Appendix P
Miscellaneous Letters
Reader's Notes:
Registered U.S. Mail #R 756 488 761
Return Receipt Requested
c/o
general delivery
San
Rafael
California
state
zip
code exempt (DMM 122.32)
December
29, 1993
Hon. William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice
Hon. Harry A. Blackmun, Associate Justice
Hon. John Paul Stevens, Associate Justice
Hon. Sandra Day O'Connor, Associate Justice
Hon. Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice
Hon. Anthony M. Kennedy, Associate Justice
Hon. David H. Souter, Associate Justice
Hon. Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice
Hon. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice
Supreme Court of the United States
One First Street, Northeast
Washington, District of Columbia
Subject: NOTICE AND DEMAND TO CEASE AND DESIST
Dear Honorable Justices:
Notice is
hereby formally served upon you, both individually and severally, that
conclusive evidence now available to me proves that the so-called 14th
amendment to the Constitution for the United States of America was never
properly approved and adopted. I am
under a legal and moral obligation to intervene on behalf of the many millions
of Americans whose status has been unlawfully subsumed under federal
jurisdiction, because this was done without either their knowledge or their
informed consent.
As required
by Title 28, United States Code, Section 453 (Oaths of justices and judges),
you have solemnly sworn (or affirmed) that you would administer justice without
respect to persons, and faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all
duties incumbent upon you as Justices of the U. S. Supreme Court under the
Constitution and laws of the United States, so help you God (see revision
at 104 Stat. 5124).
Please take
formal notice that it is quite simply impossible for you, or for any other public officials anywhere in America, to perform your
solemn duties under this oath (or affirmation), if the weight of material
evidence should prove that the exact provisions of that Constitution are still
in doubt. Your oath (or affirmation) is
a binding contract which I hereby seek to enforce, according to the
dictates of my conscience, my Creator, and the supreme Law of the Land, as lawfully amended.
Pursuant to
the Guarantee Clause (4:4) and to the opinion of the California Court of Appeal
in Steiner v. Darby et al., 88
Cal.App.2d 481, 199 P.2d 429 (1948: the year of my birth as a Sovereign natural
born Free Citizen of one of the United States), it is not only my Right, but also my Duty,
to inform you that the weight of material and historical evidence proves that
the so‑called 14th amendment is not now, nor has it ever been, a lawful
provision in the Constitution for the United States of America. This proposed amendment failed to be
ratified in accordance with the requirements of Article 5 of the
Constitution. At the very least, the
evidence which I now lay before you consists of the following public records
and other documents:
State v.
Phillips, 540 P.2d. 936, 941 (1975)
Dyett v.
Turner, 439 P.2d 266, 270 (1968)
28 Tulane
Law Review 22
11 South
Carolina Law Quarterly 484
House
Congressional Record, June 13, 1967, p. 15641 et seq.
Because the
available evidence indicates to me that all Federal and State judicial
officers, without exception, have taken solemn oaths (or affirmations)
which disagree with the Constitution for the United States of America as lawfully amended, I am now left
entirely without any unbiased judicial forum in which to seek review and
declaratory relief in the matter of the following federal questions:
(1) The constitutional qualifications for
election to the offices of President, Senator, and Representative retain the
meaning they had when the Constitution was first drafted (see Dred Scott v.
Sandford, 19 How. 393-633 (1856)).
(2) There is still
no constitutional authority for the status of a "citizen of the
United States", unlike the proper status of a "Citizen of one
of the States United" (see 1:2:2, 1:3:3, 2:1:5, and People v. De La
Guerra, 40 Cal. 311 (1870): the term "United States" here means
"States united"; see also Hooven
& Allison v. Evatt, 324 U.S. 652 (1945)).
(3) There is still
no constitutional provision prohibiting anyone from questioning the validity of the public debt, and freedom of speech
is still guaranteed by the Bill of
Rights.
(4) All provisions in Federal law are necessarily
null and void, to the extent that they make reference, either implicitly or
explicitly, to any section(s) of the failed 14th amendment.
(5) All provisions in State constitutions and
statutes are likewise null and void, to the extent that they make reference to
any section(s) of the failed 14th amendment (e.g. see the attached letter to the California State Lands
Commission, to which all recipients fell silent).
Therefore, by
virtue of the superior authority which is vested in me by my Creator, as a
direct consequence of my natural birth as a qualified member of the Sovereign
People, "by whom and for whom all government exists and acts" (see Yick
Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 370 (1886)), and on behalf of each and every
member of the Sovereignty known and lawfully identified as "We, the People
of the United States" of America (see Preamble), I hereby demand and do hereby order you to Cease and Desist from
any and all of the following official acts on your part:
(1) any and all official oaths or affirmations
which are predicated in any way on
the lawful ratification of the so‑called 14th amendment;
(2) any and all judicial decisions or
determinations which are predicated in
any way on the lawful ratification of the so‑called 14th amendment,
including but not limited to:
(a) decisions or determinations which construe in any way the rights, responsibilities,
privileges, immunities, and liabilities of "citizens of the United
States" as that term is used in any and all Acts of Congress and
administrative rules and regulations promulgated by any employees of the
Executive Branch of the Federal government (e.g.
26 C.F.R. 1.1-1(c));
(b) decisions or determinations which attempt in any way to enforce the administration
of the individual income tax provisions of the Internal Revenue Code upon the
People of the 50 Union States, or upon their private property (see Treasury
Decision 2313 and Brushaber's pleadings);
(c) decisions or determinations which uphold in any way the validity of the public
debt of the Federal and State governments, acting in whatever capacity and
through whatever agency, lawfully delegated or not (see 1:6:2);
(d) decisions or determinations which recognize in any way the lawful existence of a
"State within a state", with particular reference to the political
body defined by the population of "citizens of the United
States" who may inhabit the 50 Union States at any given moment, however
those terms may be defined (see 4:3:1 and the case law interpreting the Buck
Act, 4 U.S.C. 105-113).
Until such
time as you demonstrate officially that each and every one of you has executed
a solemn oath which agrees with the Constitution for the United States
of America as lawfully amended, I will take the absence of such an oath
to mean that you are individually and severally biased in your
understanding of the Constitution and that you
are, therefore, unqualified to rule on these matters and hereby recused from
doing so.
The burden of
proof is now upon you to authenticate the Constitution which you agree to
uphold, now and at all times in the future, using established principles of Law
and the published rules of evidence.
I realize
that this NOTICE AND DEMAND TO CEASE AND
DESIST may constitute an historically unprecedented act on my part, as an
individual California Citizen who enjoys neither elected nor appointed
authority of any kind at this moment in time.
Nevertheless, this act is necessitated by the fact that there is
presently not one single judge, magistrate, or commissioner anywhere in America whose oath of office
is not colored by faulty (non-existent) provisions in the federal Constitution
which they are sworn to uphold.
I realize
also that this Notice and Demand must be general in nature and in substance,
because of the far-reaching consequences which issue from the facts and Law
which impugn federal "adoption" of the so-called 14th amendment. It is not my purpose here to anticipate, nor
to delineate, each and every such consequence.
Better minds than I should hesitate to assume such a weighty task by
themselves.
Therefore,
for the time being, I will leave it to you, and to the capable expertise on
your respective staffs, to find and recommend the course of action which will
best execute this Demand with maximum justice, liberty, and domestic
tranquility. These are, after all, the
stated goals of our chosen form of government in the united States of America
(see Preamble).
Furthermore,
I do explicitly reserve my unalienable Right to take whatever steps I deem
necessary and proper to correct, at any time, a government which has now
drifted so far off course, it hardly resembles the constitutional Republic it
was designed to be (see also Declaration of Independence (1776)).
Thank you
very much for your attention, and for your consideration.
Respectfully submitted,
Paul Andrew Mitchell, Sui Juris
California Citizen, on behalf of the
People of the united States of America
All Rights Reserved AT LAW
NOTICE TO PRINCIPALS IS NOTICE TO
AGENTS.
NOTICE TO AGENTS IS NOTICE TO
PRINCIPALS.
copies: Marin
County Grand Jury, San Rafael
Bill
Clinton, President
Pete
Wilson, Governor of California
Barbara
Boxer, U.S. Senator
Dianne
Feinstein, U.S. Senator
Lynn
Woolsey, U.S. Representative
Janet
Reno, Attorney General
Drew
S. Days, III, Solicitor General
William
K. Suter, Supreme Court Clerk
Frank
D. Wagner, Reporter of Decisions
Alfred
Wong, Marshal
Shelley
L. Dowling, Librarian
attachment: letter
to California State Lands Commission
enclosures (under
separate cover to Librarian supra):
The
Federal Zone, hard-copy second edition
The
Federal Zone, electronic fourth edition
Chapter
11, from upcoming fifth edition
California All-Purpose Acknowledgement
CALIFORNIA
STATE/REPUBLIC )
)
COUNTY OF
MARIN )
On this
twenty-ninth (29th) day of December, 1993,
Anno Domini, before me personally appeared Paul Andrew Mitchell, personally
known to me (or proved to me on the basis of satisfactory evidence) to be the
Person whose name is subscribed to the within instrument and acknowledged to me
that he executed the same in His authorized capacity, and that by His signature
on this instrument the Person, or the entity upon behalf of which the Person
acted, executed the instrument. Purpose
of Notary Public is for identification only, and not for entrance into
any foreign jurisdiction.
WITNESS my hand and official seal.
_____________________________________
Notary Public
C E R T I F I C A T E O F
S E R V I C E B Y M A I L
It is hereby
certified that service of this LETTER has
been made on interested parties by mailing one copy thereof, on this
twenty-ninth (29th) day of December, 1993, in a sealed envelope with postage
prepaid, properly addressed to them as follows:
Registered U.S. Mail #R 756 488 761
Return Receipt Requested of:
Hon. William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice
Supreme Court of the United States
One First Street, Northeast
Washington, District of Columbia
Copies via first class U.S. mail to:
Hon. Harry A. Blackmun, Associate Justice
Hon. John Paul Stevens, Associate Justice
Hon. Sandra Day O'Connor, Associate Justice
Hon. Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice
Hon. Anthony M. Kennedy, Associate Justice
Hon. David H. Souter, Associate Justice
Hon. Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice
Hon. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice
Supreme Court of the United States
One First Street, Northeast
Washington, District of Columbia
Dated: December
29, 1993
__________________________________________________________________________
Paul Andrew
Mitchell, Citizen/Principal, by Special
Appearance, in Propria Persona,
proceeding Sui Juris, with
Assistance, Special, "Without Prejudice" to any of my unalienable
Rights.
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael
California
state
Postal Zone 94901/tdc
September
10, 1993
Ray Feyereisen
c/o general delivery
Houston, Texas state
Postal Zone 77253/tdc
Dear Ray:
I did some
more research today, to explore some of the cases which support the position that
one can be a State Citizen without necessarily being a citizen of the United
States. You already knew about Crosse; here are the relevant paragraphs:
Both
before and after the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution, it has
not been necessary for a person to be a citizen of the United States in
order to be a citizen of his state.
United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 549, 23 L.Ed. 588 (1875); Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.)
36, 73-74, 21 L.Ed. 394 (1873); and see
Short v. State, 80 Md. 392, 401-402, 31 A. 322 (1895). See also Spear, State Citizenship, 16 Albany
L.J. 24 (1877). ...
[B]ut we find nothing in Reum
[City of Minneapolis v. Reum, 56 F. 576, 581 (8th Cir. 1893)] or any other case
which requires that a citizen of a state
must also be a citizen of the United States, if no question of federal rights
or jurisdiction is involved. As the
authorities referred to in the first portion of this opinion evidence, the law
is to the contrary.
