Get Together With Fellow 'Cracking the Code-...' Warriors From Your Home State Or Region

A number of my correspondents have expressed a desire to get together-- or at least communicate directly-- with other upstanding students and defenders of the law who happen to live in their area, or are dealing with the same state government. Thus, I am offering, to anyone interested, the opportunity to be included in a forum of CtC warriors in each state (and in non-American countries as well). Once added to the group, participants will be free to communicate with each other, compare notes, share strategies and research, plan barbecues, etc.. There are now several thousand members among 48 state groups.

If you are interested, you must send an email to StateGroups 'at' losthorizons.com precisely as specified:

1. The "subject line" must say "Sign Up", and nothing else.

2. The body of the message must contain the following (and in order as shown):

Your Name

Your Email Address (which will be used for group messages)

Your Phone Number

Your Home State

3. You must send your sign-up email from the same email address you list in the body of the message (whatever email address you send from WILL be the one used for group messages, whether it's the same one you list or not).

Only names and email addresses will be provided to others-- the phone number is purely for my own use to attempt to verify that someone seeking to be listed is who they say they are, and not a marketer (or anyone else) just trying to get email addresses for their own nefarious purposes. (By the way, once you have signed up, there may be a delay before you are added to the roster and get your "Welcome" message-- group memberships are updated and distributed only once every two weeks, or so.)

Some Notes For Those Trying To Join A State CtC Forum

If you're trying to join your home state forum and having trouble, you may be going about it incorrectly. The ONLY way to join a CtC state forum-- including the Google-group versions-- is by precisely following the instructions above.

Once you have applied for membership in a state group, you will receive a "Welcome" message within a few weeks either from me directly, or through a "noreply"@"googlegroups.com email (depending on which type of group I have created for your state). You must carefully read through this message, and follow all the instructions therein exactly in order to be able to participate in the group. (If your "Welcome" message is for my invitation to a Google group, bear in mind that a "gmail account" is NOT the kind of Google account that is needed to participate in a Google group.)

Furthermore...

Just so everyone understands (and not meaning to sound too impatient): The forums do not exist to provide venues in which some folks can be made to spend their time and energy explaining to others why various notions, theories or silver-bullets which appear nowhere either in CtC or on this site (but are nonetheless floating around-- or raging through-- the "tax honesty" community) are incorrect or irrelevant.

At the risk of vulgarity, I will say as plainly as possible what I have by necessity said many times before, but usually with more circumspection (and can't seem to say often enough): Any and all notions concerning the nature of the "income" tax-- how it is applied, why it can be thus applied, how it interfaces with the legal system and so forth-- which are not taught in CtC or on this site (exclusive of forum posts, of course) are just inherently wrong or are entirely irrelevant to the tax. They are raised or promoted either in ignorance or for ill purposes.

Such notions should not be debated or discussed-- doing either is a waste of valuable time and energy. There is one simple response that is appropriate when presented with "alternative" or "supplemental" notions of this sort: "You didn't find that in CtC or on losthorizons.com, so put it out of your mind. Here is what is actually true about that aspect of the tax..." If this gentle approach isn't effective, direct your correspondent to 'The Deniers Page'. If that doesn't suffice, let me know so that I can remove this individual-- now revealed as either uneducable or a deliberate "agent provocateur"-- from the forum.

Keep in mind that those who wish to keep the truth spinning its wheels, and making as little forward progress as possible, routinely and systematically exploit two basic human foibles: 1. The natural tendency of those whose education is incomplete to mistake sporadic, creative (and carefully indirect)-- but well publicized-- tax agency resistance to a few educated filings as meaning that there is some piece of the puzzle missing (imagining that otherwise, the generations-old scam that even now continues to successfully bamboozle 180 million Americans 24/7 would have just thrown in the towel and abandoned the field, rather than continue to cast about for some silver-bullet of its own that will frighten or confuse students of the truth into retreat or disarray); and 2. The equally natural tendency of everyone to be attracted to notions that are presented as, or appear to be, resistance-risk-reducing tricks or short-cuts. Thus, there is a constant effort to seed the "tax honesty" community (and CtC forums directly) with notions designed to invoke both of these unfortunate tendencies in order to distract forum participants from their primary purposes of:

3. The perfecting of each other's accurate educations;

2. Mutual encouragement in standing up and acting; and

1. Planning and executing ever-more effective means of spreading of the actual truth about the tax.

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A special message to state-group 'Cracking the Code-...' Warriors has been posted at www.losthorizons.com/tax/SGBB.htm. All are asked to have a look. (Several state groups are beginning to assemble material responsive to this message. Don't let yours be the last to act!)

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State Warrior Group News

Kudos! to the Ohio Warriors-- these serious patriots are printing business cards alerting the reader to the fact that the "income" tax isn't what they have been led to believe, and directing them to losthorizons.com to learn more. Each Ohio warrior has committed himself or herself to distribute 1,000 of these cards. Outstanding!

