Bulten on how to earn statutor wages

[Imalawman]

Lawman, right, I apologize for not noticing that you were yielding the first plank to me for the sake of argument, though I hope you will later realize the consequences of that choice. Now as to the other plank, Section 61 liability, you have the burden of proof: if I did not earn 3121/3041 wages, the W-2 is wrong and inadmissible, and no other law or evidence suggests the payments were Section 61 gross income (or compensation for that matter).

[unimportant, misguided history]

Since I observe that there was no general taxation of all laborers until the 1935-1944 period, I conclude that laborers do not derive "income" from "compensation" (if they even have compensation).

[more unimportant, misguided history]

Given this brief history of the origin of an apparent labor tax, and its conflict with no income being derived from nonfederal labor or compensation, I research the law, and lo and behold it depends utterly on limited expansion being presumed to be generic expansion. And only in every place where the Constitutional border is challenged, and nowhere else. Significant! As Lawman backhandedly acknowledges.

So, no law derives income from nonfederal compensation, and no law includes nonfederal pay in wages. Back to you.

First, the last sentence is inaccurate even by your standards. Corporate officers are not receiving federal wages, but yet they are taxed.

Second, 62 states except otherwise provided. Then lists "compensation for services including...." This is not limited language, nor is it dependant on the definition of employee. You could be an independent contractor and not an employee and you still have to pay income tax. But here's the important part - unless otherwise provided. In one part of the code you want a very limited, word specific definition to apply. Here in 61 though you want a vague, "I'll choose what it means" approach. Hey, let's play it fair both ways. Compensation for services means ANY service, unless provided elsewhere in the code that it’s not taxable. That's the plain, specific meaning of the section. Now, let's go to your pet section 3401(a). Let's, for argument sake, agree that “employee” only includes federal and corporate officers. Now, what about 3401(a) or 3121(a) makes private wage earners not liable for the taxes imposed under 1 and 61?

Because if your argument is that 61 only includes federal worker pay, you've got to prove that independently of 3401(a). That does nothing to negate 61 imposed liability. All 3401(a) does is, under your theory, force withholding to be done on those persons already taxed under 61. It does not however state that the only people who have to pay taxes under 61 are federal "employees".

For instance, let's say a code said, "all manufactured products must be inspected before sold". You manufacture widgets. Another code section (manufactured products subject to testing) says, "all gadgets must be tested before inspected" and further, "gadgets include gizmos". You could then make the argument that your widgets should not be tested because it’s not a gadget. However, you would still have to inspect your widgets, even if you're right about the testing. If you wanted to escape inspection you would have to prove in addition, that your widgets are not manufactured products.

Thus, why do you argue so much about 3401? Who really cares about withholding? Isn't your main beef with the ultimate remitting of funds to the gov't in the form of taxes? Thus shouldn’t CTC really be setting forth the argument that another section of the code excludes private sector earnings from 61 taxation? If someone is a sole proprietor, what good is the definition of "employee" and what good is excluding him from withholding?

In addition, if you're not liable under 61, why can't you simply file for a refund and list your income as zero - without going through the trouble of correcting your withholding? As for your history, well, you're just plain wrong about that. And the fact that the code says what says and the courts have ruled like they have is proof that you're all wet on your interpretation of 61 services.

As for proving the wages independent of a W-2? I never discuss my cases on this forum. But I will say this, in every CTC and CTC-esque case, the (non) taxpayers always admit under oath that they received money in exchange for their labor. No need to even call the employer. It’s really not hard. The question is not whether they received money or had money withheld, but whether they received money for working. Which is always admitted. Case closed. Sometimes I'll even grant them (hypothetically) that they weren't supposed to be subject to withholding, but why haven't they paid taxes? There's just no good answer to that question because CTC theory is unimportant when it comes to tax liability.

[natty]

So, no law derives income from nonfederal compensation, and no law includes nonfederal pay in wages. Back to you.

You ignore the fact that every income tax law has imposed a tax on income from WHATEVER SOURCE DERIVED. Notwithstanding your semantics about "income derived from salaries, etc.", an ordinary worker's earnings, under any honest interpretation, certainly falls within the meaning of 'income from whatever source derived'.

[Quixote]

Since I observe that there was no general taxation of all laborers until the 1935-1944 period, I conclude that laborers do not derive "income" from "compensation" (if they even have compensation).

