah law, I do not care about Utah law and I do not know what Utah state law could possibly have to do with federal income taxes. Therefore, I will not waste my time reading Montello v. UT, in which the USSC was interpreting state law.

Actually, the statute in question was the Congressional act that created the state of Utah, so it was a federal law at issue.

But it was not a tax law, and the word "includes" was not used in a definition, but in the description of the land being granted to the University of Utah.

My summary of the Montello decision, and how it actually contradicts tax denier claims, can be found at http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html#includes and is as follows:

Tax protesters usually rely on their innate illiteracy in dealing with the word “includes,” but sometimes cite a Supreme Court opinion for the proposition that “includes” is a word of “confinement” and not “enlargement.” But the opinion in question actually contradicts them.

The opinion of the Supreme Court included the following:

“[Including] may have the sense of addition, as we have seen, and of ‘also;’ but, we have also seen, ‘may merely specify particularly that which belongs to the genus.’ [Citation omitted.] It is the participle of the word ‘include,’ which means, according to the definition of the Century Dictionary, (1) ‘to confine within something; hold as in an inclosure; inclose; contain.’ (2) ‘To comprise as a part, or as something incident or pertinent; comprehend; take in; as the greater includes the less; . . . the Roman Empire included many nations.’”

Montello Salt Co. v. Utah, 221 U.S. 452, 464-465 (1911).

At first glance, those words look as if they might support the conclusion that a definition using the word “including” might confine or restrict the meaning of a word, but context is everything, and the words of the Supreme Court in Montello Salt can’t be understood without understanding the context of the dispute.

The issue before the court was the amount of land granted to the University of Utah as part of the enabling act that admitted Utah as a state of the United States. The grant was of 110,000 acres “to be selected and located as provided in the foregoing section of this act, and including all saline lands in said state....” The state of Utah took the position that the University was entitled to 110,00 acres and, in addition, all of the saline lands in the state, which had considerable value. The Montello Salt company, which had deeds to various saline lands, took the position that the University of Utah was entitled to only 110,000 acres, some (or all) of which could be saline lands, but was not entitled to more than 110,000 acres. And the Supreme Court agreed with Montello Salt, holding that “the saline lands are to be contained in or comprise a part of the 110,000 acres of land.” (452 U.S. at 465.)

But the saline lands were to be only “a part of” the 110,000 acres. Tax protesters would have you believe that, if “A includes B,” then “B” is the only thing in “A” because everything else is excluded. In the case before the Supreme Court, that would mean that the University of Utah is entitled to nothing but saline lands. But that’s not what the Supreme Court said was the right result.

The holding of the Supreme Court really contradicts what tax protesters want to believe, because if you change “the saline lands” to “government employees” and “110,000 acres of land” to “employees subject to withholding,” you get the conclusion that “government employees are to be contained in or comprise a part of the employees subject to withholding,” which does not exclude any non-government employees from any withholding. The holding of the Supreme Court is therefore perfectly consistent with the meaning of “includes” in I.R.C. section 7701(c) and perfectly inconsistent with what tax protesters believe.

[Investor]

Thanks for the clarification Mr. Evans. What makes this case even less relevant is the fact that, assuming Mr. Bulten were correct about his interpretation of "include(s)", IRC 7701(c) removes any doubt about the meaning as applies to the Tax Code.

[LPC]

I should have also added that the Supreme Court has addressed the meaning of "includes" in section 7701, and the opinion also contradicts Bulten.

From the same section of my FAQ:

The Supreme Court has cited section 7701(c) (at a time when it was designated 7701(b)) in holding that things not expressly included within a definition are not necessarily excluded. The issue was whether a state is a “person” that could be served with a notice of levy in order to garnish the wages of a state employee. The statute in question, section 6332, stated that “person” for purposes of a notice of levy “includes an officer or employee of a corporation or a member or employee of a partnership, who as such officer, employee, or member is under a duty to surrender the property or rights to property, or to discharge the obligation.” The Supreme Court held that a state was a “person,” stating:

“Though the definition of ‘person’ in 6332 does not mention States or any sovereign or political entity or their officers among those it ‘includes’ [footnote omitted], it is equally clear that it does not exclude them. This is made certain by the provisions of 7701(b) of the 1954 Internal Revenue Code that ‘The terms “includes” and “including” when used in a definition contained in this title shall not be deemed to exclude other things otherwise within the meaning of the term defined.’ 26 U.S.C. (Supp. V) 7701(b).”