Groups are now active in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

A Warrior in France and one in the District of Columbia are STILL waiting for some company.

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More Than Two Thirds Of The Several States That Collect "Income" Taxes Have Now Acknowledged The Truth About The Law As Revealed In CtC, And Have Issued Complete Refunds Accordingly! See The Following Chart...

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I recently had occasion to look at some "income" tax-related statutes found on the books in a couple of the several states. In each case, these statutes concerned themselves with the state tax agency's authority to make determinations. Each used language by which the unwary might be misled. For instance, read the following language from Indiana's state code:

IC 6-8.1-5-1
Proposed assessment; notice; protest; hearing; letter of findings; rehearing; appeal; demand for payment
Sec. 1.

(a) As used in this section, "letter of findings" includes a supplemental letter of findings.
(b) If the department reasonably believes that a person has not reported the proper amount of tax due, the department shall make a proposed assessment of the amount of the unpaid tax on the basis of the best information available to the department. The amount of the assessment is considered a tax payment not made by the due date and is subject to IC 6-8.1-10 concerning the imposition of penalties and interest. The department shall send the person a notice of the proposed assessment through the United States mail.

(c) If the person has a surety bond guaranteeing payment of the tax for which the proposed assessment is made, the department shall furnish a copy of the proposed assessment to the surety. The notice of proposed assessment is prima facie evidence that the department's claim for the unpaid tax is valid. The burden of proving that the proposed assessment is wrong rests with the person against whom the proposed assessment is made.

Looking at this language, one might make the mistake of imagining that the Indiana Department of Revenue is authorized to issue a "proposed assessment" based upon its "reasonable belief" that a person has not declared the right amount of "income" to be taxed on a tax return, and what's more, if it does so, the "proposed assessment" is to be taken as presumptively true, and the burden of proving the contrary somehow rests on the filer!

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Knowing, as everyone who has had a junior high-school civics course does, that the burden of proof is always on the claimant, read this language more carefully and note that Sec. (1)(b) DOESN'T say, "not reported the proper amount of income". Instead, what it actually says is, "proper amount of TAX DUE". Now we see what is really being said, and how the burden of proof can be on the filer. The authority laid out here is to allow or disallow filer-claimed deductions and similar adjustments CLAIMED BY THE FILER as applicable to whatever he or she has declared as the starting "income" figure on the state return (and/or to correct the math involved in the application of the state's rate of tax to whatever is the final "net income" figure arrived at on the return).

Now it all makes sense...

Arkansas uses much the same language, and with precisely the same meaning and limitations;

26-18-403. Proposed Assessments
(a)(1) If any taxpayer fails to file any return as required by any state tax law, the director, from any information in his possession or obtainable by him, may determine the correct amount of tax for the taxable period. If a return has been filed, the director shall examine the return and make any audit or investigation that he considers necessary.
(2) When no return has been filed and the director determines that there is a tax due for the taxable period or when a return has been filed and the director determines that the tax disclosed by the return is less than the tax disclosed by his examination, the director shall propose the assessment of additional tax plus penalties, as the case may be, and shall give notice of the proposed assessment to the taxpayer.

***

Let's look at another example, this one from Minnesota:

289A.35 ASSESSMENTS ON RETURNS.
The commissioner may audit and adjust the taxpayer's computation of federal taxable income, items of federal tax preferences, or federal credit amounts to make them conform with the provisions of chapter 290 or section 298.01.

Again, a quick, uninformed reading of this language might well lead to the conclusion that the Minnesota DOR may "audit and adjust" a filer's testimony to make it "conform with the provisions of chapter 290 or section 298.01".

Not as I read this language...

Looking more carefully, we see that the authority cited is to "audit and adjust" only the "taxpayer's" COMPUTATION OF FEDERAL TAXABLE INCOME, not the initial amount declared as gross "income" received. That is, the state is merely claiming the authority to apply its own structure of deductions, exemptions and credits to the amount of gross "income" received, in place of the federal structure.

Many states accept the federal calculations and use the resulting federal "adjusted gross income" or "taxable income" figures from a filer's federal 1040 as the starting point for their own claim to a piece of the "income" action. Minnesota, however, chooses to use its own rules from the very beginning-- possibly to the net benefit of the filer as compared to how another state might apply the same tax rate, and possibly not.

The point, of course, is that the authority in this statute, like that of the Indiana and Arkansas statutes above, doesn't extend to "approving" or "allowing" or "adjusting" the amount of gross "income" declared by the filer, and to which allowable deductions are subsequently applied. Nonetheless, state tax agencies have been known to try to use language of the sort we've just looked at to mislead the unwary or careless into believing the contrary. Don't be a victim of this kind of cheap ploy! Always read carefully and thoroughly, and never lose sight of the forest when closely examining one of the trees!

P. S. The studious reader will have noted that the limited authority in the state statutes discussed above mirrors that of the federal Tax Court/"deficiency" authority, discussed in 'About 1040s And Claiming Refunds' in CtC...