1040 tax forms-mandatory or not?

[OpLan]

'Freedom to Fascism' has been the talking point of a couple of threads.Rockerfellers 911 prediction for one comes to mind.I was curious about the main topic of that film.<br>It was claimed in the film that 67,000,000 americans do not file a tax return.It featured IRS agents who were challenged by their quarry to find the law which requires a person to file a 1040;Agents who failed in that challenge and then gave up the job and stopped filing themselves!<br><br>Someone else commented that the tax question should be easily rectified by a few strokes of a few pens..so..what pens and where?,and why hasn't it been rectified so easily in the last 90-odd years of its curious existence?<br><br>Is this one of those fnordy things?Do politicians from both sides just cough and shuffle their feet?Does the word "Audit" just freeze everyones brains?An illegal tax should surely bring all americans together..I mean..a few pennies on the price of gas has both red and blue grinding their teeth.<br><br>It reminds me of these stories you read where people write bad cheques,but somehow never honor them,and don't get prosecuted.<br>Or those stories of people who write a certain code number on police tickets and are then free to go without penalty.<br>They seem to have spotted some kind of loop hole that TPTB cannot close,and don't even want to think about.<br><br>So whats the story on Federal Income Tax?<br>If it's legal,how come all these people aren't paying?<br>If it's illegal,why are you paying at all? <p></p><i></i>

[km artlu]

I am by no means qualified to answer your question beyond this: my tax guy is on the hip side, a jazz drummer in his spare time. I had a candid conversation with him about claims such as those you mention, and I emphasized the angle of the income tax legislation having never been ratified by the requisite number of state legislatures.<br><br>He was somewhat conversant with those points of view and answered by saying that, in his experience, it mattered not what the actual law of the land is. He said that the courts summarily dismiss such claims and that the IRS, if actively resisted, will ruthlessly pursue to the ends of the earth anyone who takes the position that federal income tax has no legal foundation.<br><br>He didn't say anything about those who stay off the radar. <p></p><i></i>

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Does the Patriot Act apply?<br><br>That terrible legislation did make it illegal to send money to a terrorist organization. <br><br>Doesn't the US government qualify as a terrorist organization? <p></p><i></i>

[erosoplier]

I made the "few strokes of a few pens" comment, and I'm not qualified to say anything either, but...the way I see it, if the idea that US citizens technically aren't liable to pay income tax caught on, heaven and earth would be moved to dot the i's and cross the t's to fix that particular problem. However long it would take for this problem to be corrected, <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>and it might be to certain people's advantage to play the drama out for all it's worth</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, the end result would be that US taxpayers end up right where they are now, paying income tax. Add in a bit of retrospectivity, and no matter how long any mass boycott lasted, the IRS wouldn't miss out on collecting a cent.<br><br>And I can't help but notice that from the influence of something like Freedom to Fascism, the bulk of the people who stand to get into all sorts of trouble through refusing to pay tax are people who are against the current administration.<br><br><br>Anyway, it certainly looks as if it <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>wasn't</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> correctly ratified. I'm thinking out loud here: They slipped the Federal Reserve legislation through on the sly in 1913 - it <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>had</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> to be constitutional from the get-go. But apparently all they needed with the income tax legislation (and remember this was done during all the excitement of the beginning of WWI) was the widespread perception that it was constitutional, and the compliance of business/industry in the actual collection of the tax. I'm thinking industry, which saw a future of massive expansion in the early days of the war, would have been eager to comply. And as a bonus, those in the know have known full well all along that they don't have to pay income tax. Hooray for them!<br><br><br>If anything could get the US citizen off their bum, surely this issue would, but personally I think that US citizens have bigger fish to fry at this point in time, and I'd be dismayed to see this thing grow legs at the expense of other more important issues (including knocking over the Feds!). Maybe the tax issue could be used, for good, to initially mobilise people but to then tune them in to the other issues? But I can see it easily getting used only as a distraction.<br><br>PS: I myself <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>enjoy</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> paying taxes. It gives me no pleasure knowing that more that half of what I pay is wasted on war-mongering and all sorts of other wasteful hare-brained shenanigans, but I'm happy, in principle, for a modest percentage of the value of my daily labours to be confiscated by the state in order to pay for useful communal services and enterprises. Call me crazy, I know...<br><br><br>Edit: Dudes, this is a bit freaky - there was an advert for tax returns on the bottom banner as I re-read my post!! <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :( --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/frown.gif ALT=":("><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> lol!<br><br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=erosoplier>erosoplier</A> at: 11/3/06 6:39 am<br></i>

[erosoplier]

(This message was left blank) <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=erosoplier>erosoplier</A> at: 11/3/06 7:32 am<br></i>