... [T]o use "includes" as defined in IRC is restrictive.
[Which One Are You?, page 20]
... [I]n tax law it is defined as a word of restriction ....
[Which One Are You?, page 131]
In every definition that uses the word "include", only the
words that follow are defining the Term.
[Which One Are You?, page 13]
Author Ralph Whittington cites Treasury Decision (T.D.) 3980
as his justification for joining the restrictive school.
According to his reading of this T.D., the Secretary of the
Treasury has adopted a restrictive meaning by stating that
"includes" means to "comprise as a member", to "confine", to
"comprise as the whole a part". This was the definition as found
in the New Standard Dictionary at the time this T.D. was
published:
"(1) To comprise, comprehend, or embrace as a component
part, item, or member; as, this volume includes all his
works, the bill includes his last purchase."
"(2) To enclose within; contain; confine; as, an oyster
shell sometimes includes a pearl."
It is defined by Webster as follows:
"To comprehend or comprise, as a genus of the species, the
whole a part, an argument or reason the inference; to take
or reckon in; to contain; embrace; as this volume
includes the essays to and including the tenth."
The Century Dictionary defines "including," thus: "to
comprise as a part."
[Treasury Decision 3980, January-December, 1927]
[Vol. 29, page 64, emphasis added]
Authors like Whittington may have seized upon a partial
reading of this T.D., in order to solve what we now know to be a
source of great ambiguity in the IRC and in other United States
Codes. For example, contrary to the dictionary definitions cited
above, page 65 of T.D. 3980 goes on to say the following:
Perhaps the most lucid statement the books afford on the
subject is in Blanck et al. vs Pioneer Mining Co. et al.
(Wash.; 159 Pac. 1077, 1079), namely, "the word 'including'
is a term of enlargement and not a term of limitation, and
necessarily implies that something is intended to be
embraced in the permitted deductions beyond the general
language which precedes. But granting that the word
'including' is a term of enlargement, it is clear that it
only performs that office by introducing the specific
elements constituting the enlargement. It thus, and thus
only, enlarges the otherwise more limited, preceding general
language. * * * The word 'including' introduces an
enlarging definition of the preceding general words, 'actual
cost of the labor,' thus of necessity excluding the idea of
a further enlargement than that furnished by the enlarging
clause to introduced. When read in its immediate context,
as on all authority it must be read, the word 'including' is
obviously used in the sense of its synonymous 'comprising;
comprehending; embracing.'"
[Treasury Decision 3980, January-December, 1927]
[Vol. 29, page 65, emphasis added]
Now, didn't that settle the matter once and for all? Yes? No?
Treasury Decision 3980 is really not all that decisive, since it
obviously joins the restrictive school on one page, and then
jumps ship to the expansive school on the very next page. If you
are getting confused already, that's good. At least when it
comes to "including", be proud of the fact you are not alone:
This word has received considerable discussion in opinions
of the courts. It has been productive of much controversy.
[Treasury Decision 3980, January-December, 1927]
[Vol. 29, page 64, paragraph 3, emphasis added]
Amen to that!
One of my goals in this chapter is to demonstrate how the continuing controversy is proof that terms with a long history of semantic confusion should never be used in a Congressional statute. Such terms are proof that the statute is null and void for vagueness. The confusion we experience is inherent in the language, and no doubt deliberate, because the controversy has not exactly been a well kept national security secret.
Let us see if the Restrictive School leads to any absurd results. Reductio ad absurdum to the rescue again! Notice what results obtain for the definition of "State" as found in the 7701, the "Definitions" section of the Internal Revenue Code:
Step 1: Define "State" as follows:
The term "State" shall be construed to include the District
of Columbia, where such construction is necessary to carry
out provisions of this title.
[IRC 7701(a)(10)]
Step 2: Define "United States" as follows:
The term "United States" when used in a geographical sense
includes only the States and the District of Columbia.
[IRC 7701(a)(9)]
Step 3: Substitute text from one into the other:
The term "United States" when used in a geographical sense
includes only the Districts of Columbia and the District of
Columbia. (Or is it the District of Columbias?)
