durangout wrote:
OK. So how do I keep from paying income tax w/o going to jail?
How do you keep from going to jail while paying them? Most people in prison pay income taxes. Remember that.
But here is what the IRS says about who is required to determine if you are required to file.
From Publication 21/ 1998 update
Do you have to file a tax return and pay taxes?”
Answer from Pub. 21:
The U. S. income tax system is built on the idea of "voluntary compliance." This means that it is left to the taxpayer to keep the necessary records, file a return on time, pay any required taxes, and meet any other requirements of the tax law. The system is built on trust in the citizens to know their responsibilities and to do what needs to be done.
Taxpayers voluntarily follow the steps the tax system lays out. Failure to do so can result in penalties.
Two aspects of the Federal Income Tax system -
voluntary compliance with the law and self-assessment of tax - make it important for you to understand your rights and responsibilities as a taxpayer. 'Voluntary compliance' places on the taxpayer the responsibility for filing an income tax return.
You must decide whether the law requires you to file a return. If it does, you must file your return by the date it is due. –IRS Publication 21
GOOD ADVICE!
Now I realize that this could be difficult but there are so many members of this forum that are sure that I am violating those laws maybe they could help you.
Here is what Ms. Shirley D. Peterson, former Commissioner of the IRS made in a "Tax Policy Lecture" before Southern Methodist University, on April 14, 1993 said:
Eight decades of amendments and accretions to the Code have produced a virtually impenetrable maze. The rules are unintelligible to most citizens - Including those who hold advanced degrees and including many who specialize in tax law. The rules are equally mysterious to many government employees who are charged with administering and enforcing the law.
It is also a known fact that the Internal Revenue Code is a very easily misunderstood area of law, even misunderstood by trained professionals. Judges and lawyers admittedly do not know the tax laws.
So good luck determining if you are a person required to file.
Of course you also need to determine if the IRS properly used the word "voluntary" in compliance with Supreme Court rulings. For that a Westlaw account is helpful. I recommend The United States Supreme Court definition of voluntary in LEE v. WEISMAN, 505 U.S. 577 (1992)
“Petitioners' argument that the option of not attending the ceremony excuses any inducement or coercion in the ceremony itself is rejected. In this society, high school graduation is one of life's most significant occasions, and a student is not free to absent herself from the exercise in any real sense of the term "voluntary." Also not dispositive is the contention that prayers are an essential part of these ceremonies because, for many persons, the occasion would lack meaning without the recognition that human achievements cannot be understood apart from their spiritual essence. This position fails to acknowledge that what for many was a spiritual imperative was for the Weismans religious conformance compelled by the State. It also gives insufficient recognition to the real conflict of conscience faced by a student who would have to choose whether to miss graduation or conform to the state-sponsored practice in an environment where the risk of compulsion is especially high.”
Naturally the IRS could not be following this definition in Publication 21 so you will be required to figure that out too. Good luck!
So are you responsible for filing an income tax return? Because remember it is YOUR responsibility to decide that according to the IRS.
So the first thing you have to figure out if you are a person required to file. If you are you a person required to file then you had better do it according to the IRS. Have you read the whole law (USC 26 plus all the regulations and court rulings which is way over 50 million words) and understand that you are a person required to file?
You also, naturally, need to determine if you have income in dollars that would surpass the filing requirement EVEN if you are required to file on other grounds. If you are married it is like $18,000 which is equal to about 342,000 Federal Reserve $1 denomination notes. Do you have that much income? Do you know if your income comes from taxable sources?
This may help on that pesky ole' dollar issue.
What is a Dollar?
I have been doing a lot of research on the issue on what a dollar is because:
“Federal income tax is imposed in terms of dollars. 26 U.S.C. § 1.” U.S. v. Rickman 638 F.2d 182, *184 (C.A.Kan., 1980)
I received correspondence from Senator John Ensign of Nevada, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and Representative Dean Heller from Nevada. These letters indicate that there is no Congressional definition to the word dollar and the courts have been clear that ONLY Congress can define what a dollar is.
It appears that the word “dollar” has no meaning specific meaning. It appears that the government has established a monetary system, which, instead of being a standard of weights and measures has established a system of divers weights and measures. This is a direct violation of Biblical principles, and therefore the Religious Freedom Restoration Act comes into effect as this so-called facially neutral law directly affects my deeply held religious beliefs and practices and places a substantial burden upon them.
Deut. 25:13 ¶ Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small.
14 Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small.
15 But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
16 For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the LORD thy God.
Lev. 19: 36 Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I am the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt.
Ezek. 45: 10 Ye shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath.
Amos 8: 5 Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?
Prov. 20: 10 Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the LORD.
Micah 6: 10 ¶ Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable?
It is therefore obvious that a system of divers weights and measures is in direct opposition to the teachings of the Bible.
But you also have to consider:
Do you believe in doing what is right and letting the consequences follow?
Do you believe that the Prophets told us to eschew Communism and Socialism?
Do you believe that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them?
1 Ne. 3:7 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that t]he Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.
Then you also have to determine if the Religious Freedom Restoration act makes you exempt.
In SEC. 3. FREE EXERCISE OF RELIGION PROTECTED, the law states:
(a) In General:
Government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability,
except as provided in subsection (b).