[emphasis added]
Corpus Juris is another
source of authorities which support this position:
So a person may be a citizen of a
particular state and not a citizen of the United States46 ....
[11 C.J., Sec. 3, p. 777]
Footnote 46 lists
the following cases:
Harding v. Standard Oil Co., 182 Fed. 421
McDonel v. State, 90 Ind. 320
State v. Fowler, 41 La. Ann. 380, 6 S. 602
The reference
librarian at the Marin County Law Library and I searched in vain for McDonel v.
State; they're going to put their special
legal beagle on that search. Here's
what Harding said:
In the Constitution and laws of the
United States the term ["citizenship"] is generally, if not always,
used in a political sense to designate one who has the rights and privileges of
a citizen of a state or of the
United States. Baldwin v. Franks,
120 U.S. 678, 7 Sup. Ct. 656, 30 L.Ed. 766.
A person may be a citizen of a
state but not of the United States;
as, an alien who has declared his intention to become a citizen, and who
is by local law entitled to vote in the state of his residence, and there
exercise all other local functions of local citizenship, such as holding
office, right to poor relief, etc., but who is not a citizen of the United
States. Taney, C.J., in Dred Scott v.
Sandford, 19 How. 405, 15 L.Ed. 691;
Slaughterhouse Cases, 16 Wall. 74, 21 L.Ed. 394.
[Harding v. Standard Oil Co. et. al.]
[182 Fed. 421 (1910), emphasis added]
I really love the pertinent quote from State v.
Fowler, which was decided by the Louisiana Supreme Court in 1889:
A person who is a citizen of the United
States is necessarily a citizen of the particular state in which he
resides. But a person may be a citizen of a particular state and not a citizen
of the United States. To hold otherwise
would be to deny to the state the highest exercise of its sovereignty, -- the
right to declare who are its citizens.
The sovereignty of the citizens of a republic has its highest assertion
in representative government, and is constituted in its political order in the
representation of persons, and not of classes or of interests.
[State ex rel. Leche
v. Fowler]
[41 La. Ann. 380, 6 S. 602 (1889)]
[emphasis added]
The Crosse court cites Short v. State,
which came to essentially the same conclusion in the following long passage:
And then, as to the objection that this
local law is repugnant to that clause in the fourteenth amendment of the
federal constitution which declares that "no state shall make or enforce
any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States," it is sufficient to say that the interpretation of that clause by the supreme court in the
Slaughterhouse Cases, 16 Wall. 36, is a complete answer to this objection. There is a distinction, says
Justice Miller, between citizenship
of the United States and citizenship of a state.
[Short v. State, 80 Md. 392, 401-402]
[31 A. 322 (1895)]
The Crosse
court cites Short v. State, but I could find in the latter decision no statements
which took the exact position we are seeking;
nevertheless, it does cite the Slaughterhouse Cases and also Bradwell
v. State, 16 Wall. 130. In the Bradwell
case, Mr. Justice Miller, speaking for the court, says:
The protection designed by that
clause, as has been repeatedly held, has
no application to a citizen of the state whose laws are complained of.
[emphasis added]
Also, I think
I have already mentioned this book, but it's worth mentioning again. See if you can get your hands on a copy of A
Treatise on Citizenship by Birth and by Naturalization, by Alexander Porter
Morse, Boston: Little, Brown, and
Company, 1881. Buried near the end of
this voluminous treatise is a section entitled "State Citizenship -- Its
Existence". In addition to the big
cases like Dred Scott, Slaughterhouse and Cruikshank, he
mentions the following in his footnotes:
Corfield v.
Coryell, 4 Wash. C.C. 371
Conner v.
Elliott, 18 How. 591
Donovan v.
Pitcher, 53 Ala. 411
Cully v.
Baltimore, etc., R.R. Co., 1 Hughes 536
Prentiss v.
Brennan, 2 Blatchf. 162
Frasher v.
State, 3 Tex. Ct. App. 267
Reilly v.
Lamar, 2 Cranch 344
He also writes, "That there is a state citizenship,
see Registry Act of California of 1865-1866, sect. 11." I pulled it; check it out.
So, you
thought you were caught up with all your work, did you?
Carry on, and
peace be with you.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael
California
state
zip
code exempt
July
29, 1993
Albert N. Baxter
c/o general delivery
Rancho Palos Verdes, California state
Postal Zone 90274/tdc
Dear Al:
I am in
receipt of a copy of your letter from attorney William A. Cohan, dated June 21,
1993. In this letter, Mr. Cohan wrote
the following to you:
The "non-resident alien"
position has been repeatedly rejected by the courts; your assertion of that position undermines your credibility.
In the margin, you wrote the following
in long hand:
"Guess
we made fools of ourselves. Al B"
Although I do
not have the time to write as thorough a response as I wish I could, I do have
enough time to make a few careful remarks about these statements. Please consider the electronic fourth
edition of The Federal Zone as a necessary supplement to the rest of
this letter; it is not yet available in
hard copy.
First of all,
I do not believe that your assertion of the "nonresident alien"
position undermines your credibility.
It may undermine your credibility in the eyes of Mr. Cohan, but it
certainly does not undermine your credibility in my eyes, nor in the eyes of
those who have studied and carefully documented the meaning of State
Citizenship as that term was used and intended to be understood by the framers
of the U.S. Constitution. Even IRS
documents admit that you are an alien if you are not a citizen of the United States. Simple logic is all that is necessary to explain away the
"alien" half of the problem, but there is much more proof, as you know.
I have
recently made a crucial discovery in the writings of attorney Roger
Foster. Foster was a Yale lecturer and
recognized expert in federal jurisprudence at the time the so-called 16th
Amendment was declared "ratified".
The second edition of his
treatise on the federal income tax of 1913 states, in unequivocal language,
that the tax was levied in Alaska, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and
the Philippine Islands; the 48 States
are not even mentioned (see Chapter 3 in The Federal Zone). In and of itself, this documentary evidence
is important proof of the territorial extent of the 1913 federal income tax.
What is even
more stunning is the comparable section from the first edition of Foster's treatise. In this section, he rambles on about the lack of court precedent
authorizing Congress to tax bond interest that is payable to nonresident aliens
by domestic corporations. Because he
makes repeated use of the term "United States", a term which we now
know to have multiple different
meanings in law, this section is almost always vague about the exact
territorial extent of the 1913 Act.
There is, however, one place where he tips his hand by utilizing the
term "Union" in a territorial
sense. In other words, the first edition of Foster's treatise
considers the "Union of several States" to be the territorial reach
of the 1913 Act, but in the second
edition this whole section is replaced with a much smaller section which limits that reach to Alaska, the
District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Philippine Islands. Therefore, Foster has admitted, in writing,
that his first edition was in error about the territorial extent of the
1913 federal income tax! Read it for
yourself and see if you agree with me.
It is not
entirely correct to state that the "non-resident alien" position has
been repeatedly rejected by the courts.
Such a statement overlooks the obvious fact that the Brushaber
decision is still standing case law
in America. As you must already know,
this ruling was issued by the United States Supreme Court. None of the cases cited in Mr. Conklin's
essay, "The Citizenship Argument Bites the Dust in the Courts", was
decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Moreover, most of those lower court cases remain unpublished, unlike the
long list of Supreme Court decisions which have carefully considered the
meaning of Citizenship (e.g. Cruikshank,
Dred Scott, Slaughter-House Cases, to name a few of the key
ones). Why?
Treasury
Decision 2313 also remains as a standing decision of the U.S. Treasury Department. There was only one Plaintiff in the Brushaber
case; that Plaintiff was Mr. Frank R.
Brushaber who was "a citizen of the State of New York and a resident of
the Borough of Brooklyn, in the City of New York", by his own admissions. To
assert anything else about his status is to assume facts that were not in
evidence. If he had been a native
of France, according to federal government propaganda, then where was his green
card? The courts issued their decisions
on the basis of facts that were in
evidence. Therefore, there was and
still is no basis in fact, or in law, for the Secretary of the Treasury in 1916
to extend the Brushaber decision to those who were not parties to that
action. It is conclusive, therefore,
that Frank R. Brushaber was the "nonresident alien" to which Treasury
Decision 2313 refers.
Quite apart
from the technical issues involved in understanding and explaining Treasury
Decision 2313, I would like to dedicate the remainder of my remarks here to a
discussion of the importance of the U.S. Constitution. If my research has established anything, it
is that the U.S. Constitution has explicitly recognized State Citizenship
from the beginning, even if there was no definition
of State Citizenship as such in that document. If the Constitution is perpetual, then so is the status of State Citizenship
which it recognizes (see Texas v. White), until and unless each and
every reference to State Citizens is lawfully amended so as to alter the
original meaning of those provisions.
The intent of any law is the
law, and this principle applies as well to the Constitution itself (the supreme Law).
You will find explicit references to
State Citizens throughout the U.S. Constitution (see 1:2:2, 1:3:3,
2:1:5, 3:2:1, 4:2:1). In my opinion,
three of the most important references are found in the qualifications for
election to the offices of U.S. Senator, Representative, and President. Since these provisions have never been
amended, their meaning remains the same as it was on the day the Constitution
became the supreme Law in America.
Anyone who argues something different about the construction of these
provisions is woefully, and maybe even dangerously, ignorant of the basic
principles of constitutional law in our country (see Dred Scott v. Sandford
in particular, a decision which is "infamous" to me only because it was such an
authoritative and irrefutable mirror on the legal acceptability of chattel
slavery at that point in American history).
Prior to the
1866 Civil Rights Act, there was simply no such thing as a "citizen
of the United States" (see Ex parte Knowles, which is still
standing case law in the California Republic).
If you can find the time to wade into the huge body of case law which
interpreted the so-called 14th Amendment, you will find some jurists who credit
that amendment with finally settling the definition of "citizen of
the United States" (see Field's dissent in the Slaughter-House Cases
for a good example of this position).
On the other hand, the pertinent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have never ruled that a ratified 14th
Amendment ever abolished the status
of State Citizenship; the
amendment itself even stipulates that federal citizens are also "citizens
... of the State wherein they reside", giving some jurists reason to
conclude that federal citizens were intended to be State Citizens too,
as long as they resided within one of the Union States.
To my
knowledge, I am the first published author to call attention to the lower-case
"c" in this class of State citizens; the weight of subsequent history has shown that they remain second-class citizens, even when
they "reside" within one of the Union States, because the Bill of Rights has at best a limited
application to them when they do. We
must credit The Informer for pointing out additional evidence in Section 2 of
the 14th Amendment: "[W]hen the
right to vote ... is denied to any of the male
inhabitants of such State ... and citizens
of the United States ...."
This section is here referring to two different classes of people.
The Cruikshank
case is perhaps the most lucid example of standing High Court case law for
ruling that "[W]e have in our political system a government of the United
States and a government of each of the several States. Each of these governments is distinct from
the others, and each has citizens of
its own ...." This means
that, even if the so-called 14th
Amendment had been properly approved and adopted, the status of State Citizen
remains an integral part of the U.S.
Constitution, so integral in fact,
that the highest elective offices in our land must be occupied by People
who enjoy and exhibit this status before
occupying those offices. Remember also
that the Cruikshank case was decided after
the alleged ratification of the 14th Amendment and after the pivotal Slaughter-House Cases. The failed ratification of this amendment
lends even greater clarity to logic of Cruikshank, namely, that federal citizens
are aliens with respect to the Union States, and State Citizens are likewise
aliens with respect to the District of Columbia.