Sims v. United States, 359 U.S. 108, 112 (1959).

The holding in Sims also blows Bulten's "like kind" argument out of the water, because the states of the United States can hardly be considered "of the same class" as other kinds of employers.

[Duke2Earl]

Are you fine gentlemen suggesting that Bulten might just be wrong? I'm shocked, I tell you.... SHOCKED!

His religion seems to be the Wall of Words. If he can just use enough big latin words and meaningless citations surrounded by simply acres of blather then everyone will just believe whatever he says.

[Imalawman]

Are you fine gentlemen suggesting that Bulten might just be wrong? I'm shocked, I tell you.... SHOCKED!

His religion seems to be the Wall of Words. If he can just use enough big latin words and meaningless citations surrounded by simply acres of blather then everyone will just believe whatever he says.

"Blather, rinse, repeat."

What worries me is that he is starting to sound and act more and more like DMVP-WSK.

Indubitably. That council of Trent post sounded like a joke or something the creative Webhick would write. When I realized he was serious, I had the same concerns that he's really slipping. But you know, I've never seen a stable personality with a TP. It always appears to get worse as their mental disorder also gets worse. Most TPs either get help and accept reality or fall far from it.

(as a side note - Firefox2's blog spell check is rather nifty as is the entire upgrade. For once, an upgrade is actually an improvement)

[Investor]

What worries me is that he is starting to sound and act more and more like DMVP-WSK.

Please enlighten me, as I have had a long stint away from Quatloos.

[John J. Bulten]

Well, score one for Investor, because I'm compelled to agree that my redundancy argument is not a formally valid rebuttal of your observations. I blame a toothache.

OTOH, you do appear to be treading more towards the border of bald assertions.

You assert that sense 3 (7701(c)) is identical to sense 2 ("includes also"), without providing evidence. You do not analyze this subsection, or the FDIC subsection, on their own terms; nor deal with the evidence of regulatory expression at 26 USC 403.5 and 27 USC 72.11; nor deal with the evidence of case-law expression in Brigham; nor deal with the evidence that the Montello dictum is a generally authoritative USSC rule of construction (you imagine it's a hapless circumstance of Utah-related law).

You assert that sense 2 is consistent in 25(e)(10), without providing evidence. You do not state your own complete reading of the paragraph; nor affirm my proposal for your reading; nor address the evidence that the expansion class is intentionally ambiguous in 25(e)(10), i.e., debatable.

You assert that I warned you of being banned merely for posting and disagreeing civilly, without providing evidence. You do not address my statement that your (highly prized) civility is so far keeping you from making arguments we have defined as frivolous (on LH, the five moderators and Pete must be trusted to judge frivolous arguments rightly).

At this point, comparing my evidence against your lack thereof, my most charitable view is that you are not as much interested in learning the law as you are in learning what new, easily debunked frivolous positions can be collected. (Well, for that matter, here's a suitable frivolous position: "Schulz II means I can ignore administrative summonses". No, it means you'd better prepare to see them court-backed.)

Even so, I will give you a bit more of the context of the current legal question. There are generally two planks of debate. The first is "my earnings are not statutory wages", which follows immediately upon adequate proof of two subpoints: that "includes" only adds items of the "same general class", and that the Constitution prohibits private pay-for-work from being classed carelessly with federal-nexus profits. (Right to pay for work was found by the USSC in Amendments 5 and 14, and was declared inalienable by the Declaration and USSC.) The second plank is "my earnings did not derive income in any other way", for which the burden of proof is on the objector. Usually the only objection advanced is "your earnings were compensation, and thus derived income equal to their value", but there is no evidence that earnings always derive income equal to their value.

