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"H.R. 1" Changed Nothing

It's a real shame that this foolishness has such an effective distribution outlet...

January 22, 2018: OVER THE LAST 36 HOURS I have had a surprising number of people forward me a hyperventilated email excitedly touting a purported tax-truth breakthrough based on the citation by Congress to Article 1, § 8 of the Constitution as the authority for the latest tax reform act. The article is dramatically titled, "THEY JUST BROKE THE U.S. TAX SYSTEM WITH THE NEW INCOME TAX LAW (H.R. 1 - Dec. 2017)".

Great distribution, especially on a weekend when the government shutdown dominates the news! Lousy waste of it on this raggedy thing...

I HADN'T MEANT TO WRITE ANYTHING FOR THIS NEWSLETTER other than about the deeply corrupt ruling on the motion to vacate Doreen's conviction (read about it here) and the abortion solution. And I really resent having to do so.

But this kind of distracting nonsense is what allows abuses by the corrupt legal system. Doreen would not be suffering as she is if CtC's accurate revelations weren't hindered in their spread by these perpetual injections of eyewash into the community of interest. Without this kind of interference, Americans would long since have deep-sixed the "ignorance tax" scheme and restored the republic.

Besides, critiques are sometimes the best way to explain the truths that have been mistaken. Every moment can be a teaching or learning moment.

ANYWAY, HERE IS A LITTLE feedback on this package of inapt excitement and errant notions. Fir the benefit of what I hope is the vast majority who haven't seen or spent time on this thing, I'll explain that it makes much of the citation of Congress to Article 1, § 8 of the Constitution as the authority for the income tax in the new tax reform act.

The author imagines that this is a sudden acknowledgement of the income tax as an excise, with various mistaken implications therefrom, along with other errors, some of which I will briefly discuss or reference (in what was written as an email response to one of those who forwarded the thing to me, and so is constructed a bit differently than a commentary or formal analysis/critique):

I'm sorry to be so candid, but this stuff is nonsense. The tax reform act made no fundamental changes in the law, to begin with, and none need to be made, in any event. The pretense of "breakthrough" and excitement tacked on to this by its author is risible.

Nothing in the previous iterations of the tax law ever said the authority to impose the tax arose with the 16th Amendment. Further, Article 1, § 8 is the authority for both direct and indirect taxes, so this fellow's fundamental premise-- that the citation of that Constitutional provision is somehow revolutionary-- is silly.

The improper reference to the 16th Amendment made by government litigators in the past has never been to say that the amendment authorized taxes in the first place. It has just been used to falsely assert that the 16th made it possible for direct taxes (still authorized by Article 1, § 8) to now be imposed without apportionment.

Those improper claims (thoroughly debunked in CtC fifteen years ago and more recently here, here and here, among many other places in my writings) will not be abandoned by virtue of the Article 1, § 8 citation in HR1. They will only be abandoned when everyone encountering them makes use of the material at those links, and more importantly, when every American has become familiar with that material.

But the mistaken notion about the significance of HR1's citation to Article 1, § 8 is consistent with the character of the article overall. This is written by someone who appears surprised and to think it a big deal and a new discovery that the tax began before the 16th amendment... Or that it is an excise... (which this same guy, interestingly, also says the tax is NOT, elsewhere on his site).

Clearly this is someone who hasn't been paying attention... well, I can't really say that, because some parts of this piece are remarkably similar to material I have written, except for being misconstrued in their meaning or relevance. There IS some indication that attention is being paid, but the homage is selective, and ill-used.

The piece is littered with nonsense suggesting, for instance, that the tax is just on "corporate profits", and/or that it falls on foreign earnings just because they're foreign, etc., based on excerpts of rulings taken out of context or rendered incomplete and other typical failings of material meant to mislead, or created by simple incompetence.

It goes on to make the ridiculous argument that because labor is not a commodity in commerce per some portions of title 15, people can't be taxed in regard to work they do-- while completely oblivious to the fact that the "excise" question is always WHAT work is being done, not that it is being done by human beings.

Word to the author: labor gainfully employed in the performance of the functions of a federal public office is a taxable activity. A whole lot of other things that human beings do are, too.

This ill-educated argument also misses the big point that the real issue in the misadministration of the tax are the allegations on information returns that someone has done what makes liability arise, without regard to what that is. The author needs to read this. Actually, he needs to read this, over and over until he gets it.

The worst of it is that all in all, this nonsense is just the kind of thing denounced in this image:

I'm very sorry to see this new injection into the community of distracting and misleading nonsense. Frankly, the distribution of this stuff has all the hallmarks of troll-work.

If the author really did have the honest epiphany his piece suggests he did, he would simply have written,

"Hey! Everybody! I've realized that Hendrickson has been right all along about the excise tax stuff, and the 16th Amendment.

Maybe that explains those ~275,000 refunds, and why the beast is trying to get him to shut up by slapping his wife around with grossly-contrived, unprecedented legal corruption! I suggest that everyone go read his work as fast as they can!"

As good as this guy's distribution system is, issuing that kind of advice instead of his distracting nonsense might have the battle over by next week.

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BTW, SPEAKING OF DISTRIBUTION: If you use social media like GAB, Twitter or Facebook (as I wish you would), PLEASE get the full value out of them by diligently "liking" and "retweeting" or "sharing" or "reposting" my posts on all three! That will significantly improve their visibility to others, and very much help the cause!!