The
Constitution also plays a crucial role in determining whether or not a proposed amendment is ever elevated to
the status of a ratified
amendment. Hiding in the huge body of
case law which has interpreted the so-called 14th Amendment, there are two
pivotal decisions of the Utah Supreme Court which actually struck down the
ratification of that amendment (see State v. Phillips and Dyett v.
Turner). The facts on which that
Court relied were assembled and published in the Congressional Record; courts must take judicial notice of the Congressional
Record. The U.S. Supreme Court has
never actually ruled on the ratification of the 14th Amendment and has been prevented from doing so by treasonous
behavior (see 28 Tulane Law Review 22, and 11 South Carolina Law Quarterly 484).
Thus, the
undeniable preponderance of historical evidence now proves that the Utah
Supreme Court was correct in striking down the 14th Amendment. I invite you to review the shocking and
sordid history of its "passage" by studying carefully the details
recited in the Dyett decision.
The bottom line is that the federal government has been exercising unlawful dominion ever since the Civil
War, and the failed ratification of the so-called 14th Amendment is just one
among several historical facts which constitute conclusive evidence of this
unlawful dominion. The so-called 16th
Amendment is another excellent example of this unlawful dominion.
By holding,
as the Utah Supreme Court has done, that the 14th Amendment was never properly
approved and adopted, we are still entirely justified in taking the U.S.
Supreme Court's view in Cruikshank, namely, that each governmental jurisdiction has citizens of its own. This view is supported by the decision in Colgate
v. Harvey, which ruled that the 14th Amendment did not create a national citizenship (the italics implying that the amendment was simply declaratory of existing federal law, which federal law
was the 1866 Civil Rights Act). Simply
stated, California has its Citizens;
Oregon has its Citizens; Utah
has its Citizens; ... and the District
of Columbia has its citizens (51 governmental jurisdictions in all).
Notice that I
have been careful to spell State Citizen with an UPPER-CASE "C", and
federal citizen with a lower-case "c". I do so primarily because authentic copies of the U.S.
Constitution do evidence this convention;
those authentic copies also maintain a similar distinction between
"Person" and "person".
Prior to the 14th Amendment, "Person" was consistently spelled
with an UPPER-CASE "P" (see the qualifications for Senator,
Representative and President, where the term "No Person" is
repeated). Formal English also
recognizes an important difference between Proper Nouns and common nouns. Did you ever attend a baseball game that was
won by the chicago cubs (or the cHICAGO cUBS)?
Al, I invite
you to take a closer look at the underlying rationale for the "nonresident
alien" position which I have endorsed and explained in my book The
Federal Zone, whether or not you choose to utilize it in any future
litigation. There is simply too much in
the way of undeniable factual evidence and relevant constitutional history for
me to be dissuaded by this or that unpublished decision by lower federal
courts. I doubt very much that Mr.
Cohan would have us believe that federal and State courts are always correct,
and that their decisions are never overturned.
I have read some of these lower court decisions, and I find them to be
riddled with errors.
Specifically,
any court in America which henceforth issues decisions that are predicated upon
the lawful ratification of the so-called 14th and 16th Amendments is plainly in
error (see People v. Boxer). Any
licensed attorney in America who bases his advice to clients (or prospects) on
such rebuttable presumptions might justifiably be applauded for seeking the
path of least resistance, with the complete approval of his clients; but attorneys and clients together should
also seriously reconsider just how dedicated they really are to upholding and
defending the Constitution for the United States of America, as compared to
other priorities that can and do take precedence under the pressures of
day-to-day practice. I say this only
because the published evidence available to me shows that licensed attorneys in
America are expected to place the court first, public policy second, and the
client third in order of importance;
the Constitution isn't even mentioned!
It is high
time that we return to basic issues of constitutional Law. If we don't, then we shall surely lose the
Constitution forever. It is quite simply impossible for public
officials anywhere in America to perform their solemn duty to uphold and defend
the U.S. Constitution, if the weight of material evidence should prove that the
exact provisions of that Constitution are still in doubt. This was the major issue that was addressed
in the case of People v. Boxer;
copies of the pleadings and affidavits were shipped to Mr. Cohan several
months ago, without any response from him.
I don't mean
to be rude or disrespectful to any licensed attorneys when I suggest that they
too should be obliged to take the same solemn oath, if they have not already
done so. The constitutional provisions
which cite State Citizens have never been in any serious doubt, even if
our decision to defend this status is fraught with much additional peril, above
and beyond the peril we might endure by resisting this or that tax assessment
by the collection agency of a foreign banking cartel. If the Constitution is perpetual, then so is the Sovereign State Citizenship
which that Constitution has recognized from the beginning, with or without
the so-called 14th Amendment.
Let the
judges in question come forward to explain why their recent decisions were
"unpublished". I am all ears.
The road less
traveled may be the surest path to our destination, and to our destiny as a
free People.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
enclosures
copies: William
A. Cohan
John
Voss, N.C.B.A.
Richard
McDonald
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael
California
state
zip
code exempt
(DMM
122.32)
July 20, 1993
James R. Frey
Staff Counsel
State Lands Commission
c/o general delivery
Sacramento, California state
Dear Mr. Frey:
We do very
much appreciate the consideration you showed in answering our inquiry
concerning California Government Code Sections 126 and 127.
We are happy
to learn that the files in question are available for public inspection and
copying, by appointment. We understand
that the index is actually a file cabinet, with files on individual facilities.
As you may
already know, many California State Citizens are actively involved in private
research and political action to help solve the horrendous federal debt. Our research led us to Government Code
Section 126, in particular, because it makes explicit reference to Section 4 of
the so-called 14th Amendment:
(c) The United States must in writing have
requested the state to cede concurrent criminal jurisdiction within such land
and subject to each and all of the conditions and reservations in this section
and in Section 4 of Article XIV of the
Constitution prescribed.
[California Government Code, Sec. 126]
[emphasis added]
I use the
language "so-called" because the evidence now available to us proves
that the 14th Amendment was never properly approved and adopted. In the year 1968, the Utah Supreme Court
detailed the shocking and sordid history of the failed ratification in the case
of Dyett v. Turner, 439 P.2d 266, 272.
In the year 1975, the Utah Supreme Court again struck down the
ratification of the 14th Amendment with the following language:
I cannot believe that any court, in full
possession of its faculties, could honestly hold that the amendment was
properly approved and adopted.
[State v. Phillips, 540 P.2d 936, 941]
To our knowledge, these two cases are still
standing because the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to rule specifically on the
validity of the steps taken to "ratify" the so-called 14th Amendment.
The House Congressional Record for June 13, 1967,
contains some of the essential documentation on which the Utah Supreme Court
relied to prove that the so-called 14th Amendment was never ratified into law
(see page 15641 et seq.). For example, it itemizes all States which
voted against the proposed amendment, and the precise dates when their
Legislatures did so.
Additional
historical evidence can be found in the following law review articles: 28 Tulane Law Review 22 and 11 South
Carolina Law Quarterly 484. Even
though one of these articles was written by a man who advocated racial
discrimination, a policy with which I strongly disagree, his facts are very
consistent with the historical record as recited by these other authorities.
Faced with
this clear preponderance of historical evidence and standing court authorities,
we are not only justified in taking the position that the 14th Amendment was
never ratified, we are also justified in challenging all State statutes which
make reference to non-existent
provisions in the U.S. Constitution.
This train of
evidence and logic leads us, then, to subsection (f) of California Government
Code Section 126:
(f) "Land held by the United States",
as used in this section means: (1) lands acquired in fee by purchase or
condemnation, (2) lands owned by
the United States that are included in the military reservation by presidential
proclamation or act of Congress, (3)
leaseholds acquired by the United States over private lands or state-owned
lands, and (4) any other lands owned by
the United States including, but not limited to, public domain lands which are
held for a public purpose.
[emphasis added]
We have taken specific note of
subsection (f)(1), which omits any mention of the "United States",
whereas subsections (f)(2) thru (f)(4) do make explicit mention of the
"United States". Using the
rule of statutory construction known as inclusio
unius est exclusio alterius (see Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth
Edition), we are entitled to infer that "United States" was omitted
from subsection (f)(1) because it was intended
to be omitted.
Accordingly, Section
126(f) could be interpreted to mean that "Land held by the United
States" means any lands acquired
in fee by purchase or condemnation, whether
or not said lands were acquired in fee by the federal government. In other words, if private real estate in
California were acquired in a "fee simple" transaction, as recorded
by the appropriate County Recorder, does the "United States" thereby
hold any legal interest in such private land by virtue of California Government
Code Section 126?
Now for the
crux of the problem. We now know that
the Federal Reserve System is a private banking cartel (see Lewis v. United
States, 680 F.2d 1239 (1982)). This
cartel pays the federal Bureau of Engraving and Printing a total of $230 to print
10,000 Federal Reserve Notes, regardless of denomination, and thereby
obtains from Congress a pledge of collateral equal to the face value of
those notes. Thus, if the Federal
Reserve orders 10,000 notes in denominations of $100 each, it obtains from
Congress a lien on collateral equal to $1,000,000, for a total down payment of
$230. That's what I call leverage! What's the collateral?
Do the Federal Reserve banks thereby
obtain any right, title or interest in California lands "acquired in fee
by purchase or condemnation" pursuant to California Government Code
Section 126?
Are these lands anywhere identified as
collateral for the Treasury bonds which the Federal Reserve purchased with
money and credit which it created out of thin air, via bookkeeping entries?
These are
questions which should be important to all private Citizens and to all
government employees everywhere in America, because the Federal Reserve has
become one of the largest single "United States" creditors by
purchasing Treasury bonds without lawful consideration. Moreover, the failed ratification of the
so-called 14th Amendment frees all of us, private Citizens and government
employees alike, to question the validity of this public debt, because Section
4 of that failed amendment reads:
The
validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law,
including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in
suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall
not be questioned.
[emphasis added]
Quite obviously,
if the so-called 14th Amendment was never properly approved and adopted, then
it follows that there is no Constitutional prohibition which bars any of us from questioning the validity
of the public debt of the United States.
I will look
forward to your timely and considerate response. Please utilize the above mailing location exactly as shown in any and all future correspondence. Believe it or not, we now have credible
proof that the unqualified use of zip codes and/or two-letter federal
abbreviations (e.g. "CA")
also attaches California State Citizens to the spiralling federal debt.
Mr. Frey,
things are just not as they appear on the surface.
Thank you
very much for your honesty and your consideration, at this most difficult time
in our brief history as a nation.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
copies: Charles
Warren, Executive Officer
Leo T.
McCarthy, Lieutenant Governor
Gray
Davis, Controller
Thomas
W. Hayes, Director of Finance
Pete
Wilson, Governor
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael
California
state
zip
code exempt
(DMM
122.32)
July
5, 1993
Gregory Dahl
c/o general delivery
Eugene, Oregon state
Postal Zone 97401/tdc
Dear Greg:
Thanks very
much for your letter dated 24 June 1993, and for purchasing a copy of The
Federal Zone. Because I shipped
your book immediately after opening your envelope at the post office, I hadn't
allowed myself time to read your letter before doing so. On the last page, your mentioned enclosing
$25 for the book, and $15 to show your support of my efforts and your
appreciation for my time. Thanks very
much. I now take those amounts to mean
that you originally wanted the electronic
edition of The Federal Zone, which is enclosed with this letter. It was obviously my mistake. With your immense computer knowledge, I
would very much value your suggestions for expediting the dissemination of this
shareware.
On the subject
of race, you may be surprised to hear that I agree completely with your
statement that my analysis of the 14th
Amendment will be construed as a contention that whites have different rights
than others. That is exactly the
situation you will find throughout federal law; read Title 42, Sections 1981 thru 1983, and there you will find
that Congress still maintains a clear
legal distinction between whites and other races. But then you went on to say that I will be called a racist.