This is an absurd result, no? yes? none of the above? Is
the definition of "United States" clarified by qualifying it with
the phrase "when used in a geographical sense"? yes or no? This
qualifier only makes our situation worse, because the IRC rarely
if ever distinguishes Code sections which do use "United States"
in a geographical sense, from Code sections which do not use it
in a geographical sense. Nor does the Code tell us which sense
to use as the default, that is, the intended meaning we should
use when the Code does not say "in a geographical sense".
Identical problems arise if we must be specific as to "where such
construction is necessary to carry out provisions of this title",
as stated in 7701(a)(10). Where is it not so necessary?
The Informer's work is a good example of the confusion that reigns in this empire of verbiage. Having emphatically sided with the Restrictive School, he then goes on to define the term "States" to mean Guam, Virgin Islands and "Etc.", as follows:
The term "States" in 26 USC 7701(a)(9) is referring to the
federal states of Guam, Virgin Islands, Etc., and NOT the 50
States of the Union.
[Which One Are You?, page 98]
You can't have it both ways, can you? no? yes? maybe?
Let us marshall some help directly from the IRC itself. Against
the fierce winds of hot air emanating from the Restrictive School
of Language Arts, there is a section of the IRC which does appear
to evidence a contrary intent to utilize the expansive sense:
Includes and Including. The terms "includes" and
"including" when used in a definition contained in this
title shall not be deemed to exclude other things otherwise
within the meaning of the term defined.
[IRC 7701(c), emphasis added]
Perhaps we should give this school a completely different name.
How about the Federal Area of Restrictive Terminology (F-A-R-T)?
All in favor, say AYE! (Confusion is a gaseous state.)
Section 7701(c) utilizes the key phrase "other things", which now requires us to examine the legal meaning of things. (So, what else is new?) Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition, defines "things" as follows:
Things. The objects of dominion or property as contra-
distinguished from "persons." Gayer v. Whelan, 138 P.2d 763,
768. ... Such permanent objects, not being persons, as are
sensible, or perceptible through the senses.
[emphasis added]
This definition, in turn, requires us to examine the legal
meaning of "persons" in Black's, as follows:
Person. In general usage, a human being (i.e. natural
person), though by statute term may include labor
organizations, partnerships, associations, corporations,
legal representatives, trustees, trustees in bankruptcy, or
receivers.
Here, Black's Law Dictionary states that "person" by statute may
include artificial persons, in addition to natural persons. How,
then, does the IRC define "person"?
Person. -- The term "person" shall be construed to mean and
include an individual, a trust, estate, partnership,
association, company or corporation.
[IRC 7701(a)(1)]
Unfortunately, the IRC does not define the term "individual", so,
without resorting to the regulations in the CFR, we must again
utilize a law dictionary like Black's Sixth Edition:
Individual. As a noun, this term denotes a single person as
distinguished from a group or class, and also, very
commonly, a private or natural person as distinguished from
a partnership, corporation, or association ....
[emphasis added]
Therefore, "things" and "persons" must be distinguished from each
other, but the term "person" is not limited to human beings
because it shall be construed to mean and include an individual,
trust, estate, partnership, association, company or corporation.
So, are we justified in making the inference that individuals,
trusts, estates, partnerships, associations, companies and
corporations are excluded from "things" as that term is used in
Section 7701(c)? This author says YES. Notice also the strained
grammar that is found in the phrase "shall be construed to mean
and include". Why not use the simpler grammar found in the
phrase "means and includes"? The answer: because the term
"includes" is defined by IRC 7701(c) to be expansive, that's why!
But the term "include" is not mentioned in 7701(c); therefore,
it must be restrictive and is actually used as such in the IRC.
Accordingly, no individual, trust, estate, partnership,
association, company or corporation could otherwise fall within
the statutory meaning of a term explicitly defined by the IRC
because, being "persons", none of these is a "thing"! Logically,
then, "includes" and "including" are also restrictive when they
are used in IRC definitions of "persons". Utterly amazing, yes?
