Epilogue

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Unfortunately, to our nation’s everlasting shame, for many years our Constitution has not been taught in our public schools. As a result, at least two generations of Americans have grown up mostly ignorant of its mandates and restrictions. At the same time, the Internal Revenue Service, taking advantage of this ignorance, in their own self-interest beginning as far back as 1913, has successfully imposed on the public an unconstitutional authority to directly tax the earnings of our citizens. We have shown in this book why such taxation is forbidden as a direct assault on one of the most precious and “unalienable” liberties protected by our Constitution and even referenced as such in the Declaration of Independence.

In Chapter I, we pointed out the many Supreme Court decisions that restated that precious liberty of our right to earn a living tax-free. Freedom from taxation was the battle cry of our founding fathers. Common sense tells us that if government had the authority to tax our right to earn a living they could easily totally enslave us merely by increasing the rate to 100%! The founding fathers knew this, and, therefore, forbade it in 1787 when the Constitution was written. Unfortunately, constitutional encroachments on our liberties by our government are nothing new in our nation’s history. Greed is a positive motivator and a taxing opportunity was created by the somewhat confusing wording in the Sixteenth Amendment which enabled an intentional misapplication of the amendment’s meaning. As we explained in Chapter II, President Taft’s intent in proposing the Amendment was to limit its authority to tax, as an excise only, profits earned through exercise of the government-created privilege of incorporation. In truth, it is somewhat understandable that Congress took advantage of the wording in the Amendment that may have led at least some members of Congress, both then and today, to honestly, but incorrectly, believe that the Amendment authorized an income tax on the earnings of U.S. citizens. However, this book, and particularly Chapter II, both explains and proves that the Sixteenth Amendment simply identified the so-called “income” tax as an indirect tax in the nature of an excise which had been authorized by the Constitution from its beginning, and that the Amendment should never be incorrectly interpreted, as some district and appellate courts have done, to allow any tax on the earnings or other receipts of American citizens.

This writer is convinced that at least the top-level people in the IRS are aware of their agency’s unlawful activity in attempting to force an unconstitutional taxing authority on American citizens. Given this knowledge, the IRS’ persistence in such activity is criminal, and should be prosecuted. The U.S. Department of Justice, to their everlasting shame, has demonstrated that they are not only unwilling to act on behalf of our citizens, but, in fact, have unforgivably (because they know better) joined in conspiracy with the IRS in their efforts to force this unlawful jurisdiction and authority on the gullible public. Adding insult to injury, several of our Federal appellate courts have, in several court decisions, joined with the IRS and the Justice Department in their prejudice against the truth by ruling in favor of the misapplication of the Sixteenth Amendment to unlawfully allow taxation of U.S. citizens earnings and other receipts. Unfortunately, these decisions were not appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court where a remedy, if the case were properly presented, could have reversed the bad law that was decided at the lower level. Most of these bad-law circuit court cases had been brought by so-called “pro se” (meaning “for self” or no attorney) litigants who, even though they may have raised the proper, correct argument that their earnings were not taxable because of the Sixteenth Amendment, could not afford the high cost of appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court. This meant that the bad law, made at the appellate level has remained to be used against future Constitutionists who might choose to challenge the continuing misapplication of the income tax to the earnings of U.S. citizens.

However, our citizens should thank God that our U.S. Supreme Court, in the landmark decision of Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co. and several other supporting decisions listed in Chapters I and II of this book, properly identified the “income” tax as being an indirect excise tax on privilege measured by corporate profit or gain. A few, lower level Federal courts-both district and appellate-are the culprits, and these lower-level courts should be corrected by the Supreme Court which, as is shown in Chapters I and II of this book, has properly identified limitations of the tax authorized by the amendment.

This lower level court error is a product of decades of false propaganda by the IRS leading to misunderstanding by the public and even some of the judiciary itself. This makes correction through judicial remedy difficult. The doctrines of “separation of powers” and “judicial independence” protect the judiciary from Congressional intervention in their decisions, so they are, at best, only minimally responsive when a citizen seeks help through his or her Congressional representative. Federal judges are lifetime appointees, and can be dismissed only if they do not exercise “good behavior”. Unfortunately, correcting district and appellate court judges who have ruled incorrectly by improper misapplication of the income tax against the earnings of U.S. citizens is a difficult task. Although it is this writer’s opinion that the U.S. Supreme Court has the power to independently determine and insure compliance with the judicial “good behavior” rule in the inferior district and appellate courts, this is a responsibility which they have not exercised since passage of the Sixteenth Amendment. This makes judicial accountability on this issue very difficult, unless or until it is either self-imposed by appellate court embarrassment over their own error (very doubtful) or the Supreme Court issues a corrective edict that those few, erring lower courts must follow.

As this book is written in 2009, several giant financial corporations such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG and others, through incompetent management, have fallen on the verge of bankruptcy. Suggesting that their failure would impact our country in unacceptable ways, Congress authorized in late 2008 a 750 billion dollar “bail-out” of these companies, and, on the heels of this huge, inflationary, new-money bailout, an even greater so-called “stimulus’ of almost 800 billion more new dollars, allegedly to help the auto companies and many others, has passed Congress. What we hear in the news on TV and in the press is that these billions will be borrowed-mostly from China. In fact, however, it is this writer’s opinion that the Chinese purchase of our nwly-issued bonds, was only a fraction of the bonds sold.

