Taxes
The mere
mention of the word Taxes turns most of us dead stone cold, except of course
for tax preparers, CPAs, like one of my brothers, Tax Attorneys, and the more
than one hundred thousand permanent employees and more than seventeen thousand
seasonal and part-time employees of the Internal Revenue Service; the IRS.
These numbers are as of 2001 according to Trac Reports, Inc. which can be
reviewed more fully at their web
site. Plus they have neat little graph
that demonstrates the ebb and flow of the IRS employee population over a number
of years in comparison o the number of Tax Returns filed during that same
period. It is clear that Income Taxes is a big industry.
It might
be considered a growth sector providing all kinds of job opportunities if
we include areas that have not been mentioned such as bankruptcy courts, financial
and Tax planners, law enforcement personnel who focus on tax scofflaws, authors
who write about tax, newspapers and other media sources that scare the heck
out of people with all kinds of articles telling us directly and subliminally
that we had better keep our noses clean and pay our taxes or be ready to be
audited and arrested and thrown in jail just like the latest scapegoat celebrity
who got pinched and will be handed a hand engraved card reading: “Go
to Jail. Go Directly to Jail. Do Not Pass ‘GO’. Do Not Collect
$200.00”.
If you detect
a certain amount of sarcasm and frustration here, you are correct. It is my
feeling that the founding fathers never intended that the government be allowed
to tax the wages of its citizens.
Here is what it says: "Constitution of the
United States: Article I, Section 9: No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall
be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed
to be taken."
The original intent of
the founding fathers was changed by Amendment XVI, which states: "The
Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever
source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without
regard to any census or enumeration." The Sixteenth Amendment was accepted
as having been ratified on February 3, 1933. It should be pointed out that
there are those who believe the ratification process was actually incomplete
and that the Sixteenth Amendment was incorrectly and illegally judged to have
been ratified.
I am amazed
and awestruck every time I contemplate how easily we as a people have allowed
and continue to allow ourselves to be taken advantage of by what have to be
some of the most clever and manipulative thieves of all time. The Income Tax
law is approaching its one hundredth anniversary. It is my intention to see
it supplanted either by being judged to be unconstitutional, as I believe
it is, or by being repealed through legislation.
To those
who would ask, “Without Income Taxes how would you pay for the things
the government does?” I would say, “If I hear you correctly, you
are in agreement with me that the Income Tax is wrong and that all we would
need to do to help you feel comfortable in joining in helping get it repealed
would be to demonstrate how the government and its many services could be
funded in other ways.”
Tax
Rebates