Well, I haven't been called racist yet, not even by any of my black
friends, but I guess there is always a first time. Thus far, I haven't had any difficulty explaining to people that federal
law is maintaining racist distinctions, and has done so ever since the
infamous Dred Scott decision. My
position is quite simple: all races are
eligible to be Sovereign State Citizens, without exception.
Federal law
would have us believe that blacks and other non-white races are only eligible
to be "citizens of the United States", but the California
Supreme Court ruled in 1855 that there
is no such thing as a "citizen of the United States", and this
decision has never been overruled. The
federal government must rely,
therefore, on the so-called 14th Amendment to force this fiction on certain
classes, e.g. those with Social
Security numbers. Nevertheless, the
Utah Supreme Court has twice struck down this amendment, and neither of these
decisions has ever been overruled! Do
you see the pattern? I call it unlawful
dominion.
I actually
enjoy discussions which turn to the subject of racial discrimination. It is a great opportunity to expose people
to the "intent of the post-Civil War reformers", as you call them. You have only to look at Section 4 of the
so-called 14th Amendment to appreciate what I mean: "the validity of the public debt shall not be
questioned." This is the real intent of the 14th Amendment, to
make it appear lawful for the federal government to exercise dominion over all
Americans and to relegate them to second-class subject status (i.e. "subject
to the jurisdiction of the United States").
Once you are
in this subject class, then the
federal government can compel your specific performance to discharge the
interest on the massive federal debt which has now accumulated. Of course, much of that debt was created by
the sale of Treasury bonds which were "purchased" by Federal Reserve
banks with money and credit which they created out of thin air. As such, these bond contracts are unconscionable because they were not
purchased with real consideration. As I
have written in the latest edition of my book:
The vivid pattern that has now painfully
emerged is that "citizens of the United States", as defined in
federal tax law, are the intended victims of a new statutory slavery that was
predicted by the infamous Hazard Circular soon after the Civil War began. These statutory slaves are now burdened with
a bogus federal debt which is spiralling out of control. The White House budget office recently
invented a new kind of "generational accounting" so as to project a
tax load of seventy-one percent on future generations of these
"citizens of the United States".
It is our duty to ensure that this statutory slavery is soon gone with
the wind, just like its grisly and ill-fated predecessor.
Greg, this is
a bank conspiracy we are dealing with here, and it is clouded by waves and
waves of smoke, mirrors, and dense propaganda.
I don't think the 71% projection is idle speculation. Many informed people throughout the country realize
now that it is only a matter of months before the interest alone on the federal
debt will exceed all federal income tax receipts. I confirmed this in my first petition to Congress, dated December
of 1990. Now, the authors of Bankruptcy
1995 are saying the exact same thing.
The basic
issue with which most Americans are still not quite prepared, intellectually,
emotionally, or financially, is the specter of default by the "United
States". The media are certainly
not courageous enough to grapple with this issue head-on. If the banks obtained Treasury bonds without
consideration, then I say their bonds
should be repudiated, not the bonds which have been purchased ultimately with
the labor of Americans like you and me.
This labor is something which has real value, unlike bank credit which
is created out of thin air. They used
to use pen and ink, then typewriters, now computers. The mechanism is the same;
it's called "bookkeeping".
These same banks have become rich beyond imagination by this swindle. I have not hesitated to say that it is the
greatest fiscal fraud that has ever been perpetrated upon any people at any
time in the history of the world, and nobody
has yet disagreed with that statement!
After reading
everything I could get my hands on, and doing a lot of original research
myself, I came to several important conclusions, one of which is that the
Constitution for the United States of America is, and still should be, the supreme Law of the
Land. This Constitution has recognized
a Sovereign class of Common-Law State Citizens from the beginning. The case law also says that the Union
created by this Constitution is perpetual.
That means the Citizenship which it recognizes is also perpetual,
and cannot be altered or destroyed by the Congress or any of its agents. "Congress cannot by legislation alter
the Constitution, from which alone it derives its power to legislate, and
within whose limitations alone that power can be lawfully exercised." Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S.
189. This is the Law.
If I have
done anything significant, I believe it was to prove that the Internal Revenue
Code was written deliberately to refer to Union State Citizens as
"nonresident aliens", among other reasons to give Americans a reason
to avoid such a label. After all, who wants to be known as an
"alien"? The government had
to leave some tracks, and we picked up the trail right out of the parking lot: the Brushaber decision, the first big
case to reach the Supreme Court after the so-called 16th Amendment was declared
ratified, and Treasury Decision 2313, in which the government decided
that Frank R. Brushaber was a "nonresident alien".
It is
important to understand that Brushaber did not go into federal district court
claiming to be a "nonresident alien"; he went into federal court claiming to be a citizen of the State
of New York and a resident of the Borough of Brooklyn, in the City of New
York. It was the government
which applied this label to people who claimed the status of State
Citizens. In conjunction with the Brushaber
decision, you should also study the earlier Pollock decision, which
struck down a federal income tax because it was not apportioned. The apportionment restriction was operative
because the Plaintiff, Charles Pollock, was a Massachusetts State Citizen (not
a citizen of the United States). As a
Union State Citizen, Pollock was immune to federal direct taxation unless it
was apportioned, and it was just not apportioned, period. The Pollock Court also told Congress
that if they wanted to levy such a tax on people like Charles Pollock, they
would have to amend the Constitution to remove the apportionment restriction,
and therein is one of the essential historical roots of the so-called 16th
Amendment.
I am very
sorry to hear about your bicycle accident.
I hope you have recovered completely.
I was also not aware that you now have children; that changes everything, as far as political
activism is concerned. I would not have
done many of the things I have done, like suing Barbara Boxer in the California
Supreme Court, if I had a wife and children of my own; the risks are just too great.
Thanks again
for writing such a thoughtful and detailed letter. I feel privileged to be its recipient.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
enclosure: The
Federal Zone, fourth edition
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael
California
state
zip
code exempt
(DMM
122.32)
June
29, 1993
Dale Peters
c/o general delivery
San Jose, California state
Postal Zone 95157/tdc
Dear Dale:
Thanks very
much for your detailed and enlightening letter, dated June 25, 1993. Before writing this letter to you, I have
had several conversations about your letter with Dr. John C. Alden, and we both
feel that your discussion of California Government Code Section 126 is
extremely important.
You began
your discussion of Section 126 by recommending that I incorporate in a future
edition of The Federal Zone an expose of this particular statute. Your recommendation suggests to me that you
may not have read all the way through Chapter 11, in which I discuss, in broad
strokes, sovereignty and the limits of exclusive federal jurisdiction. Please understand that the book was written
for all Americans, in the federal zone and
in the State Zone, and for this reason I deliberately wanted to avoid getting
too bogged down in the statutes of any particular Union State. The fourth edition is now over 600 pages in
length.
A major point
of law, of course, is the status of the so‑called 14th Amendment. Again, in Chapter 11 of the fourth edition,
I have made reference to the two Utah Supreme Court cases which struck down the
14th Amendment. If you haven't already
reviewed these cases, I strongly recommend that you do so, as soon as
possible. The detailed historical facts
are covered quite well in the earlier of the two -- Dyett v. Turner. I gave a lecture based in part on a
recitation of this case, and John Alden later said I had failed to notice that
the audience was actually on the edges of their seats; that's how powerfully the Utah Court recites
the relevant history. If you are going
to enter this debate as an acknowledged expert, then you must know this
history in detail.
In light of State
v. Phillips and Dyett v. Turner, I would not hesitate to challenge
the constitutionality of Section 126(c) of the California Government Code, on
obvious grounds that a State statute cannot be valid if it makes reference to a
non‑existent provision in the U.S. Constitution. Even the 1879 California Constitution, which
has never been approved by Congress as "republican" in form and the
effective date of which has actually been repealed, cites the U.S. Constitution
as the supreme Law of the Land.
I have been
trying my best to broadcast the importance of Section 4 of the so-called 14th
Amendment, whenever and wherever possible.
Even if it had been properly ratified,
there is a mountain of case law which has held that a ratified 14th Amendment
had no effect whatsoever on the status of Common-Law State Citizens of
the Union States. See, for example, the
cases cited in Appendix Y of The Federal Zone, fourth edition. By
logical extension of these holdings, I would argue that a ratified 14th
Amendment, in and of itself, had no effect whatsoever on the rights, titles and
interests of such Citizens.
The Federal
government, however, does now take the position that the 14th Amendment had the
effect of converting all Americans
into federal citizens who are, by definition, subject to the
jurisdiction of the "United States".
It can be shown that this has been a fraudulent conversion. Richard McDonald and his colleagues have
recently gone so far as to file cross-complaints against State Judges in L.A.
County for violating the Genocide Treaty because the judges in question have
obviously discriminated against State Citizens in criminal
proceedings; this is a very interesting
development to monitor carefully.
Another
factor to consider in your reasoning is the specific group of people who
are explicitly prevented from questioning the validity of the public debt by
virtue of Section 4 of the so‑called 14th Amendment. Treating the U.S. Constitution as a binding
contract, it is not difficult to prove that such a prohibition, even if part of
a lawfully adopted amendment, creates no restrictions on those who are not
"subject to the jurisdiction of the United States", in other words,
not subject to the terms and conditions of this binding constitutional
contract. Employees of the State or
federal governments, and/or federal citizens who are, by definition,
subject to the jurisdiction of the "United States", are both subject to
this provision. Notice how the oath of
office specifically binds Senators and Representatives to uphold and defend
this contract.
However, if
my research proves anything, it proves that Sovereign natural born free State Citizens
are not subject to the jurisdiction of the "United States",
unless they render themselves subject by entering into a valid voluntary
contract with the "United States".
For this reason alone, they would not be subject in any way to Section 4
of the so-called 14th Amendment, nor could the titles to their property be
clouded lawfully by any third-party debt or obligation to which they had not
given their full consent. The
California Civil Code is very relevant here, because it defines the criteria by
which consent is neither real or free ("apparent consent is neither real nor free when ....").
The
"United States" is not authorized to obtain controlling interest in
Sovereign State Citizens, such that it can compel our specific
performance to any third-party debt
or obligation, particularly if that debt or obligation is unconscionable by
reason of federal government bonds which were purchased with Federal Reserve
credit created out of thin air via bookkeeping entries. Moreover, the 1849 California Constitution
has specific provisions prohibiting the paper of any bank to circulate as money
(see Article IV, Sections 34 and 35).
I would even
go so far as to say that all bank mortgages are similarly unconscionable if the
banks in question obtained title conveyances in return for credit similarly
manufactured out of thin air. We are
obviously dealing here with a very big fraud.
See my chapters entitled "Is It Voluntary?" and "The
Fundamental Law" for a general discussion of the Federal Reserve's role in
all of this. Howard Freeman's
discussion of the privilege of limited liability is very relevant here: the discharge of debts with FRN's is treated
by the Federal government as a privilege, the exercise of which to convey real
property actually clouds titles, precisely in the manner you speculate.
Now, I want
to discuss a point of statutory construction.
Your thesis is supported by one of two competing interpretations of
subsection (f) of Section 126. Note, in
particular, where it states that:
"Land held by the United
States", as used in this section means:
(1) lands acquired in fee by purchase or condemnation ....
When I first
read this wording, I interpreted it to mean "lands acquired by the United
States in fee". This
interpretation is supported by the language of subsection (e), where it states:
Jurisdiction ceded pursuant to this
section continues only so long as the land continues to belong to the United
States ....