However, that context is merely to orient you. I know how tempted you must be to jump to the second plank and argue Section 61, as you've alluded twice or more. However, when others do this wholesale (the regulars here, and the IRS in Rev. Rul. 2006-18), it basically yields the first subpoint to us: that there is a provable tertium-quid definition of "includes". When you do that, the cat is out of the bag because the ambiguity of the inclusion class is now hearable. So please wait to argue the other points in due time and let me know your evidence for all-inclusiveness.

(I will merely remind LPC that Montello's explanation of "and including" naturally differed from its validly cited explanation of "including" alone; and that the inclusion principle in Sims was more broadly stated as "the subject matter, the context, the legislative history, and the executive interpretation, i.e., the legislative environment" and thus consistent with the Brigham summary.)

[Famspear]

CaptainKickback wrote:

Blather, rinse, repeat."

What worries me is that he is starting to sound and act more and more like DMVP-WSK

Yes, I see it's not just me that's been getting that vibe.

--Famspear

[Imalawman]

What worries me is that he is starting to sound and act more and more like DMVP-WSK.

Please enlighten me, as I have had a long stint away from Quatloos.

David Merrill Van Pelt. AKA David Merrill. He is a common law paytriot who believes that you can operate outside of the realm of FRNs and use lawful money. Using this lawful money you can discharge all debts. He also believes that your real name is your first and middle names - not your last. He is also referred to on here as SFBAKADMVP - meaning sh-t for brains also known as David Merill Van Pelt. (his various harebrained religious views and metaphysical nonsense not repeated)

He once filed a lawsuit for his motor scooter (talked about several places recently). Lawsuit was Motor Scooter v. Jesus Christ et al. Sadly he does have some very real mental problems and he's destitute and not paying his child support. He has served jail time for his illegal ways of avoiding debt and check fraud. He is a god on Sui Juris.com a collection of mentally disturbed and just plain dumb common law do-it-yourselfers.

He was banned on here for getting too verbose and prolific with his posts. Also, it isn't really right to have fun at the expense of the mentally ill. (although it was really entertaining at times, I can't lie)

[Investor]

You assert that sense 2 is consistent in 25(e)(10), without providing evidence. You do not state your own complete reading of the paragraph; nor affirm my proposal for your reading; nor address the evidence that the expansion class is intentionally ambiguous in 25(e)(10), i.e., debatable.

You assert that "sense 2", as you call it, is inconsistent in IRC 25(e)(10) without providing evidence. I have stated my own complete reading of the paragraph, which I then re-quoted in a second thread. Again, I do not see the "evidence" to address re: the the "expansion class" being intentionally abiguous in IRC 25(e)(10).

At this point, comparing my evidence against your lack thereof, my most charitable view is that you are not as much interested in learning the law as you are in learning what new, easily debunked frivolous positions can be collected.

I am yet to see this evidence you speak of. If you are referring to the dicta from the non-tax cases from the turn of the century, then I must question your "evidence". I do believe that I have discovered a new easily debunked frivolous position.

[Investor]

He once filed a lawsuit for his motor scooter (talked about several places recently). Lawsuit was Motor Scooter v. Jesus Christ et al.

Wow, what is the proper method with which to serve Jesus Christ with papers?

[Famspear]

Mr. John Bulten wrote:

on LH [losthorizons.com, the tax protester web site], the five moderators and Pete must be trusted to judge frivolous arguments rightly

Yes, in Bizarro Bulten World, the tax protesters themselves must be trusted to judge what is frivolous. In Bizarro Bulten World, legally frivolous arguments are the very meat and potatoes of what the protesters judge as sound arguments, and the actual holdings of courts of law are of course deemed by the Bizarros as "frivolous." In Bizarro Bulten World, up is down and down is up.

As one sane individual is quoted as having said after noting the ecstatic reaction of audience members in Germany after hearing a speech by Adolf Hitler during the early period of Hitler's rise to power: "The only thing missing is the psychiatrist."

--Famspear

[Joey Smith]

Thread way too long.