Your observation is incorrect. The income of laborers was taxed by the 1913 act and all subsequent ones. However, even if it were not, your conclusion is nonsense. By your logic the income derived from each dollar of unemployment benefits increased in 1986, which is sheer nonsense.

[John J. Bulten]

Lawman, perhaps you don't appreciate my position, pretty well already stated: compensation is a source of Constitutional income that does not always derive income equal to its value; when the amount of income derived is not specified by law or evidence, there is no proof of any Constitutional income to tax; and no law or evidence specifies that my pay for work derives nonzero income.

What do you make of the fact that the 1921 Act specified how to derive income from government compensation but did not specify how to derive it from nongovernment compensation? Do you really think Congress intended all pay for labor to be comprehended by a derivation which was specifically "including" only government pay?

There is simply no law deriving income from nonfederal compensation (where "nonfederal" is shorthand, as I've said, for being within any specifically named taxable nexus). I wasn't formerly in the "show us the law" crowd, but I've since joined. You don't care to show the law.

By the way, nonfederal sole proprietors are protected by the only limitedly expansive definition of "trade or business". Other nonfederal payees have other similar definitions.

[Quixote]

Notwithstanding your semantics about "income derived from salaries, etc.", an ordinary worker's earnings, under any honest interpretation, certainly falls within the meaning of 'income from whatever source derived'.

I think Bulten's delusion is deeper than you imagine. When Bulten says his pay does not generate income, he's not saying his income is not gross income as defined in §61, he's saying he has no income. He's not arguing the law; he's denying facts. He's saying that, despite having an accession to his wealth, he somehow, for reasons known only to him, has no income. It's as if he had watched ice melt and the resulting water boil, but denied that the water's temperature had increased.

[Duke2Earl]

The short answer is that he will be satisfied with nothing less than a statute that reads "John Bulton is specifically required to pay income tax on the money he receives from his job." And even then he'd have some bullcrap word salad about how that wasn't good enough.

It is simply impossible to have any sort of meaningful discussion with wackos like Bulton, Merrill (or whatever his name is) or even Sybil. All that is possible is nonsense semantic discussions that start out assuming that every court in the land is wrong and have been wrong for over 90 years. These "discussions" are the functional equivalent of debating how much pixie dust you need to fly to Neverland.

[John J. Bulten]

It's as if he had watched ice melt and the resulting water boil, but denied that the water's temperature had increased.

Under constant pressure?

[Cpt Banjo]

to Banjo, I will agree that income taxes and property taxes are different from speech taxes. Near as I can tell, federal taxes on voluntary activities associated with earning or owning property can be imposed by excise.

It follows, then, that activities associated with earning (your word, not mine) compensation may be taxed by an excise. But since an excise doesn't require any sort of federal privilege or other federal nexus, what's the constitutional problem with taxing your pay?

[Dr. Caligari]

- Certain objects cannot be taxed by Congress without apportionment, such as land and people and stock dividends and exercise of Constitutional rights.

John,
Did you just make up that bold part yourself?

If not, can you cite one court decision in the history of the United States (before or after the 16th Amendment) that said that?

If not, where did you get that idea from?

[LPC]

First, Dan, "federally-connected" is a summary of my quote at the head of this thread, which is a summary of the law.

No, what appears at the head of this thread is a series of unsupported and illogical claims that have very little to do with "the law."

If you were summarizing "the law" you would be able to provide quotations from statutes, regulations, or court decisions that support what you claim. But you cannot.

You have never found a way to import nonfederally-connected work into this law.

I don't need to "import" what is already there.

And have you found anything which says the judge CAN tax payments for labor in themselves?

There are literally THOUSANDS of court cases, from the Supreme Court down to District Courts, in which judges have affirmed that Congress has constitutionally imposed taxes on the earnings of workers whose only connection with the federal government is that they live and work within the states of the United States, and there is not even *one* single decision contradicting that conclusion. Your denial of that reality speaks volumes about your disconnect from reality.

See http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html#wages and http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html#wagesincome for a few of the many cases I am referring to.

[John J. Bulten]

Banjo and Dr., just for fun, I'll say these again, so none of you are without judicial notice.