[emphasis added]
Nevertheless, apply the rule of
statutory construction known as inclusio
unius est exclusio alterius (i.e.,
the explicit mention of one thing is the explicit exclusion of all other things
not mentioned). In all other enumerated
sections of subsection (f), Government Code 126 refers to "lands owned by the United States",
"leaseholds acquired by the United
States", and "any other lands owned by the United States".
Note that subsection (1) does NOT say "lands acquired by the United States in fee"; it says "lands acquired in fee",
lending powerful support to your thesis.
If you acquire
a copy of the videotape which was filmed of my interview with Greg Meadows of
the L.A. Lawman, you will note that I specifically mention the use of
federal land as collateral for the bogus federal debt. I do not, as yet, have the statutory proof that
Congress actually pledged all this land as collateral, but John Nelson claims
to have done so. You should get copies
of his work, if you can. Unfortunately,
my copies of his work are packed up in storage, or I would enclose a copy for
your review. I raise this point because
it is imperative that we isolate the exact mechanism whereby the Federal
Reserve claims to have obtained
controlling interest in real property deeds acquired under "fee
simple" transactions, as opposed to allodial transactions. Without this evidence, your ideas amount to
nothing more than exciting, but unsubstantiated speculation.
Notice also
that Government Code 126 specifically refers to "cession of concurrent criminal jurisdiction to United States
on lands held by general government."
Are you implying that I should interpret this to mean that a State Citizen's
failure to pay his "fair share" of debt interest to the Federal
Reserve should be treated as a crime, particularly if his real property was
acquired in a "fee simple" transaction? The issue here is not just semantic. Why does the heading of the statute refer to "concurrent criminal jurisdiction"? In this vein, you should carefully review
Internal Revenue Code Section 7851(a)(6)(A), which gives force and effect to
Subtitle F of the IRC if and only if the Title is enacted into
law. Subtitle F, as you may already
know, contains all the enforcement provisions of the IRC, and it is
crucial for you to understand that Title 26 has never been enacted into
positive law (see inside covers of any
of the volumes of United States Code titles 1 thru 50).
So, where is
the crime, if federal income taxes are truly "voluntary"? It has to be voluntary for State Citizens
whose incomes derive from sources outside the exclusive jurisdiction of the
"United States", among many other reasons because Congress simply
lacks the authority to compel such Citizens to discharge interest on the
bogus federal debt. The 9th and 10th
Amendments are right on point here. The
use of excise taxes, like taxing the sale of gasoline, creates a voluntary
choice for the buyer which in no way compels the buyer to enter the
transaction; he can always use his
bicycle or walk.
Thanks again
for your terrific letter. Keep up the
good work, and let me know if you have any additional material on this
statute. If you don't already have a
copy, try to get your hands on the study entitled Jurisdiction over Federal
Areas within the States; it
contains over 700 case citations, all extremely relevant to the core issue
here, namely, what is meant by the exercise of "exclusive
Legislation"? On this, I took
specific note of a decision under Government Code 126 which found that "as
to such federal territory Congress had combined powers of a general and a state
government." Inside the federal
zone, Congress has combined powers of a general and a state government; outside the federal zone and inside the 50
States, Congress only has the powers of a general government, and is otherwise
constrained by specific prohibitions found in the constitutional contract to
which ALL government employees are subject.
Of course, the pertinent restriction with which I am primarily concerned
is the absence of apportionment provisions anywhere in the Internal
Revenue Code; as I have documented in
some detail in my book, their absence is proof to me that the IRC's income tax
provisions are confined to the federal zone, and to citizens of that
zone. Otherwise, there is a blatant
violation of the U.S. Constitution.
To date,
nobody has been able to refute my thesis, except to catapult garbage like
rumors that Frank Brushaber was a fiduciary for others who were the real
stockholders (which rumor originated at the Free Enterprise Society, to my
great surprise). This latter rumor is
easily disproven by the very first sentence in the Brushaber decision! Another garbage rumor is that there were
other parties to the Brushaber decision (this again from the Free
Enterprise Society). As of the second
and subsequent editions of The Federal Zone, I have successfully
dismissed the French immigrant propaganda.
In combination with Brushaber's original pleadings, which anyone can
order from the federal court in New York, Treasury Decision 2313 is explosive
and irrefutable in its implications.
The next time you're in the law library, pull the Pollock case
too, and you will discover that he too was a State Citizen (of
Massachusetts) who was, by definition, protected from direct taxation by the apportionment
provisions in the U.S. Constitution. In
light of all the evidence which proves that the 16th Amendment was never
lawfully ratified, the importance of the Pollock case cannot be
overstated.
As you must
know all too well by now, the tax law in America is a masterpiece of
deception. In one sense, I really have
to hand it to its creators.
Unfortunately for them, we have caught up with their fraud, and now
their every move is being watched intensely.
"We have in our political system a government of
the United States and a government of each of the several states. Each of these governments is distinct from
the others, and each has citizens of its own ...." You can't be faulted for relying upon
decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, and I say that on the authority of this
very same Supreme Court!
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
enclosures
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael
California
state
zip
code exempt
(DMM 122.32)
June
27, 1993
Stanley Waugh
Nevada Citizen
c/o general delivery
Reno, Nevada state
Postal Zone 89504/tdc
Dear Mr. Waugh:
Thank you for
your thoughtful letter dated 21 June 1993.
I am writing primarily to respond to your statement:
"Based on this historical
documentation, I wonder if you are not making too much ado about citizen v..
Citizen and United States v.. united States.
Punctuation apparently is not crucial."
As you know, there are lots of
historical documents which evidence the word "citizen". You included copies of a North Dakota
document, and the Treaty of Peace between the United States and King George
III. These are not the documents which
count, however.
The documents
which count (in my opinion), and the
documents with which I am chiefly concerned, are the Constitution for the
United States of America (because it is the supreme Law of the Land), the
Internal Revenue Code (because it is the subject of my book), and the Code of
Federal Regulations for Title 26 (which are the promulgated rules for
interpreting the Internal Revenue Code).
Now, if you
have studied statistics, what I am about to say will be entirely familiar to
you. If you have not studied
statistics, continue reading very carefully.
If I flip a coin, what is the probability ("P") of heads? You will answer "one in two", and
that is the right answer. How do we
calculate the value of P in mathematical terms? It's very simple. P
equals one divided by the quantity two raised to the power of one, i.e. 1/(21). We raise two to the power of one because
there are two outcomes to a "trial" (a head or a tail), and we
conduct only one trial, i.e. we flip
the coin only once. The probability P
equals 0.50.
Now,
continuing along with this approach, what is the probability of getting heads
twice in a row? You will answer
"one in four", and that is the right answer again. How do we calculate the value of P in
mathematical terms? P now equals one
divided by the quantity two raised to the power of two, i.e. 1/(22). We
raise two to the power of two because there are two outcomes to a
"trial", and we conduct two trials, i.e. we flip the coin twice.
The probability P equals 0.250.
Continuing along with this sequence, you can compute for yourself that
the probability of three heads in a row is 0.125, and so on.
What does this have to do with "citizens" and
"Citizens", you ask? Plenty,
and here's why. In formal English, a
letter of the alphabet is either upper-case or lower-case; there is no in-between. It's kind of like "heads" and
"tails"; the coin is not
allowed to land on its side. So, for
every occurrence of this term in law, we will observe either lower-case
"c" or UPPER-CASE "C", and nothing in-between.
The rules of
grammar and punctuation require that the first letter of the first word in any
sentence be UPPER-CASE, like the "T" in the word "The" at
the beginning of this sentence. You
will also very often see UPPER-CASE letters used in words that are found in
titles and paragraph headings, for example, the phrase "see Chapter
29: American Citizenship for more
details" might be found in some book or section of law. The UPPER-CASE "C" is used because
it is proper to do so in such situations.
Now, the crux
of the matter is to observe whether lower-case or UPPER-CASE is used when there is no other rule requiring
UPPER-CASE. For example, you might
encounter the phrase: "If you are
a citizen of the United States ...."
In this phrase, the term "citizen" is not the first word of a
sentence, nor is it part of a title or heading; therefore, it can go either way.
It can be either lower-case "citizen" or UPPER-CASE
"Citizen", just like the coin flip.
If you read
through the Internal Revenue Code and observe all occurrences of
"citizen", I believe you will find that the only uses of
"Citizen" are found in the first word of sentences and in paragraph
headings. In all other instances,
where it can go either way (without the influence of some other grammar rule),
you will find only "citizen" or "citizens" and not
"Citizen" or "Citizens".
Just how many
instances of "Citizen" are there, where it can go either way? I have observed none of the latter. I
strongly encourage you to conduct your own investigation of this count. How many instances of "citizen"
are there, where it can go either way?
100? 200? Even if there were only 10, what is the
probability P that every one of them would randomly fall into lower-case? Using our formula from above, the value of P
is 1/(210), right? 2 to the
power of 10 is 1,024, therefore P equals 1/1024, or roughly one in a thousand.
Now try to
compute the value of P when there are 100 trials (coin flips) which can go
either way. You may need a computer to
perform this calculation, but you already know that the value of P in this
instance is an extremely small number.
In other words, the probability that 100 random occurrences of
"citizen" will all evidence a lower-case "c" in the IRC and
the CFR is practically an impossibility.
There must be
another explanation for this consistent pattern, other than chance. I argue that the explanation is design: the evidence of consistent lower-case "c" in
"citizen of the United States" is conclusive proof of a deliberate
design and intent to maintain the same spelling throughout the IRC and the
CFR. Remember, we are not counting
those occurrences of "Citizen" in paragraph headings and in the first
word of a sentence, where grammar requires that UPPER-CASE "C" be utilized.
So much for the mathematical proof. I agree that it is informative to compare
other historical and legal documents, as you have done. I have done such a comparison with the
organic California Constitution of 1849.
There, you will find references to "citizen of the United
States". So, what gives? Is this a reference to a "federal
citizen" or is this a reference to a "State Citizen", or is this
a reference to neither? I have found
the answer to this question in two authorities, Ex parte Knowles and People
v. De La Guerra (see enclosed).
Both of these cases, decided by the California Supreme Court, agreed
that the term referred to a Citizen of one of the Union States and that,
strictly speaking, there was no such thing as a "citizen of the United
States", at least not before the so-called 14th Amendment, and certainly
not before the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
I have
concluded from this research that these courts did not observe the
UPPER/lower-case convention; they
preferred instead to distinguish the two classes of citizenship by using
terminology such as "citizen of a State" and "citizen of the
United States", because the U.S. Constitution does make a distinction
between the government of the several "States", on the one hand, and
the government of the "United States", on the other hand. The court records appear to indicate that
judges were not always sensitive to the ambiguity and multiple meanings that
attach to the term "United States".
Of course, the Hooven case, and Black's Law Dictionary
since Hooven, constitute conclusive proof that the term "United
States" is definitely ambiguous and for this reason the term "united
States" is a unique way to identify the Union States.
Nevertheless,
I contend that the Framers of the Constitution did observe the UPPER/lower-case
convention, and so did the authors of the IRC and CFR. Specifically, in authenticated copies of the
U.S. Constitution you will find consistent references to "Citizen"
and "Citizens", for example, in the constitutional qualifications for
President, Senator and Representative.
These provisions have never been lawfully amended and, for this reason
alone, the original meaning and intent of these provisions is decisive (see
"the proper construction and common understanding" in Ex parte
Knowles, a very crucial authority in this debate).
To add
further fuel to the fire, I have located unofficial copies of the U.S.
Constitution which utilized lower-case "c" in the qualifications for
President, Senator and Representative.