Author Otto Skinner, as we already know from a previous chapter, cites Section 7701(c) of the IRC as proof that we all belong in the Expansive School of Language Science. Followers of this school argue that "includes only" should be used, and is actually used in the IRC, when a restrictive meaning is intended. In other words, "includes" and "including" are always expansive. An intent contrary to the expansive sense is evidenced by using "includes only" whenever necessary. Fine. All in favor say AYE. All opposed, jump ship. The debate is finished yes? Not so fast. Cheerleaders, put down your pom-poms. The operative concepts introduced by 7701(c) are those "things otherwise within the meaning of the term defined". Now, the 64 million dollar question is this:
How does something join the class of things that are "within
the meaning of the term defined", if that something is not
enumerated in the definition?
We can obtain some help in answering this question by referring
to an older clarification of "includes" and "including" that was
published in the Code of Federal Regulations in the year 1961.
This clarification introduces the notion of "same general class".
(So, you might be in the right school, but you may be in the
wrong class. Detention after school!) This clarification reads:
170.59 Includes and including.
"Includes" and "including" shall not be deemed to exclude
things other than those enumerated which are in the same
general class.
[26 CFR 170.59, revised as of January 1, 1961]
In an earlier chapter, a double negative was detected in the
"clarification" found at IRC 7701(c), namely, the terms "not ...
exclude" are equivalent to saying "include" ("not-ex" = "in").
Two negatives make a positive. Apply this same finding to
regulation 170.59 above, and you get the following:
"Includes" and "including" shall be deemed to include things
other than those enumerated which are in the same general
class.
What are those things which are "in the same general class",
if they have not been enumerated in the definition? This is one
of the many possible variations of the 64 million dollar question
asked above. Are we any closer to an answer? yes? no? maybe?
(Is this astronomy class, or basket weaving?) If a person, place
or thing is not enumerated in the statutory definition of a term,
is it not a violation of the rules of statutory construction to
join such a person, place or thing to that definition? One of
these rules is a canon called the "ejusdem generis" rule, defined
in Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition, as follows:
Under "ejusdem generis" canon of statutory construction,
where general words follow the enumeration of particular
classes of things, the general words will be construed as
applying only to things of the same general class as those
enumerated.
[emphasis added]
Here the term "same general class" is used once again. One of
the major points of this book is to distinguish the 50 States
from the federal zone, by using the principle of territorial
heterogeneity. The 50 States are in one class, because of the
constitutional restraints under which Congress must operate
inside those 50 States. The areas within the federal zone are in
a different class, because these same constitutional restraints
simply do not limit Congress inside that zone. This may sound
totally correct, in theory, but the IRC is totally mum on this
issue of "general class" (because it has none). Yes, this is all
the more reason why the IRC is null and void for vagueness.
This conclusion is supported by two other rules of statutory construction. The first of these is noscitur a sociis, in Latin. Black's defines this rule as follows:
Noscitur a sociis. It is known from its associates. The
meaning of a word is or may be known from the accompanying
words. Under the doctrine of "noscitur a sociis", the
meaning of questionable or doubtful words or phrases in a
statute may be ascertained by reference to the meaning of
other words or phrases associated with it.
[emphasis added]
In this context, the 50 States are associated with each other by
sharing their membership in the Union under the Constitution.
The land areas within the federal zone are associated with each
other by sharing their inclusion within the zone over which
Congress has exclusive legislative jurisdiction. The areas
inside and outside the zone are therefore dissociated from each
other because of this key difference, i.e., the Union, in or out.
The second rule is inclusio unius est exclusio alterius, in Latin. Black's defines this rule as follows:
Inclusio unius est exclusio alterius. The inclusion of one
is the exclusion of another. The certain designation of one
person is an absolute exclusion of all others. ... This
doctrine decrees that where law expressly describes [a]
particular situation to which it shall apply, an irrefutable
inference must be drawn that what is omitted or excluded was
intended to be omitted or excluded.
[emphasis added]
Are we, or are we not, therefore, justified in drawing the
following irrefutable inferences?
Places omitted from the statutory definitions of "State",
"States" and "United States" were intended to be omitted
(like California, Maine, Florida and Oregon).
"Include" is omitted from the definition of "includes" and
"including" because the latter terms were intended to be
expansive, while the former was intended to be restrictive.