Most of the bonds created in order to borrow the money were actually purchased by the Federal Reserve Bank-a privately-owned bank which was authorized and created by Congress in 1913 under the provisions of the Federal Reserve Act. Known, and referred to today as the “Fed”, this private (non-government) bank was unconstitutionally given the power to create money (issue currency) in order to solve the alleged monetary crisis that existed in our country at that time. Although it has never been effectively challenged in a court of law, it is this writer’s opinion that the Federal Reserve Act is unconstitutional because it gave to the Fed a new power to create money which power has always been reserved to Congress by the provisions in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 5 of our Constitution which is still in full force and effect today. In this writer’s view, a constitutional amendment authorizing the Fed to issue the nation’s currency supply should have been passed, and today still is, constitutionally required in order to make the Federal Reserve Act constitutional.

Knowledge of the foregoing brief history of the Federal Reserve Bank’s origin should be helpful for the reader’s understanding of how and why this new power erodes the purchasing power of our dollar through the creation of billions of dollars in new money by a private (non-government) bank.

Here’s what actually happens when billions of dollars of new money are put into circulation by the Fed in order to allegedly solve the current economic crisis: Our government creates billions of dollars in face value of bonds, most of which are purchased by the Fed, by giving the U.S. government credit on the books of the Fed in the amount of the face value of the newly-created bonds. The U.S. government then spends this money by issuing checks against this newly-created account with the Fed. When these checks are cashed by the payees for currency, the currency supply of the banks which cash the checks is reduced. This reduction in the bank’s currency supply is remedied by getting new currency from the Fed through cashing of these government checks with the Fed. Since this also reduces the Fed’s currency supply, they (the Fed), using their money-creation power in the Federal Reserve Act, replaces this currency loss by ordering newly-printed currency from the U.S. government’s Bureau of Printing and Engraving. The Fed’s costs of purchasing the newly-printed currency is only the cost of the printing which is about three cents per bill-whether it is a $1.00 bill or any other denomination up to and including a $100.00 bill-the cost is the same. But the (so-called) Federal Reserve, a private bank, charges the U.S. government interest on the bonds they buy! When currency is needed by the Fed, using their money-creating power, they have it printed for almost nothing and collect billions in interest from our government on the bonds they purchase!

Those in Congress and our administration who have sponsored and created their humongous new debt don’t tell us that their “bailouts” and stimuli will be the most inflationary giveaway actions that have ever occurred! When government bureaucrats create over 1500 billion dollars of new money, this is inflation of the money supply with a capital “I”. And it has been suggested by many knowledgeable financial gurus that these billions in new money are just the beginning-that as our depression deepens, many more billions will be created as more businesses demand what they perceive as their fair share of government “bailout” or “stimulus” money. As these billions find their way into our money supply, the massive inflation it causes will, in turn, further greatly erode the purchasing power of the dollar, causing huge increases in the cost of EVERYTHING!

If all Americans were able to keep 100% of what they earn and to which they are constitutionally entitled, they would spend most of these new-found billions in the marketplace and our economy would expand immediately from the huge increase in business generated by such spending. This remedy would be both positive and NON-INFLATIONARY because it would not increase the nation’s money supply! This writer believes that the elimination of the unlawfully, misapplied income tax to U.S. citizens on their earnings and other receipts would cause a great increase in economic activity and would go a long way toward reducing our government’s multi-trillion dollar debt which reduces the standard of living of all Americans.

This author has written this book to prove that the Sixteenth Amendment to our Constitution and the I.R. Code both limit application of the income tax authorized by the Amendment to an indirect tax in the nature of an excise tax on government-granted privileges of incorporation and on the privilege granted by government to specified, non-citizen, foreign entities to do business in the U.S. The author hopes, by this knowledge, to instill a public hue and cry for justice similar to that which motivated the founding fathers and, thereby, force obedience by our government of both the Constitution and the statutory law on this vital issue.

When asked about remedies for Congressional and judicial misconduct, President Thomas Jefferson replied: “Bind them down by the chains of the Constitution.” It’s time we, the people, revived the Constitution and demanded that our public servants, in both Congress and the judiciary, obey its mandates. Remember the old adage: “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” If we want to make our government, through the IRS, obey both the Constitution and the I.R. Code, and insist that our judiciary enforce obedience, we need to squeak both loud and long!

Finally, our nation's Founding Fathers, as devout Christians, were well aware of the scriptural mandate in the Holy Bible against government taxation of God's people. There are several such mandates in the Bible, but one of the most direct is Matthew 17, verses 25 and 26 in which the Lord Jesus pointedly answered the Apostle Peter's question by declaring that His children, meaning His people, should be "free" of any king's form of tribute or taxation.

In keeping with God's directive in this scripture, the Founding Fathers built into our Constitution, two prohibitions against any such taxation. These are embodied in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 and Article 1, Section 9, Clause 4 as discussed in detail throughout this book. So, these scriptural admonitions are further support for both the constitutional and statutory provisions detailed in this book. Hence, in this Christian writer's view, if God says it, I believe it and that's the end of it!

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