Right to work is part of 5th and 14th Amendment rights to liberty and property (also guaranteed by the 9th and 10th Amendments): "The liberty thus guaranteed ... denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life ...." —Justice James McReynolds, 1923 (Meyer v Nebraska, 262 US 390, 399) "Included in the right of personal liberty and the right of private property— partaking of the nature of each— is the right to make contracts ... of personal employment, by which labor and other services are exchanged for money or other forms of property." —Justice Mahlon Pitney, 1915 (Coppage v Kansas, 236 US 1, 14)

Constitutional rights to liberty and property are inalienable by taxation: "The first amendment, which the Fourteenth makes applicable to the states, declares that 'Congress shall make no law ....' It could hardly be denied that a tax laid specifically on the exercise of those freedoms would be unconstitutional .... A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the federal constitution." —Justice William Douglas, 1943 (Jones v Opelika, Murdock v Pennsylvania, 319 US 105, 108, 113) "The power of the state in that respect is not unlimited, and one of the limitations is that it may not impose conditions which require the relinquishment of constitutional rights." —Justice George Sutherland, 1926 (Frost v California, 271 US 583, 593, 594) "It has been well said that 'the property which every man has in his own labor, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of the poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his own hands, and to hinder his employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his neighbor, is a plain violation of this most sacred property.' ... The right to follow any of the common occupations of life is an inalienable right, it was formulated as such under the phrase 'pursuit of happiness' in the declaration of independence." —Justice Samuel Miller, 1884 (Butchers v Crescent 111 US 746, 757, 762, quoting Adam Smith)

10th Amendment rights guaranteed to the people cannot be regulated by taxation: "To take over to its control any one of the great number of subjects of public interest, jurisdiction of which the states have never parted with, ... by a so-called tax ... would be to break down all constitutional limitation of the powers of Congress." —Chief Justice William Taft, 1922 (Bailey v Drexel, 259 US 20, 38)

10th Amendment rights (retained by sovereign citizens) cannot be taxed by government sovereignty: "All subjects over which the sovereign power of a state extends, are objects of taxation; but those over which it does not extend, are, upon the soundest principles, exempt from taxation. This proposition may almost be pronounced self-evident. The sovereignty of a state extends to everything which exists by its own authority, or is introduced by its permission." —Chief Justice John Marshall, 1819 (McCulloch v Maryland, 17 US 316, 427, 429)

Since Congress can tax anything but state exports, while these Constitutional rights are inalienable (Butchers v Crescent), they can only be taxed by a means which does not alienate them from the people, which means is apportionment.

Dan, you slipped again into the newspeak. Why of COURSE I affirm that taxes are imposed if you live and work within the states of the United States (as defined in 7701(a)(10) and 3121(e)(1)). I'm talking about people who do NOT have that or any other federal connection as so defined. Now here's your rundown (others, please refer to Dan's links).

#wages: "The income tax cannot apply to wages, because that would be a 'direct tax' that must be apportioned in accordance with the Constitution." Of course an indirect tax on statutory wages is Constitutional.

Hylton, Springer, Pollock, Brushaber, and Veazie show: (1) Direct tax has only been applied to value of real property (I add, and its historical application to slaves). So courts had never ruled explicitly on the question of whether Constitutional rights may only be taxed directly (but it is implicit as above). But, since Eisner v Macomber included stock dividends as proper subjects of direct tax, the sweeping statement "only value of property" admits many qualifications and cannot be used to exclude Constitutional rights.

(2) The early income taxes (as now) taxed all gain within Congressional power to tax indirectly. None of Dan's language places pay for work within the classes of either gain or Congressional power. At one point he equates tax on 19th-century wages with tax on "income from 'professions, trades, employments, or vocations'", but this clause taxed the self-employed, not the laborer, and continued to be so interpreted until the 1940s.

Collector v Day: The federal government cannot tax the salaries of union-state workers. A CtC ruling!

Helvering v Gerhardt: As quoted, "The taxpayers ... are not beyond the reach of its taxing power". That's because State includes DC and possessions. And, as quoted, Congress can tax income from anywhere in the community, if it's Constitutional income. So nothing new.

Helvering v Powers: I don't know whether this case was taxable because of being a trust, or because of the logic "if the business is not immune neither is the compensation" with an assumed stipulation by the trustees that the business was not immune.

Kowalski: If you stipulate your pay was income, as he did, meal payments, being accessions to wealth, are treated as income too.