Let's dive back into the Code in order to find any help we can
get on this issue. In Subtitle F, the Code contains a formal
definition of "other terms" as follows:
Other terms. -- Any term used in this subtitle with respect
to the application of, or in connection with, the provisions
of any other subtitle of this title shall have the same
meaning as in such provisions.
[IRC 7701(a)(28)]
Let's use the rules of grammar to decompose this definition of
"other terms" into two separate definitions, as follows:
Any term used in Subtitle F with respect to the application
of the provisions of any other subtitle shall have the same
meaning as in such provisions.
-or-
Any term used in Subtitle F in connection with the
provisions of any other subtitle shall have the same meaning
as in such provisions.
Now, therefore, does IRC 7701(a)(28) clarify anything? For
example, if there is a different definition of "State" in the
provisions of some other subtitle, do we now know enough to
decide whether or not:
(1) that different definition should be expanded with
things that are within the meaning as defined at
7701(a)(10)? Yes or No?
(2) the definition at 7701(a)(10) should be expanded with
things that are within the meaning of that different
definition? Yes or No?
(3) all of the above are correct?
(4) none of the above is correct?
If you are having difficulty answering these questions, don't
blame yourself. With all this evidence staring you in the face,
it is not difficult to argue that the confusion which you are
experiencing is inherent in the statute and therefore deliberate.
To confuse our separate cheering squads even more, the word "shall" means "may". Squad leaders, let's see those pom-poms. Since this may be most difficult for many of you to swallow without convincing proof, the following court decisions leave no doubt about the legal meaning of "shall". In the decision of Cairo & Fulton R.R. Co. vs Hecht, 95 U.S. 170, the U.S. Supreme Court stated:
As against the government the word "shall" when used in
statutes, is to be construed as "may," unless a contrary
intention is manifest.
[emphasis added]
Does the IRC manifest a contrary intent? In the decision of
George Williams College vs Village of Williams Bay, 7 N.W.2d 891,
the Supreme Court of Wisconsin stated:
"Shall" in a statute may be construed to mean "may" in order
to avoid constitutional doubt.
In the decision of Gow vs Consolidated Coppermines Corp., 165
Atlantic 136, that court stated:
If necessary to avoid unconstitutionality of a statute,
"shall" will be deemed equivalent to "may" ....
Maybe we can shed some light on the overall situation by
treating the terms "State" and "States" as completely different
words. After all, the definition of "United States" uses the
plural form twice, and there is no definition of "States" as
such. Note carefully the following:
The term "State" shall be construed to include the District
of Columbia, where such construction is necessary to carry
out provisions of this title.
[IRC 7701(a)(10)]
The term "United States" when used in a geographical sense
includes only the States and the District of Columbia.
[IRC 7701(a)(9)]
So, can we assume that the singular form of words
necessarily has a meaning that is different from the plural form
of words? This might help us to distinguish the two terms
"include" and "includes", since one is the singular form of the
verb, while the other can be the plural form of the verb. For
example, the sentence "It includes ..." has a singular subject
and a singular predicate. The sentence "They include ..." has a
plural subject and a plural predicate, but the sentence "I
include ..." has a singular subject and predicate. What if
"include" is used as an infinitive, rather than a predicate?
Recall that the "clarification" at IRC 7701(c) contains explicit
references to "includes" and "including", but not to the word
"include". Does this therefore provide us with a definitive
reason for deciding that the term "include" is restrictive, while
the terms "includes" and "including" are expansive? Some people,
including this author, are completely satisfied that it does (but
not all people are so satisfied). What if these latter terms are
used in the restrictive sense of "includes only" or "including
only"? Are you getting even more confused now? Welcome to the
state of confusion (surely a gaseous state). Recall once again
the definition of "State" at 7701(a)(10):
The term "State" shall be construed to include the District
of Columbia, where such construction is necessary to carry
out provisions of this title.
Now recall the definition of "United States" at 7701(a)(9):
The term "United States" when used in a geographical sense
includes only the States and the District of Columbia.
[IRC 7701(a)(9)]
Title 1 and the Code of Federal Regulations come to the rescue.