Moreover, similar results obtain from the use of "Person" and
"person"; prior to the
so-called 14th Amendment, the U.S. Constitution utilized "Person", as
in "free Persons" (see 1:2:3).
Are you a "free Person", or are you a 14th Amendment
"person"?
The
voluminous research now assembled by Richard McDonald proves, beyond any shadow
of doubt, that there is an enormous difference between the two statuses. Since the Slaughter House Cases, the
Supreme Court has consistently cited them as the seminal authority for the fact that there are two classes of
citizenship, which correspond to the two governmental jurisdictions: federal and State. There are State Citizens and there are federal citizens. I am strongly urging that we now observe
this UPPER/lower case convention, in order to be clear about which class we are
referring to in written English. In
spoken English, we can be clear by maintaining the distinction between
"State Citizens" and "federal citizens", and by avoiding
any other substitutes or synonyms for these terms. Of course, there are those people (some of whom are undercover
agents) who prefer to confuse and obfuscate this crucial distinction by using
ambiguous, undefined language and by attempting to argue that there has always
been just one class of citizenship in America.
I think it is fair to say that this latter argument is simply not
supported by the relevant legal history.
I am tempted
to digress into a response to your mention of the Free Enterprise Society and
Wayne Bentson. Let me just say that
Wayne has had an advance copy of The Federal Zone, fourth edition, for
several weeks now, and he has fallen silent.
I prefer to let the enclosed materials speak for themselves.
I hope this
letter and its enclosures have addressed most, if not all, of the concerns you
expressed in your thoughtful letter.
Thanks for
writing.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
enclosures
P.S. How does
Wayne Bentson explain T.D. 2313?
It's
crucial, wouldn't you agree?
MEMO
TO: Trusted
Colleagues
FROM: Paul
Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account
for Better Citizenship
DATE: November
4, 1992
SUBJECT: Trusts,
Foreign and Domestic
I have
recently taken a keen interest in practical applications of The Federal Zone
to trust creation and administration.
In particular, I now believe I have enough evidence to prove that the
correct distinction between foreign and domestic corporations is equally
applicable to trusts. The purpose of
this memo is to share some of this evidence with you, in order to challenge your
thinking on this subject and possibly to open new possibilities for trust
creation and administration.
Black's
Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition, is a good place to begin. In this dictionary, we find the following
important definitions:
Foreign
situs trust. A trust which owes its
existence to foreign law. It is treated for tax purposes as a non‑resident
alien individual.
[emphasis added]
Foreign
trust. A trust created and
administered under foreign law.
Black's Law Dictionary,
Sixth Edition, defines "foreign state" very clearly, as follows:
The
several United States*** are considered "foreign" to each other
except as regards their relations as common members of the Union.
[emphasis added]
I have added three asterisks ("***") after
"United States" in order to emphasize that the "United
States" in this context refers to the 50 States of the Union.
Now examine
the definition of "foreign estate or trust" in the definitions
section of the Internal Revenue Code, as follows:
Foreign Estate or Trust. -- The terms
"foreign estate" and "foreign trust" mean an estate or
trust, as the case may be, the income of which, from sources without the United
States which is not effectively connected with the conduct of a trade or business
within the United States, is not includible in gross income under subtitle A.
[IRC 7701(a)(31)]
Do a bit of grammatical
reconstruction, so as to eliminate the references to "foreign
estate", and you get the following:
The term "foreign trust" means a
trust, the income of which is not
includible in gross income under subtitle A. The income of a foreign trust is not includible in gross income
when it derives from sources which are
without the "United States" and
which are not effectively connected with the conduct of a trade or business
within the "United States".
Recall the
definition of "foreign situs trust" from Black's supra.
Now compare the IRC definition of "foreign trust" with the IRC
definition of "gross income" for nonresident alien individuals. Notice the component criteria of gross
income for a nonresident alien individual, and their close similarity to the
same criteria for foreign trusts:
In the case of a nonresident alien
individual, except where the context clearly indicates otherwise, gross income includes only ‑‑
(1) gross income which is derived from sources within the United States and
which is not effectively connected with the conduct of a trade or business
within the United States, and
(2) gross income which is effectively connected with the conduct of a trade or business within
the United States.
[IRC 872(a), emphasis added]
It is crucial to remember that the
term "United States", as used in these
sections of the IRC, means the federal zone, i.e., the territory over which Congress has exclusive legislative
authority. Income which is derived from
sources without the "United States" is not included in gross
income for nonresident aliens.
Likewise, income which is effectively connected with the conduct of a
trade or business without the "United States" is not included
in gross income for nonresident aliens.
Therefore, I have proven that the following rule has identical
application to nonresident aliens and foreign trusts:
Income is excludible
from the computation of "gross income" if it derives from sources
which are without the "United States" and which are not
effectively connected with the conduct of a trade or business within the
"United States".
Now, let's dig
a little deeper in order to determine if this finding is supported by other
sections of the IRC. Find the heading
"foreign trusts" in the Topical Index of the IRC as published by
Commerce Clearinghouse. There you will
find references to "situs" at 402(c) and 404(a)(4). Read these sections carefully:
Taxability of Beneficiary of Certain
Foreign Situs Trusts. ‑‑
For purposes of subsections (a) and (b), a stock bonus, pension, or
profit-sharing trust which would qualify for exemption from tax under section
501(a) except for the fact that it is a
trust created or organized outside the United States shall be treated as if it were a trust
exempt from tax under section 501(a).
[IRC 402(c), emphasis added]
Trusts Created or Organized Outside the
United States. ‑‑ If a stock bonus, pension, or
profit-sharing trust would qualify for exemption under section 501(a) except
for the fact that it is a trust
created or organized outside the United States, contributions to such a trust by an employer which is a resident, or
corporation, or other entity of the United States, shall be deductible
under the preceding paragraphs.
[IRC 404(a)(4), emphasis added]
It is a well established principle of law that the 50
States are "foreign" with
respect to each other, just as the federal zone is "foreign" with respect to each of them (In re
Merriam's Estate, 36 NE 505 (1894)).
The status of being foreign is the same as "belonging to" or
being "attached to" another state or another jurisdiction. The proper legal distinction between the
terms "foreign" and "domestic" is best seen in Black's
definitions of foreign and domestic corporations, as follows:
Foreign
corporation. A corporation doing business in one state though chartered or incorporated
in another state is a foreign corporation as to the first state, and, as
such, is required to consent to certain conditions and restrictions in order to
do business in such first state.
Domestic
corporation. When a corporation is organized and chartered in a particular state, it
is considered a domestic corporation of that state.
[emphasis added]
In light of
all the above, I now contend that untold numbers of trusts have been created on
the basis of a belief that they are domestic trusts when, in fact, they are
foreign trusts, as the terms "domestic" and "foreign" are
defined in the IRC and in the law dictionaries. The Internal Revenue Code was written under authority granted to Congress
for the exercise of exclusive legislative jurisdiction over the federal
zone. Accordingly, the 50 States and
their respective laws are actually foreign
with respect to the federal zone. The
10th Amendment makes it very clear that powers not specifically delegated to
the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the States by the
Constitution, are reserved to the States or to the people. A common-law trust situated in California
exercises rights which are reserved to the people, because California is a common-law
State and because the U.S. Constitution specifically reserves such rights to
the people.
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael
California
state
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
February
15, 1993
Dagny Sharon
Attorney-at-Law
c/o general delivery
Tustin, California state
Postal Zone 92680/tdc
Dear Dagny:
I appreciated
the opportunity to make your acquaintance at the Libertarian Party Convention
in Sunnyvale this past weekend. I also
regret that we didn't have a chance to spend more time together. Your videotape is quite original and
light-hearted; I hope it brings you
much success.
Had we found
a way to spend more time talking with each other, there is one important matter
which I would definitely have wanted you to consider more carefully. During our conversation in the bar, while I
was eating lunch, you implied that one of your goals is to work towards a
"democracy" for America.
Whether you intended it this way or not, such a goal directly
contradicts Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution for the United States of
America, to wit:
Section
4. The United States shall
guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government ....
What exactly
is a "Republican Form" of government? It is one in which the powers of sovereignty are vested in the
people and exercised by the
people. Black's Law Dictionary,
Sixth Edition, makes this very clear:
Republican
government. One in which the powers of sovereignty are vested in the
people and are exercised by the people, either directly, or through
representatives chosen by the people, to whom those powers are specially
delegated. In re Duncan, 139
U.S. 449, 11 S.Ct. 573, 35 L.Ed. 219; Minor
v. Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162, 22 L.Ed. 627.
Both the California
State Constitution and the U.S. Constitution state that the latter shall be the
supreme Law of the land. In the U.S.
Constitution, Article 6, Clause 2 states:
This
Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in
Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties
made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound
thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary
notwithstanding.
At the turn of the century, the U.S.
Supreme Court issued a series of controversial cases now known as The Insular
Cases. These cases were predicated, in
part, on the principle that the Constitution for the United States as such does not extend beyond the
boundaries of the States which are united by and under it. Accordingly, this principle set a crucial
precedent whereby Congress was free to establish a legislative democracy
within the federal zone, instead of a constitutional republic.
The federal
zone is the area over which Congress exercises exclusive legislative
jurisdiction; it encompasses the
District of Columbia and such areas as Guam and the Virgin Islands. Even more important is the fact that this exclusive legislative jurisdiction
extends to all persons who are subject to it, regardless of where they may
reside. As such, the status of "citizen
of the United States" (also known as "U.S. citizen")
causes one to be subject to the letter of all municipal statutes, rules and regulations which Congress enacts
under this exclusive legislative authority.
The constitutional definition of this second class of citizens is
alleged to be the so-called 14th Amendment.
However, two standing decisions of the Utah Supreme Court have struck
down the ratification of this amendment.
Coupled with all the evidence which that Court utilized to arrive at
these decisions, we have therein good cause to conclude that the so-called 14th
Amendment is null and void for fraud and duress. My book The Federal Zone discusses the so-called 14th
Amendment as follows:
Not only did this so-called
"amendment" fail to specify which meaning of the term "United
States" was being used; like the
16th Amendment, it also failed to be ratified, this time by 15 of the 37 States
which existed in 1868. The House
Congressional Record for June 13, 1967, contains all the documentation you
need to prove that the so-called 14th Amendment was never ratified into law
(see page 15641 et seq.). For example, it itemizes all States which
voted against the proposed amendment, and the precise dates when their
Legislatures did so. "I cannot
believe that any court, in full possession of its faculties, could honestly
hold that the amendment was properly approved and adopted." State v.
Phillips, 540 P.2d. 936, 941 (1975).
The Utah Supreme Court has detailed the shocking and sordid history of
the 14th Amendment's "adoption" in the case of Dyett v. Turner,
439 P.2d 266, 272 (1968).
With this
background knowledge firmly in hand, it is easy to explain why the federal
government would reiterate the theme of "democracy" and
"democratic institutions" over and over in its media propaganda. It is now obvious that such programming has
been entirely successful; witness the
large percentage of "Libertarians" who make repeated reference to
their political goal of "democracy" for America. Perhaps without knowing it, they are
participating in the slow but steady demise of the nation symbolized by the
Stars and Stripes, "the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, under
God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all." The Insular
Cases made it possible for America to become divisible into a constitutional republic and a legislative
democracy. It is the strategy of
"divide and conquer", being applied once again with much success,
this time to our very own homeland.