Cheek: The 16th Amendment surely did authorize tax on income derived from wages (as defined) and salaries (insofar as they derive income).

Martin v CIR: Of course all income can be taxed.

#wagesincome: Of course statutory wages are income.

Stratton's: Yes, earnings (corporate profits, in context) are income.

Lucas v Earl: Yes, salaries can be taxed insofar as they derive income.

CIR v Smith: Yes, compensation to statutory employees in "included in" income. And compensation to common-law workers is included in deriving income too, to the extent it derives income.

Central Illinois: Yes, statutory wages are income.

Lukhard, Burke, O'Gilvie, Kaiser: Yes, payments compensating for statutory wages are also income. Big long list following adds nothing.

I'll add you a free one: Groetzinger in the USSC. He admitted income by trying to deduct losses therefrom, so was ruled to be a "trade or business".

Now Dan, in your mountains of cites, I'm still looking for one with no federal nexus. That means: there was no evidence of "income", "deductions" as if from income, "wages", 3401(c) "employees", working for or living in a "State", being a "trust" or "trade or business", etc. I'm talking about people who earn pay for work which was not taken to be in any of the classes I outlined in this thread's opening quote. This does not count cases (Hendrickson, Ferguson, Spitzer) where one of these evidences was potentially falsely admitted. Got one?

(I've discussed Krysztof and Reading separately, because they might be twistable into potential supports, but being the rare exceptions, being ambiguous, and being lower-level, I don't think they stand up against the majority of your cases which demonstrate that a federal nexus is always presumed to be present.)

If not, then every case demonstrates that (as one would expect) tax is only upheld where a legal nexus exists, and no case expands the limited legal nexuses to permit taxation of Constitutional rights.

[Quixote]

That pretty well confirms it. Bulten lives in a fantasy world. No wonder he bobbed and weaved for so long. Even the delusional know they're delusional and avoid showing it if possible.

[Famspear]

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Dear Mr. Bulten:

You say that Constitutional rights to liberty and property are inalienable by taxation? ( . . . sound of muffled, barely controlled giggling in the background . . . ). Oh dear. And look at the cases you are citing! Let's take a sample.

One case cited is Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U.S. 1 (1915). Gee willikers, does anybody know what the heck a "holding" in a case is? Has anyone ever heard the term "stare decisis"? Precedent? By the way, I hate to bring up pesky little details - like, for example, what this case was actually about! Coppage was a criminal case involving a defendant convicted, under a Kansas statute, of firing an employee for refusing to resign as a member of a labor union, for heaven's sake. No issues of taxation were presented to or decided by the Court. The word "tax" is not even found in the text of the Court's decision.

Let's look at your verbiage here:

---"Since Congress can tax anything but state exports, while these Constitutional rights are inalienable (Butchers v Crescent), they can only be taxed by a means which does not alienate them from the people, which means is apportionment."

Butchers' Union Co. v. Crescent City Co.??? Ohhh boy. Butchers' Union Co. was a case involving interpretation of the Louisiana Constitution and certain ordinances of the city of New Orleans. The Court ruled that the Louisiana Constitution and the New Orleans ordinances did not impermissibly impair a pre-existing obligation under a contract when those laws effectively ended a slaughter-house business monopoly by the Crescent City Company. No issues regarding the power to tax incomes from businesses, vocations, or labor were presented to or decided by the Court. Can you guess what's coming next? Yeeeeepp! The word "tax" does not appear in the text of the decision.

Murdock v. Pennsylvania (also known as Jones v. City of Opelika), 319 U.S. 105 (1943)? This was a case involving the validity of a city ordinance worded as follows:

---"That all persons canvassing for or soliciting within said Borough, orders for goods, paintings, pictures, wares, or merchandise of any kind, or persons delivering such articles under orders so obtained or solicited, shall be required to procure from the Burgess a license to transact said business and shall pay to the Treasurer of said Borough therefore the following sums according to the time for which said license shall be granted.

--------"For one day $1.50, for one week seven dollars ($7.00), for two weeks twelve dollars ($12.00), for three weeks twenty dollars ($20.00), provided that the provisions of this ordinance shall not apply to persons selling by sample to manufacturers or licensed merchants or dealers doing business in said Borough of Jeannette."