Plural forms and singular forms are interchangeable:
170.60 Inclusive language.
Words in the plural form shall include the singular and vice
versa, and words in the masculine gender shall include the
feminine as well as trusts, estates, partnerships,
associations, companies, and corporations.
[26 CFR 170.60, revised as of January 1, 1961]
Now, doesn't that really clarify everything? If "includes"
is singular and "include" is plural, using the above rule for
"inclusive language", the term "include" includes "includes".
Wait, didn't we already make this remarkable discovery in a
previous chapter? Answer: No, in that chapter, we discovered
that "includes" includes "include". But, now we have conflicting
results. Didn't we just prove that one is restrictive and the
other is expansive? What gives? Remember, also, that "shall"
means "may". Therefore, our rule for "inclusive language" from
the CFR can now be rewritten to say that "words in the plural
form MAY include the singular" (and may NOT, depending on whether
it is a week from Tuesday). If this is Tuesday, then we must be
in Belgium. At least one major mystery is now solved.
Does the Code of Federal Regulations clarify any of the definitions found in section 7701 of the Internal Revenue Code? The following table lists the headings of corresponding sections from the CFR, beginning at 26 CFR 301.7701-1:
Definitions
301.7701-1 Classification of organizations for tax
purposes
301.7701-2 Associations
301.7701-3 Partnerships
301.7701-4 Trusts
301.7701-5 Domestic, foreign, resident, and nonresident
persons
301.7701-6 Fiduciary
301.7701-7 Fiduciary distinguished from agent
301.7701-8 Military or naval forces and Armed Forces of
the United States
301.7701-9 Secretary or his delegate
301.7701-10 District director
301.7701-11 Social security number
301.7701-12 Employer identification number
301.7701-13 Pre-1970 domestic building and loan
association
301.7701-13A Post-1970 domestic building and loan
association
301.7701-14 Cooperative bank
301.7701-15 Income tax return preparer
301.7701-16 Other terms
301.7701-17T Collective-bargaining plans and agreements
(temporary)
[26 CFR 301.7701-1 thru 7701-17T]
This list contains such essential topics as trusts, associations,
cooperative banks, and pre- and post-1970 domestic building and
loan associations. In fact, there are numerous pages dedicated
to these building and loan associations. However, the reader
reaches the end of the list without finding any reference to
"State" or "United States". Instead, the following regulation is
found near the end of the list:
301.7701-16 Other terms.
For a definition of the term "withholding agent" see section
1.1441-7(a). Any other terms that are defined in section
7701 and that are not defined in sections 301.7701-1 to
301.7701-15, inclusive, shall, when used in this chapter,
have the meanings assigned to them in section 7701.
[26 CFR 301.7701-16]
Like it or not, we are right back where we started, in IRC
Section 7701, the "definitions" section of that Code, where
"other terms" are defined differently. You may pass "GO" again,
but do not collect 200 dollars. You must pay the bank instead!
(Try changing that rule the next time you play Monopoly. The
Monopoly bank will, of course, end up owning everything in
sight.) You are also free to search some 6,000 pages of
additional regulations to determine if the fluctuating
definitions of the terms "State" and "United States" are
clarified anywhere else in the Code of Federal Regulations.
Happy hunting!
The only way out of this swamp is to rely on something other than the murky gyrations of conflicting, mutually destructive semantic mishmash. That something is The Fundamental Law: Congress can only tax the Citizens of foreign States under special and limited circumstances. Congress can only levy a direct tax on Citizens of the 50 States if that tax is duly apportioned. Congress can only levy an indirect tax on Citizens of the 50 States if that tax is uniform. These are the chains of the Constitution. Read Thomas Jefferson.
The historical record documents undeniable proof that the confusion, ambiguity and jurisdictional deceptions now built into the IRC were deliberate. This historical record provides the "smoking gun" that proves the real intent was deception. The first Internal Revenue Code was Title 35 of the Revised Statutes of June 22, 1874. On December 5, 1898, Mr. Justice Cox of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia delivered an address before the Columbia Historical Society. In this address, he discussed the history of the District of Columbia as follows:
In June 1866, an act was passed authorizing the
President to appoint three commissioners to revise and bring
together all the statutes .... [T]he act does not seem, in
terms, to allude to the District of Columbia, or even to
embrace it .... Without having any express authority to do
so, they made a separate revision and collection of the acts
of Congress relating to the District, besides the collection
of general statutes relating to the whole United States.
