John J. Bulten wrote:I will debate the law as soon as someone commits to abide by any reasonable independent formal rules of debate and we find a legal proposition on which we disagree.
Quixote wrote:Formal rules of debate are for sophists. I'm after the truth, not a well constructed squirrel case. Payment received for work is revenue and gives rise to income equal to the value of the money or other property received less direct expenses of producing the income. If you agree with that legal proposition, amend your last CtC return to correct the errors in it. If not, put up or shut up. For once in your life, take and defend a position.
LDE wrote:Well, formal rules of debate probably are not going to be observed on the Internet (though the social norms for message boards are pretty well understood). But the legal question boils down to this: Both you and I collect money in exchange for work. I don't doubt that I have taxable income. Somehow you don't believe the money you get for working is taxable income. How so?
When someone wants to take me up on my offer to debate the law, I will. However, under the auspices of being "after the truth" (from one of the most forked tongues here) and "social norms for message boards" I'll be happy to pretend to debate the law. Subject, of course, to my stated purpose of having fun rather than attempting (fruitlessly) to convince anyone.
Quixote's first clause refers to "revenue" which does not to me have a legal definition or constitute a legal proposition, so I cannot agree or disagree on this ambiguous clause. The second clause is equally ambiguous but can be resolved if we assume that in the context of tax law, "income" has the same meaning as it takes in the 16th Amendment. In that case my position would be "Payment received for work does not necessarily give rise to Constitutional income equal to the value of the money or other property received less direct expenses of producing the Constitutional income."
My position is, of course, as self-evident as the observation that payment prior to 1776 or payment between non-US-connected parties outside the US generally does not give rise to Constitutional income.
Now of course it would also be appropriate to offer, as a friendly amendment, the position Quixote probably would have preferred to take, namely, "Payment received within a union state for work performed on or after 3/1/1913 ...." It's too bad that there is no law which demonstrates that the income derived from such payments is equal to the value received less expenses and Quixote cannot supply one to meet his burden of proof under this hypothetical.
What we do have is a provision from 1935 that payment received for "employment", as defined now in 3121(b), does so derive; and a provision from about the 1940s that payments to "employees", as defined now in 3401(c), does so derive. I've already been well over the meaning of these two words, and would defer to Q as to whether he wants to reopen them. But suffice for now to observe that (1) if these later entries into the law created the liability for all union-state pay-for-work, then there was no tax on income derived from pay-for-work prior to them; and (2) if they didn't, then there is no provision remaining that might show the income derived from pay-for-work is equal to the value received.
It also answers LDE's proposition simply to repeat that no law establishes that my pay for work derives income equal to the value received. I don't know how familiar you are with the law and the case, LDE, so I won't presume a particular route on you. I'll simply leave you both to propose candidates for such a law that states union-state pay-for-work always derives income equal to the value received.
Have fun! I am.