A group of people who were members of the Jehovah's Witnesses went from door to door distributing literature in the town. They failed to obtain the license under the ordinance. The case ended up in court, and went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which stated:

---"There was evidence that it was their [the Jehovah’s Witnesses’] practice in making these solicitations to request a 'contribution' of twenty-five cents each for the books and five cents each for the pamphlets but to accept lesser sums or even to donate the volumes in case an interested person was without funds. [. . .] The First Amendment, which the Fourteenth makes applicable to the states, declares that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ....' [. . .] It could hardly be denied that a tax laid specifically on the exercise of those freedoms would be unconstitutional.

The typical tax protester argument appears to be that the Federal government should not be able to tax income from labor because this would be a tax on an exercise of the freedoms mentioned in the quotation.

Sorry. The "tax" in this case was, in effect, a license fee imposed on door to door sales people under a city ordinance. The city was trying to exact the fee from Jehovah’s Witnesses. Questions about the validity or proper application of Federal income taxes were neither presented to nor decided by the Court.

Now let's look at your verbiage here: "[ . . . ] every case demonstrates that (as one would expect) tax is only upheld where a legal nexus exists, and no case expands the limited legal nexuses to permit taxation of Constitutional rights."

Oh, so sorry, that is incorrect.

Now Mr. Bulten, in your mountains of case citations, you need to be looking for a holding that supports your position!

Mr. Bulten: Under the internal revenue laws of the United States, the gross amount of compensation you receive or constructively receive for personal services you perform is income, and is taxable to you. No "magic words" you use, and no citations to cases wildly off point can change that.

And learn what the terms "stare decisis" and "obiter dicta" mean, and how to apply the concepts. (While you're at it, learn the definition of "judicial notice.") And go back and find some case law that supports your position. Oops! There is none; so sorry.

--Yours Famspear

[Famspear]

Mr. Bulten: I love it when protesters cite cases like Collector v. Day, 78 U.S. (11 Wall.) 113 (1870) - a case you cited - a case that was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court over 68 years ago (Graves v. New York ex rel. O'Keefe, 306 U.S. 466, 59 S. Ct. 595, 39-1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 9411 (1939). See also South Carolina v. Regan, 465 U.S. 367 (1984) (Stevens, J., concurring in part & dissenting in part).

--Famspear

[Cpt Banjo]

Hylton, Springer, Pollock, Brushaber, and Veazie show: (1) Direct tax has only been applied to value of real property (I add, and its historical application to slaves). So courts had never ruled explicitly on the question of whether Constitutional rights may only be taxed directly (but it is implicit as above).

Huh? The Springer court explictly held that the income tax on Mr. Springer's earnings was not a direct tax that had to be apportioned.

(2) The early income taxes (as now) taxed all gain within Congressional power to tax indirectly. None of Dan's language places pay for work within the classes of either gain or Congressional power. At one point he equates tax on 19th-century wages with tax on "income from 'professions, trades, employments, or vocations'", but this clause taxed the self-employed, not the laborer, and continued to be so interpreted until the 1940s.

I see -- in Bulten's fantasy world common employees have the constitutional right to have their earnings be tax-exempt, but the self-employed, who presumably have the same right to property under the Constitution as do employees, don't. Gee, that takes all the fun out of being an entrepreneur.

[Famspear]

And of course, who can forget the case of Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923) cited by Mr. Bulten - a great case to cite. A case where a school teacher was charged with unlawfully teaching the subject of reading -- in the German language -- to a ten year old child who had not yet passed the eighth grade, in violation of some state statute. Sorry, but no issues of taxation were presented to or decided by the court and, gosh darn it, the word tax is not even found in the court's decision. --Famspear

[Famspear]

Mr. Bulten, please! Frost v. Railroad Commission of State of California, 271 U.S. 583 (1926)? Seriously? A case involving the constitutionality of the Stage and Truck Transportation Act of California (Statutes of California 1917, p. 330, c. 213)?? Well, at least the text of this case has the word "tax" in it!

Stare decisis. Precedent. Stare decisis. Precedent. Meditate . . . breathe deeply. Yes, yes that's it.

Now look for a case with a HOLDING that supports your position, Mr. Bulten - oh, I'm sorry, I did it again. There are no such cases. --Famspear

[Demosthenes]

Thread too long. Start a new one.