Each collection was reported to Congress, to be approved and
enacted into law .... [T]he whole is enacted into law as
the body of the statute law of the United States, under the
title of Revised Statutes as of 22 June 1874. ...
[T]he general collection might perhaps be considered,
in a limited sense as a code for the United States, as it
embraced all the laws affecting the whole United States
within the constitutional legislative jurisdiction of
Congress, but there could be no complete code for the entire
United States, because the subjects which would be proper to
be regulated by a code in the States are entirely outside
the legislative authority of Congress.
[District of Columbia Code, Historical Section]
[emphasis added]
More than half a century later, the deliberate confusion and
ambiguity were problems that not only persisted; they were
getting worse by the minute. In the year 1944, during Roosevelt's
administration, Senator Barkley made a speech from the floor of
the House of Representatives in which he complained:
Congress is to blame for these complexities to the extent,
and only to the extent, to which it has accepted the advice,
the recommendations, and the language of the Treasury
Department, through its so-called experts who have sat in on
the passage of every tax measure since I can remember.
Every member of the House Ways and Means Committee and
member of the Senate Finance Committee knows that every time
we have undertaken to write a new tax bill in the last 10
years we have started out with the universal desire to
simplify the tax laws and the forms through which taxes are
collected. We have attempted to adopt policies which would
simplify them. When we have agreed upon a policy, we have
submitted that policy to the Treasury Department to write
the appropriate language to carry out that policy; and
frequently the Treasury Department, through its experts, has
brought back language so complicated and circumambient that
neither Solomon nor all the wise men of the East could
understand it or interpret it.
[Congressional Record, 78th Congress, 2nd Session]
[Vol. 90, Part 2, February 23, 1944, pages 1964-5]
[emphasis added]
You have, no doubt, heard that ignorance of the law is no
excuse for violating the law. This principle is explicitly
stated in the case law which defines the legal force and effect
of administrative regulations. But, ambiguity and deception in
the law are an excuse, and the ambiguity in the IRC is a major
cause of our ignorance. Moreover, this principle applies as well
to ambiguity and deception in the case law. Lack of specificity
leads to uncertainty, which leads in turn to court decisions
which are also void for vagueness. The 6th Amendment guarantees
our right to ignore vague and ambiguous laws, and this must be
extended to vague and ambiguous case law. In light of their
enormous influence in laying the foundations for territorial
heterogeneity and a legislative democracy for the federal zone,
The Insular Cases have been justly criticized, by peers, for
lacking the minimum judicial precision required in such cases:
The Absence of Judicial Precision. -- Whether the
decisions in the Insular Cases are considered correct or
incorrect, it seems generally admitted that the opinions
rendered are deficient in clearness and in precision,
elements most essential in cases of such importance.
Elaborate discussions and irreconcilable differences upon
general principles, and upon fascinating and fundamental
problems suggested by equally indiscriminating dicta in
other cases, complicate, where they do not hide, the points
at issue. It is extremely difficult to determine exactly
what has been decided; the position of the court in similar
cases arising in the future, or still pending, is entirely a
matter of conjecture. ...
It is still more to be regretted that the defects in
the decision under discussion are by no means exceptional.
From our system of allowing judges to express opinion upon
general principles and of following judicial precedent, two
evils almost inevitably result: our books are overcrowded
with dicta, while dictum is frequently taken for decision.
Since the questions involved are both fundamental and
political, in constitutional cases more than in any others
the temptation to digress, necessarily strong, is seldom
resisted; at the same time it is strikingly difficult, in
these cases, to distinguish between decision, ratio
decidendi, and dictum. Yet because the questions involved
are both extensive and political, and because the evils of a
dictum or of an ill-considered decision are of corresponding
importance, a precise analysis, with a thorough
consideration of the questions raised, and of those
questions only, is imperative. The continued absence of
judicial precision may possibly become a matter of political
importance; for opinions such as those rendered cannot be
allowed a permanent place in our system of government.
