What are the chances???

[grixit]

Not to fall afoul of an internet law, but there is a certain disturbing ideology well represented by dozens of websites.

[Harvester]

Haa! I knew you'd like that. Yes LPC, Congress has vast powers of taxation but what has been enacted is an indirect excise. It had to be or it risked being struck down by the high court (much like the income tax provision of the Revenue Act of 1894 was). Also, lookup the definition of "United States" that applies to that tax and you'll see it's very limited . . Oh wait a minute, you already knew that! Your only purpose here is to lie & redirect everyone back into the taxpayer pen. It is fun to watch you all squirm.

Oh yes, if you've got more websites detailing the misapplication of the income tax, I'm collecting.

[LPC]

Haa! I knew you'd like that. Yes LPC, Congress has vast powers of taxation but what has been enacted is an indirect excise. It had to be or it risked being struck down by the high court (much like the income tax provision of the Revenue Act of 1894 was). Also, lookup the definition of "United States" that applies to that tax and you'll see it's very limited . . Oh wait a minute, you already knew that! Your only purpose here is to lie & redirect everyone back into the taxpayer pen. It is fun to watch you all squirm.

Blah, blah, blah.

If you ever really understood how lame and ridiculous and embarrassingly inane you present yourself, you'd probably cut your own throat.

[Harvester]

Yes Cap'n, but what is "INCOME? The Supreme Court has said "the general term 'income' is not defined in the Internal Revenue Code." Hmmm, 8500 pages of tax code but yet the heart of it - the definition of INCOME - is left out. Why is that?

C'mon LPC, you can do better than that. Dig that pit you're sitting in a little deeper.

http://losthorizons.com/TaxTip.htm

[Famspear]

Yes Cap'n, but what is "INCOME? The Supreme Court has said "the general term 'income' is not defined in the Internal Revenue Code." Hmmm, 8500 pages of tax code but yet the heart of it - the definition of INCOME - is left out. Why is that?

Hmmm, 8500 pages of tax code and yet the heart of it - the definition of "tax" is also left out.

Come to think of it, there's no definition for the word "the" either.

Come to think of it, the word "either" isn't defined in the Code either.

Come to think of it, the words "Harvester must pay tax on his income" aren't found in the Code either.

Why is that?

Hey, Knumb Knuts, get serious.

Then maybe you'll receive some serious answers.

[Melted Rabbit]

If so, then, if you get over $433 in a year in royalties, you owe self-employment taxes.

If you didn't write a book or get any income from it, please forgive me.

No, I haven't written a book, and I know royalties are income. I'm not (very much) like some of the trolls here. The first year I did not file, I tried to file taxes using TurboTax with the information I had, I discovered that I had no income that was taxable. TurboTax threw up a baffling error and would not allow me to complete the questions and print a return. Confused, I went over to http://www.irs.gov and after answering a few questions, the IRS stated I should not file a return. Notice the "should" there, apparently the IRS didn't want to receive unnecessary forms from me. Which really felt odd and wrong, I think I had been filing or signing tax returns since I was twelve, at least, which ended up being at least seventeen years of returns.

As for a book, I wish I had written a book, however I dislike writing with a passion. While I do know somewhat how to program in C/C++ nothing has inspired me enough to actually do something worth giving back to the community. I blame my own ADHD/PI tendencies for that.

If I really wanted to write a book, I suppose one could find all of the posts I have made on the internet that still exist, my written papers from college along with the the C and Pascal code I wrote there, and a few random writings from my hard drive and offer it in the form of a publish on demand trade paperback on Lulu.com, but it might only take up 50 pages even after using US Congressional standards for bills under discussion. On bills, the spacing between lines is large, there are large margins, and the typeface is larger than one might use ordinarily. There is probably very little demand for flame wars from the mid to late 1990's.

[LPC]

Yes Cap'n, but what is "INCOME?

So you've given up on the "federal privilege" crap and are moving on to the "what is income" crap?

[wserra]

So you've given up on the "federal privilege" crap and are moving on to the "what is income" crap?

You missed the "United States is just DC and the territories" crap.

S/He knows s/he doesn't owe income tax. Isn't that good enough?

[The Observer]

Yes Cap'n, but what is "INCOME?

So you've given up on the "federal privilege" crap and are moving on to the "what is income" crap?

I'm waiting to see how long before he moves to the "forcibly catergorized as a Virgin Islands resident and gunsmith" arguments.

[Prof]

Is it too late to point out, once again, that is theories like CTC or the Larkin Rose Sec. 861 argument had any basis in fact, then a minor amendment by Congress would "cure" the error.

As a corollary, the simple fact that the Treasury/Administration has never requested such minor amendments to the IRC, irrespective of the constant waive of litigation with the followers of such gurus, is evidence that the government does not consider these arguments to be at all dangerous.

The simple fact that none of these arguments has ever succeeded in any court, including in state courts where similar arguments have been made under state tax laws, should give folks like Harvester a hint.

No one with "skin in the game" -- from Warren Buffet to Bill Gates to the "masters of the universe" on Wall Street, all of whom earn enourmous amounts of "income" every year, attempt to use these arguments to reduce their income taxes. When a relatively wealthy person with real tax obligations does attempt to use these arguments, he gets convicted on criminal charges -- i.e., Wesley Snipes.

Only "fringe" lawyers and accountants accept these theories. The lawyers and accountants who accept these theories are not evidence of "voices crying in the Wilderness;" all, without exception, are either "flaky as a road lizard," to quote a former partner, or truly deranged, or in trouble themselves. Even Mr. Beecraft has a web page debunking most of these arguments if not all of them.

So, Mr. Harvester, and other "real men of genius," I know you can give me at least 10 reasons why I am wrong, but I personally think that is because you are either a troll or have actually drunk the Kool-Aid (TM).

[Duke2Earl]

The question is "what are the chances" that internet tax gurus such as Hendrickson are smarter than the legal teams employed by Buffet and Gates and other really rich people?

I'd put that one as about zero.

[Pottapaug1938]

The question is "what are the chances" that internet tax gurus such as Hendrickson are smarter than the legal teams employed by Buffett and Gates and other really rich people?

I'd put that one as about zero.

I'd say that you're being much too generous. Of course, some day, we'll probably see a story or book written by someone who claims that Buffett and Gates DO use CtC principles to make themselves fantastically wealthy; but as part of a deal with the IRS that allows them to keep their wealth, they have to pretend that they are following the IRS version of the law....

[Famspear]

The question is "what are the chances" that internet tax gurus such as Hendrickson are smarter than the legal teams employed by Buffet and Gates and other really rich people?

I'd put that one as about zero.

Yeah. Hendrickson actually is a smart guy, but "smarts" alone doesn't cut it. You can be the smartest guy or gal in the world, but knowing how to perform legal analysis properly is not a skill magically acquired by having a "smart" person pick up legal materials and try to decipher them the way Hendrickson ostensibly tried to do over the years -- especially when (like Hendrickson) you have a corrupt motivation to reach a specific goal: "proving" a legally invalid theory.

Trying to explain --to people like Hendrickson or Harvester/Nationwide/johnthetaxist -- how proper legal analyis is done is like trying to explain color to a person who has always been blind. You know that he or she is just not really getting it. In the case of Hendrickson and federal income tax law, he never will get it -- because he doesn't want to get it. He wants above all else to keep his cherished belief system, no matter what hell may come to him and his family. He's too far gone.

[Brandybuck]

the definition of INCOME - is left out. Why is that?

I think this was Bill Clinton's problem. The law never defined "is". Man, talk about a loophole you could drive a truck of hookers through!