I hope I have
given you a few things to think about.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
enclosures: People
v. Boxer pleadings
"Citizen is a Term of Municipal Law"
copy: Jerry
Collette
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael
California
state
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
February
7, 1993
John Voss, Director
N.C.B.A.
c/o general delivery
Longmont, Colorado
Postal Zone 80502/tdc
Dear John:
Thanks so
much for all the materials which you recently sent, with a copy of your letter
to Mitchell Beals. Time permitting, I
do intend to do a thorough analysis of the written opinions. I am very disappointed, but not surprised,
that the appellate decisions were "not for publication". I took all the decisions to the law library
yesterday, but simply ran out of time.
Enclosed are the preliminary results of that one afternoon at the
library. Nevertheless, a distinct
pattern is emerging already.
Item #1: 28 U.S.C. 297. Assignment of judges to courts of the freely associated compact states
This statute
was part of the comprehensive "Judicial Improvements Act" submitted
to Congress by Peter F. Rodino, Jr.,
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives. It went into law on November 19, 1988 (P.L.
100-702, copy attached). Notice that
subsection (a) refers to "the freely associated compact states" and
to "the laws of the respective compact state". In and of themselves, these references are
significant because I was unable to find any discussion of the legislative
history for this specific statute; the
material cited in U.S. Code Cong. and Adm. News skipped any mention of
it. The statute is also too recent for
any case law to have developed, and much too recent for the term "freely
associated compact states" to appear in Words and Phrases, C.J.S.,
or Am Jur, although "compact" has several meanings in Black's
Law Dictionary.
What makes
this term even more significant is the reference to it that is found in
subsection (b), to wit:
The Congress consents the acceptance and
retention by any judge so authorized of reimbursement from the countries referred to in subsection (a)
....
[emphasis added]
I am going on memory now, but I do
seem to recall a key exception to the definition of "state" once
found in Title 28. The exception was to
another provision of Title 28 which utilized the term "State
court". I think this exception has
since been removed by subsequent amendment, but the pre-amendment version
clearly implied that the meaning of "state" as found in the standard
definition was different from the meaning of "state" as
intended by the term "State court" (hence the need for the
"exception" clause).
Therefore, the standard definition implied a federal state, not a Union
State.
In section
297 supra, we are faced with a choice
between two conflicting and mutually incompatible interpretations of the term
"freely associated compact states".
If these states are Union States, then the "compact" may well
be the U.S. Constitution and Congress has admitted openly that Union States are
the "countries referred to in subsection (a)". If these states are other nations in the
family of nations (e.g. China,
Japan), then the "countries" referred to in subsection (a) are these
other nations, and I can only speculate about the "compact" to which
Section 297 refers. Could it be the
U.N. charter? If not, what else could
it be? some international treaty? I wonder if there is a way to inquire of the
House Judiciary Committee without tipping our own hands and giving the
Committee a reason to obfuscate the real answer. Or, what about the Library of Congress, or Congressional Research
Service? I wouldn't put too much faith
into the CRS, in light of the hack job they continue to do on "Frequently
Asked Questions about Federal Income Taxes".
This little
tidbit is highly significant when placed in the larger context of all the
research now assembled into the electronic version of The Federal Zone,
third edition (disk enclosed). In
particular, my interpretation of the distinction between "foreign"
and "domestic" is amply supported by the definitions in Black's
Sixth Edition, and especially by the Supreme Court decision to uphold the New
York Court's decision of In re Merriam's Estate, 36 NE 505 (1894). Black's definitions of foreign and
domestic corporations, in my opinion, leave little room for doubt about the
correct distinction here. Black's
defines "foreign state" very clearly, as follows:
The
several United States*** are considered "foreign" to each other
except as regards their relations as common members of the Union. ... [O]ne
state of the Union is foreign to
another.
[emphasis added]
Item #2: U.S.
Code Service, Lawyers Edition, Interpretive Notes
In light of
the pivotal importance of this distinction between "foreign" and
"domestic", it was revealing to discover the nearly total absence of
case law on this question in the U.S.C.S. Lawyers Edition (where you would
expect a plethora of citations). In the
main body of U.S.C.S. dealing with the IRC definitions in 7701, there is only
one reference to "foreign estate" (a revenue ruling) and there are
only two references to "domestic building and loan association" (a
revenue ruling and a district court ruling).
What is even more revealing is the case of U.S. v. Bardina, the
one and only citation to the IRC definition of "United States", to
wit:
Even though 26 USCS 7701(a)(9) defines
"United States" as
including only United States and
District of Columbia, Puerto Rico is considered as being within United States
for purposes of 6-year statute of limitations on tax crimes; ....
[emphasis added]
Notice the blatant tautology (again). Notice also that this interpretation flatly
contradicts the actual IRC definition:
(9) United States. -- The term "United
States" when used in a geographical sense includes only the States and the District of Columbia.
[IRC 7701(a)(9), emphasis added]
The term "States" is very different from the
term "United States". And, of
course, the corresponding definition of "State" makes absolutely no
mention of any Union States:
(10) State. -- 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)]
Moving on to
the Cumulative Supplement for the U.S.C.S. Lawyers Edition, we find a similar
pattern. Here, we find one revenue
ruling concerning a "foreign estate", and four citations to
"resident and nonresident alien", two of which are "TC
Memos", one of which is a "Private Letter Ruling", and one of
which is a "Revenue Ruling".
These are not exactly sterling authorities! One of these citations concerned a former official of a foreign
government that was overthrown while he was in the "United States"
under diplomatic passport. Another
concerned a "US citizen who obtained a US passport before moving to a foreign
country". Another concerned a
spouse's election to be treated as a resident alien under IRC 7701(b). The last citation is worth investigating:
Status
of trust as foreign trust turns upon whether trust is comparable to nonresident
alien individual; trust established
and administered under laws of foreign country whose trustee is a foreign
entity and whose corpus is located in a foreign country is nonforeign trust
even though trust is grantor trust and its income is taxable to grantor who is United States citizen. Rev Rul 87-61, 1987-2 CB 219.
[emphasis added]
It would be
revealing to examine the details about the trust in question, i.e., what was the "foreign
country" under the laws of which the trust was established and
administered. If it was a Union State,
we have a bingo. Who or what was the "foreign
entity" trustee? Where exactly was
the "corpus" located? Notice
the term "nonforeign"; I
presume this means "domestic", based on the IRC definition of
"foreign" at 7701(a)(5) (i.e.,
not domestic). Finally, notice that
there is a "grantor" who is a "United States citizen"; this status appears to be the only mention
of any nexus with the federal zone (if any).
Item #3: United
States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.)
Again, an
identical pattern is found in the annotated version of the United States Codes. Here, we do find an interesting exception to
the general rule for the federal zone, i.e.,
a Guam corporation is "foreign" for federal income tax purposes:
Guam is not a "territory" within
meaning of this section defining domestic corporation as one created or
organized in United States or under laws of United States or of any state or
territory, and Guam is considered a possession so that its corporations are
foreign for federal income tax purposes.
Sayre & Co. v. Riddell, C.A. Guam, 1968, 395 F.2d 407.
Notice how
carefully they skirt the general issue of exclusive legislative jurisdiction by
ruling that Guam is a "possession", and "possessions" were
not mentioned in the IRC's definition of "domestic" at that time
("or Territory" was deleted in 1977). In other words, in 1968 the definition of "domestic"
mentioned "United States", and "any State or Territory". Since Guam was found to be a
"possession" and not the
"United States", not a
"State" and not a
"Territory", it was not domestic and therefore foreign. This is a fascinating little intricacy in
this semantic jungle.
The only
other citation of any interest is the 1944 case which interpreted the meaning
of "includes". I consider this
decision to be erroneous, for reasons which I explain in detail in Chapter 12
of The Federal Zone, third edition.
Specifically, in formal English, a noun is either a person, a place, or
a thing. The IRC specifically defines a
trust to be a "person" as opposed to a "place" or a
"thing" (see IRC 7701(a)(1)).
The clarification of "includes" at IRC 7701(c) specifically
states that this term shall not be deemed to exclude other things
otherwise within the meaning of term defined;
notice that "persons" and "places" are conspicuously
absent from this clarification of "includes". Therefore, a "trust" cannot be a thing otherwise within the definition of
"transferee" because a trust is a person, by definition, and a
"transferee" is not a person because it is not mentioned in the IRC
definition of "person". I
know this may sound strained, but the IRC definition of "person"
clearly embraces only an individual, a trust, estate, partnership, association,
company or corporation; moreover, there
is ample evidence that the IRC does obey strictly the rules of formal English
grammar.
That's
it! Now, don't you get the feeling, as
I do, that they are trying their best to avoid these crucial distinctions
between "foreign" and "domestic"? In light of the clarity which is found in Black's
definitions of foreign and domestic corporations, I would be hard pressed to
demonstrate a clear and consistent pattern among these sparse authorities, many
of which are not even courts. John, I
am forced to conclude that some (if not all) of these cases were contrived, and
that a thorough set of consistent Court authorities is very conspicuous for its
absence.
Item #4: McKinley
v. United States of America, S.D. Ohio, 1992
Time
permitting, I will try my best to analyze the unpublished cases which you
generously provided to me. For now, I
will take a brief look at McKinley
because it will be published, and because there is so little in this decision
which is relevant to The Federal Zone, i.e.:
The Court takes judicial notice that while Ohio is a sovereign state, it is
nevertheless part of the United States and Ohio residents are also residents of
the United States and are subject to taxation. The Court finds the plaintiffs to be residents of the United
States and not non-resident aliens.
[emphasis added]
I guess this
Court failed to read Hooven or the corresponding definitions of
"United States" in Black's.
More importantly, this decision flatly contradicts the definition of
"United States" at IRC 7701(a)(9).
Sure, Ohio is part of the "United States" if "United
States" means the several States of the Union. However, the IRC says that "United States" (when used
in a geographical sense) includes only
the District of Columbia and the States, and "State" shall be
construed to include the District of Columbia (and nothing else)! Since singular and plural are
interchangeable (per Title 1), since "include" is not found in the
clarification of "includes" and "including"
at 7701(c), and since 7701(c) mentions only "things" and not
"persons" or "places", we are entirely justified in arguing
that the term "United States" at 7701(a)(9) omits any mention of the
Union States because they were intended
to be omitted. The rules of statutory
construction support this inference, as do the changes to 7701(a)(9) & (10)
that resulted from the Alaska and Hawaii Omnibus Acts: Alaska and Hawaii were removed from the IRC definition of "State" when they
joined the Union (of freely associated compact states). So, as pro
bono judge of the Sovereign Electrical Circuit of Justice, I hereby reverse
the holding in McKinley v. United States of America and remand with
instructions to take explicit judicial notice of the legislative history of IRC
7701(a)(9), in addition to the well established rules of statutory construction
(see Sutherland, for example).
Item #5: Notes
on Decisions re: 1:6:2 and Null and Void Lloyd
These cases
are either favorable or neutral. Lloyd,
you are a sitting duck. Notice also the
careful IRC distinction between "Secretary of the Treasury" and
"Secretary" at 7701(a)(11).
At first glance, this is bad news for our 7401 challenge, but closer
examination reveals the following:
(A) In General. -- The term "or his
delegate" --
(i) when used with reference to the Secretary of the
Treasury, means any officer, employee, or agency of the Treasury Department
duly authorized by the Secretary of the
Treasury directly, or indirectly by one or more redelegations of authority,
to perform the function mentioned or described in the context;
Even though
IRC 7401 utilizes the term "Secretary", which means the Secretary of
the Treasury or his delegate, the term "or his delegate" means an
officer, employee or agency duly authorized by the Secretary of the Treasury
either directly, or indirectly by one or more redelegations of authority. In other words, Lloyd Bentsen must be in the
loop, either directly, or indirectly by one or more redelegations of
authority. So, it looks as if Null and
Void Lloyd remains in a heap'a trouble;
his colorable acts will spread through the Treasury Department like a
computer virus, infecting everything they touch. We should get an expert on delegation of authority to see what,
if any, redelegations originated from Nicholas Brady and whether they remain
valid and in force after Bentsen's reign began.
