diller, your approach to this topic is faulty. Let me break it to you gently: You do not need to differentiate which other items can be embraced by the dependent definition from the rest of the known and unknown cosmos; neither do you need to consider whether some boundary must exist, or whether that boundary must be inferable from the nature of the explicit example item or items in that definition.FOR THE RECORD (again), neither Hendrickson nor myself nor any other serious student of CtC would ever proclaim that the Section 7701 definition of "includes" should be interpreted to limit what is embraced by the subject of a dependent definition to only the item or items listed in the latter's definitional predicate. What we DO say is that in order to differentiate which other items CAN be embraced by the dependent definition from the REST OF THE KNOWN AND UNKNOWN COSMOS, some boundary MUST exist and that boundary MUST be inferable from the nature of the explicit example item or items in that definition.
To some extent, you're just gonna have to trust me on this one, diller. And that could be a real problem for you. Here's why.
To be successful, you are going to have to transfer your trust from its current focus (which is Peter Hendrickson, his writings, and your own readings and conclusions about what you have read both in Hendrickson's work and in actual legal materials) to a new focus, which would be the experienced posters here at Quatloos. Your apparent belief that CtC is "correct" and that the experts are wrong is based on your own reading, your own analysis, of Peter Hendrickson's writings and, probably, many of the statutes, regs or court cases he cites in his material. You have been conned. You have been scammed. If you can ever come to the realization that you have been scammed, it may be very difficult to accept.
Law (that is, the law of the United States of America and, in particular, federal income tax law) is knowable. Law is learnable. Law is not properly analyzed in the way you are trying to approach it.
Law has its own rules, its own philosophy, its own mysteries. And yes, law has its own logic. Diller, you need to be careful about how you use your preconceived notions about "logic" when studying the law. To paraphrase a famous man: "The life of the law is not logic; the life of the law is experience."
Cracking the Code is a scam. From a legal standpoint, it is nonsense. Those who willfully use the book are committing crimes. There is no way around that.
Another aspect to this is that you need to accept that you may never fully know the truth about the law in the way you would like to know it. Here's why.
We (the regulars here at Quatloos) cannot impart to you what we know in precisely the way we know it. For you to really know law in the way that some of us know it, you would have to have studied law the way we have studied it.
I can walk through Monet's garden at Giverny and gaze at his paintings of water lilies in the Orangerie in Paris. In doing this, I can "know" some part of what Monet knew and experienced, in some limited way. But I cannot fully know French impressionism in the way Monet knew it merely by experiencing these things. To some extent, no matter how much I study Monet, I am going to have to be content with being limited by my own training and experience to enjoying the artistry of Monet. Monet was an artistic genius. I am not.
The human capacity for self-delusion is very great. The regular posters at losthorizons.com are caught up in a massive and self-destructive delusion. Diller, I hope that, for you, this is the beginning of a journey to understanding. If you approach these posts here in Quatloos with the earnest desire to learn, you may bring yourself slowly out of the darkness and into the light.