(b) Exception: Government may substantially burden a person's exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person--
(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and
(2)
is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.
Would calculating your alleged income in Silver dollars minted since 1986 AD be the least restrictive on your religious beliefs? You have to figure that out but Joseph Smith said we would be fools to think that anything but gold or silver could be dollars.
And of course if the government cannot comply then you are exempt no mater if you WERE a person required to file even if you are married and have $20,000 in taxable income for taxable sources.
If you have not determined any of those things and are confused perhaps these will help:
From Spreckels Sugar Refining Co. v. McClain,192 U.S. 397, 24 S.Ct. 376, 418, U.S. 1904
Keeping in mind the well-settled rule that
the citizen is exempt from taxation unless the same is imposed by clear and unequivocal language, and that where the construction of a tax law is doubtful, the doubt is to be resolved in favor of those upon whom the tax is sought to be laid.
Treat v. White, 181 U.S. 264, 267 21 S.Ct. 611, U.S. 1901
It is also true, as said by this court in United States v. Isham, 17 Wall. 496, 504, 21 L. ed. 728, 730, ‘If there is a doubt as to the liability of an instrument to taxation, the construction is in favor of the exemption, because, in the language of Pollock, C. B., in Gurr v. Scudds, 11 Exch. 191, ‘a tax cannot be imposed without clear and express words for that purpose.’' With that proposition we fully agree. There must be certainty as to the meaning and scope of language imposing any tax, and doubt in respect to its meaning is to be resolved in favor of the taxpayer.
Gould v. Gould, 245 U.S. 151, 153, 38 S.Ct. 53, U.S. 1917
In the interpretation of statutes levying taxes it is the established rule not to extend their provisions, by implication, beyond the clear import of the language used, or to enlarge their operations so as to embrace matters not specifically pointed out. In case of doubt they are construed most strongly against the government, and in favor of the citizen. United States v. Wigglesworth, 2 Story, 369, Fed. Cas. No. 16,690; American Net & Twine Co. v. Worthington, 141 U. S. 468, 474, 12 Sup. Ct. 55, 35 L. Ed. 821; Benziger v. United States, 192 U. S. 38, 55, 24 Sup. Ct. 189, 48 L. Ed. 331.
Hecht v. Malley, 265 U.S. 144, 156, 44 S.Ct. 462, U.S. 1924
Nor does the language of the Act in this respect call for the application of the established rule that in the interpretation of statutes levying taxes their provisions are not to be extended by implication beyond the clear import of the language used, and in case of doubt are to be construed most strongly against the Government and in favor of the taxpayer. Gould v. Gould, 245 U. S. 151, 153, 38 Sup. Ct. 53, 62 L. Ed. 211; United States v. Merriam, 263 U. S. 179, 187, 44 Sup. Ct. 69, 68 L. Ed. 240.
White v. Aronson, 302 U.S. 16, 20, 58 S.Ct. 95, U.S. 1937
Where there is a reasonable doubt as to the meaning of a taxing act it should be construed most favorably to the taxpayer. Gould v. Gould, 245 U.S. 151, 38 S.Ct. 53, 62 L.Ed. 211.
Hassett v. Welch, 303 U.S. 303, 314, 58 S.Ct. 559, U.S. 1938
In view of other settled rules of statutory construction, which teach that a law is presumed, in the absence of clear expression to the contrary, to operate prospectively; that, if doubt exists as to the construction of a taxing statute, the doubt should be resolved in favor of the taxpayer,FN20
FN20 Gould v. Gould, 245 U.S. 151, 38 S.Ct. 53, 62 L.Ed. 211; Shwab v. Doyle, supra; Reinecke v. Northern Trust Co., 278 U.S. 339, 348, 49 S.Ct. 123, 126, 73 L.Ed. 410, 66 A.L.R. 397; White v. Aronson, 302 U.S. 16, 58 S.Ct. 95, 82 L.Ed. 20.
At the outset it may be remarked that a statute providing for the imposition of taxes is to be strictly construed, and all reasonable doubts in respect thereto resolved against the government and in favor of the citizen. This principle is so well established that the citation of any considerable number of authorities in its support is unnecessary. In Spreckels Sugar Co. v. McClain, Collector, etc., 192 U.S. 397, 416, 24 Sup.Ct. 376, 382 (48 L.Ed. 496), Mr. Justice Harlan quoted with approval the following language of Judge Gray:
‘Keeping in mind the well-settled rule that the citizen is exempt from taxation, unless the same is imposed by clear and unequivocal language, and that, where the construction of a tax is doubtful, the doubt is to be resolved in favor of those upon whom the tax is sought to be laid.’
White v. Aronson, 302 U.S. 16, 20 & 21, 58 S.Ct. 95, U.S. 1937
‘Tax laws, like all other laws, are made to be obeyed. They should therefore be intelligible to those who are expected to obey them.’ Philadelphia Storage Battery Co. v. Lederer (D.C.) 21 F.(2d) 320, 321, 322.
Hope that helps you determine if you are a person required to file.
Do you recall what happens to slothful servants? Perhaps that can help you make the hard choices too.