[15 Harvard Law Review 220]
[anonymous]
The average American cannot be expected to have the skill
required to navigate the journey we just took through the verbal
swamp that is the Internal Revenue Code, nor does the average
American have the time required to make such a journey.
Chicanery does not make good law. The rules of statutory
construction fully support this unavoidable conclusion:
... [I]f it is intended that regulations will be of a
specific and definitive nature then it will be clear that
the only safe method of interpretation will be one that
"shall suppress the mischief, and advance the remedy, and to
suppress subtle inventions and evasions for the continuance
of the mischief ...."
[Statutes and Statutory Construction, by J. G. Sutherland]
[3rd Edition, Volume 2, Section 4007, page 280 (1943)]
The Supreme Court has also agreed, in no uncertain terms, as
follows:
... [K]eeping in mind the well settled rule that the citizen
is exempt from taxation unless the same is imposed by clear
and unequivocal language, and that where the construction of
a tax law is doubtful, the doubt is to be resolved in favor
of those upon whom the tax is sought to be laid.
[Spreckels Sugar Refining Co. vs McLain]
[192 U.S. 397 (1903), emphasis added]
In the interpretation of statutes levying taxes it is the
established rule not to extend their provisions, by
implication, beyond the clear import of the language used,
or to enlarge their operations so as to embrace matters not
specifically pointed out. In case of doubt they are
construed most strongly against the Government, and in favor
of the citizen.
[United States vs Wigglesworth, 2 Story 369]
[emphasis added]
On what basis, then, should the Internal Revenue Service be
allowed to extend the provisions of the IRC beyond the clear
import of the language used? On what basis can the IRS act when
that language has no clear import? On what basis is the IRS
justified in enlarging their operations so as to embrace matters
not specifically pointed out? The answer is tyranny. The
"golden" retriever has broken his leash and is now tearing up the
neighborhood to fetch the gold. What a service!
Consider for a moment the sheer size of the class of people now affected by the fraudulent 16th Amendment. First of all, take into account all those Americans who have passed away, but who paid taxes into the Treasury after the year 1913. How many of those correctly understood all the rules, when people like Frank R. Brushaber were confused as early as 1914? Add to that number all those Americans who are still alive today and who have paid taxes to the IRS because they thought there was a law, and they thought that law was the 16th Amendment. After all, they were told as much by numerous federal officials and possibly also their parents, friends, relatives, school teachers, scout masters and colleagues. Don't high school civics classes now spend a lot of time teaching students how to complete IRS 1040 forms and schedules, instead of teaching the Constitution?
Donald C. Alexander, when he was Commissioner of Internal Revenue, published an official statement in the Federal Register that the 16th Amendment was the federal government's general authority to tax the incomes of individuals and corporations (see Chapter 1 and Appendix J). Sorry, Donald, you were wrong. At this point in time, it is impossible for us to determine whether you were lying, or whether you too were a victim of the fraud. Just how many people are in the same general class of those affected by the fraudulent 16th Amendment? Is it 200 million? Is it 300 million? Whatever it is, it just boggles the imagination. It certainly does involve a very large number of federal employees who went to work for Uncle Sam in good faith.
It is clear, there is a huge difference between the area covered by the federal zone, and the area covered by the 50 States. Money is a powerful motivation for all of us. Congress had literally trillions of dollars to gain by convincing most Americans they were inside its revenue base when, in fact, most Americans were outside its revenue base, and remain outside even today. This is deception on a grand scale, and the proof of this deception is found in the statute itself. It is no wonder why public relations "officials" of the IRS cringe in fear when dedicated Patriots like Godfrey Lehman admit, out loud and in person, that he has read the law. It is quite stunning how the carefully crafted definitions of "United States" do appear to unlock a statute that is horribly complex and deliberately so. As fate would have it, these carefully crafted definitions also expose perhaps the greatest fiscal fraud that has ever been perpetrated upon any people at any time in the history of the world. It is now time for a shift in the wind.