Enough for
now. I know you have nothing else to do
but read these technicalities. The
devil is always in the details.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
enclosures
copy: Mitchell
Beals
(great
first name)
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael
California
state
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
February
8, 1993
John Voss, Director
N.C.B.A.
c/o general delivery
Longmont, Colorado
Postal Zone 80502/tdc
Dear John:
In my letter
to you of February 7, my memory failed me when I referred to Title 28; the correct reference was Title 8 (I got one
number right). I tracked it down today
for you, because I am convinced that one of the "unpublished" cases
which you recently sent to me is completely wrong for ruling that Union States
are not "foreign countries" for purposes of the IRC. Enclosed is stunning proof of my position
from American Jurisprudence. I
picked up the trail in Ballentine's Law Dictionary, Third Edition, where
it defines "sovereign state" as follows:
In the United States, each state
constitutes a discrete and independent sovereignty, and consequently the laws
of one state do not operate of their own force in any other state. 16 AmJur J2d, "Conflict of Laws",
Section 4.
[Ballentine's Law Dictionary, Third Edition]
I had to go
hunting for the corresponding section in Am Jur, because the reference
to Section 4 is a typographical error.
I found what I was looking for at Section 2 instead. The key is to understand that the IRC is a
"municipal law" as far as income taxation is concerned (see
Conclusions in The Federal Zone):
"... [T]he several states ... are otherwise, at least so far as private
international law is concerned, in the
same relation as foreign countries13. The great
majority of questions of private international law are therefore subject to the
same rules when they arise between two states of the Union as when they arise
between two foreign countries, and in the ensuing pages the words "state,"
"nation," and "country" are used
synonymously and interchangeably, there being no intention to distinguish
between the several states of the Union and foreign countries by the use of
varying terminology.
[16 Am Jur 2d, "Conflict of Laws",
Section 2]
Notice, in
particular, the comment in footnote 11:
In the sense of public international
law, the several states of the Union are neither foreign to the United States
nor are they foreign to each other, but
such is not the case in the field of private international law. Robinson v. Norato, 71 RI 256, 43 A2d
467, 162 ALR 362.
Not to be outdone, Black's Sixth Edition chimed
in with the following similar message:
The term "foreign state," as used in a statement of the rule that the
laws of foreign nations should be proved in a certain manner, should be construed to mean all nations and states other than that in which the action is brought; and hence one state of the Union is foreign to another, in the sense of that rule.
[Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth
Edition]
Further
stunning proof of The Federal Zone thesis is found in the Immigration
and Nationality Act (see attached), where Congress slipped by including a key
exception in its statutory definition of "State" at 8 USC
1101(a)(36). Prior to an amendment in
1987, this definition included the language "(except as used in section
310(a) of title III [8 USCS Section 1421(a)])". At that time, Section 1421(a) of Title 8 referred to courts
"in any State" and "all courts of record in any
State". I failed to pull the current text of 1421(a), but the current
1101(a)(36) removed the exception clause!
I would bet that 1421(a) now has a special definition for the term
"State", because 1421(a) must be talking about courts of the Union
States. For corroboration, I have
enclosed a page from the California State Constitution (1879), wherein
California Superior Courts are given clear original jurisdiction to naturalize
and "to issue papers therefor".
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
enclosures:
photocopies of evidence
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael
California
state
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
February
1, 1993
Rich Pralle, CFS
R D P & Associates
c/o general delivery
Santa Rosa, California state
Postal Zone 95404/tdc
Dear Rich:
I may have
misunderstood something which you said about the Internal Revenue Code. Am I correct in remembering you say that IRC
6672 concerned "withholding agents"?
When I returned home, I looked up this section:
Section 6672. Failure to Collect and Pay Over Tax,
or
Attempt to Evade or Defeat Tax
(a) General
Rule. -- Any person required to collect,
truthfully account for, and pay over any tax imposed by this title who
willfully fails to collect such tax,
or truthfully account for and pay over such tax, or willfully attempts in any manner to evade or defeat
any such tax or the payment thereof, shall,
in addition to other penalties provided by law, be liable to a penalty equal to the total amount of the tax evaded,
or not collected, or not accounted for and paid over. No penalty shall be imposed under section 6653 or part II of
subchapter A of chapter 68 for any offense to which this section is applicable.
[IRC 6672, emphasis added]
As you can see, there is no explicit mention of
"withholding agents" in IRC 6672.
The section to which I was referring in our conversation was IRC
7701(a)(16):
(16)
Withholding Agent. -- The term "withholding agent" means any
person required to deduct and withhold any tax under the provisions of section 1441, 1442, 1443, or 1461.
[IRC 7701(a)(16), emphasis added]
Sections
1441, 1442 and 1443 are too long to reproduce here. Their headings provide some indication of their contents:
Section
1441. Withholding of Tax on Nonresident
Aliens
Section
1442. Withholding of Tax on Foreign
Corporations
Section
1443. Foreign Tax-Exempt Organizations
The following
is the entire text of IRC 1461. This
section is important because it specifically makes "withholding
agents" liable for the taxes they deduct and withhold:
Section
1461. Liability for Withheld Tax
Every
person required to deduct and withhold any tax under this chapter is hereby
made liable for such tax and is hereby indemnified against the claims and
demands of any person for the amount of any payments made in accordance with
the provisions of this chapter.
[IRC 1461, emphasis added]
In other
words, the persons from whom they withhold are not liable for the taxes
which they withhold. That is to say,
nonresident aliens are not liable for the taxes that are withheld from
the dividends they receive from stock issued by domestic corporations (see
Treasury Decision 2313).
So, we can
link 1461 and 6672 because withholding agents are liable for the taxes
they deduct and withhold, i.e., they
are required to collect and pay over the tax imposed by 1461 (combining the
language of 6672 and 1461); if they don't
pay the taxes they deduct and withhold, then they would be liable to the
penalty defined in 6672.
Our research
indicates that "withholding agents" are the only ones who are specifically
made liable by the IRC for the payment of income taxes. If you can find another IRC section which specifically makes anyone else liable
for the payment of income taxes, I would appreciate getting the exact citation
from you.
On another
subject, I have several serious problems with the T.A.G. flyer entitled "Are
You Really Liable?" One excerpt
from this flyer reads:
Section
7701(a)(1) defines the term person as:
"The term 'person' shall be construed to mean and include an individual, a trust, estate, partnership, association, company or corporation."
Well now, that certainly seems easy enough
and section 7701(a)(1) makes no mention of the term "U.S.
Individual". Now, look at section
7701(a)(30):
"The
term 'United States person' means -
(A) a citizen or resident of the United States,
(B) a domestic partnership,
(C) a domestic corporation, and
(D) any estate or trust ...."
There is no mention of the term "U.S.
Citizen"; "Individual",
or "U.S. Individual".
...
Assuming the term "U.S." means
United States, then the 1040 would be for a "United States
Individual", the 1120 for a "United States Corporation".
In my opinion, this sequence of logic is
misleading. The flyer assumes that the
term "U.S. means United States".
Fair enough. If it doesn't mean
"United States", the flyer does not tell us what else it might
mean. So, for purposes of this
analysis, the term "U.S." means "United States".
However, the
flyer also states that there is no mention of the term "U.S.
Citizen". This is technically
correct, because the IRC never utilizes a capital "C" when it refers
to "citizens of the United States" or "United States citizens"
(except when a capital "C" is required in the first word of a
sentence or heading). But, this is also
misleading, because the same flyer quotes section 7701(a)(30) which does mention "citizen or resident
of the United States", i.e.,
"citizen of the United States" or "resident of the United
States".
The flyer
also states that there is no mention of the term "Individual" or
"U.S. Individual". Again, this
is technically correct, because the IRC utilizes the lower-case "i"
when it refers to individuals. But, for
similar reasons, the flyer is misleading because "citizens of the United
States" and "residents of the United States" are among the
"individuals" to whom the IRC refers. This is so because "person" means and includes an
"individual"; it also means
and includes a trust, estate, partnership, association, company or
corporation. Therefore, an "individual" is a person in the same way that a
horse is an animal; moreover, using
permissible substitution, the term "United States person" means and
includes a "U.S. individual".
The "U.S. individuals" to whom the IRC refers are the
"citizens of the United States" and "residents of the United
States". This can be confirmed at
26 CFR 1.1-1 et seq.
For similar
reasons, I also consider the following excerpt of the flyer to be misleading
and erroneous:
At section 6011, when required by
regulations prescribed by the Secretary any person made liable for any
tax imposed by this title ... shall make a return. Did the Secretary
prescribe by regulations that a citizen of the United States was liable for
filing? No, of course not.
[emphasis added]
Here's the corresponding section of
the CFR:
1.6011-1 General requirement of return, statement, or
list.
(a) General
rule. Every person subject to any tax, or required to collect any tax,
under Subtitle A of the Code, shall make
such returns or statements as are required by the regulations in this chapter. The return or statement shall include
therein the information required by the applicable regulations or forms.
Another important regulation is the
following:
1.6012-1 Individuals required to make returns of income.
(a) Individual citizen or resident --
(1) In
general. Except as provided in
subparagraph (2) of this paragraph, an
income tax return must be filed by every individual ... for each taxable
year beginning after December 31, 1972, during which he received $750 or more
of gross income, if such individual is:
(i) A
citizen of the United States, whether residing at home or abroad,
(ii) A
resident of the United States even though not a citizen thereof ....
So, I think
the T.A.G. flyer is entirely wrong when it states that "of course"
the Secretary has "not" prescribed by regulations that a citizen of
the United States was liable for filing.
I have just proven that the Secretary has prescribed regulations which
require a "citizen of the United States" to make an income tax
return, provided that his "gross income" exceeds the specified dollar
threshold. The computation of gross
income for nonresident aliens is defined at IRC 872(a); in most situations, that computation results
in a gross income of zero. Frank
Brushaber's "gross income" was not zero because he received a
dividend from a "U.S. corporation", namely, the Union Pacific
Railroad Company. It was a U.S.
corporation because it was incorporated by Congress.
Finally, I
realize that the California voter registration form does say "For U.S.
Citizens Only" in red letters across the top of the form. However, the affidavit on that
registration form is the statement that matters:
READ THIS STATEMENT AND WARNING PRIOR TO
SIGNING
I
am a citizen of the United States and will be at least 18 years of age at
the time of the next election. I am not
imprisoned or on parole for the conviction of a felony. I certify under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that
the information on this affidavit is true and correct.
Perjury is punishable by imprisonment in
state prison for two, three or four years.
Section 126 Penal Code
[emphasis in original]
I contend
that the "citizen of the United States" to which this form refers is
the same "citizen of the United States" to which the Internal Revenue
Code refers, to which the Code of Federal Regulations refers, and to which the
so-called Fourteenth Amendment refers.
If you are interested, we have now located two Utah Supreme Court cases
which struck down the so-called Fourteenth Amendment. The language of Section 1 of that amendment is almost identical
to the definition of "citizen" that is found in 26 CFR 1.1-1(c). Given that the so-called Fourteenth
Amendment was never properly approved and adopted, the earliest definition of
"citizen of the United States" that we have been able to find in law
is found in the 1866 Civil Rights Act.
Thanks for
your consideration.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
copy: Rleen Joy
Don
Fletcher
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
December
22, 1992
Andrew Melechinsky
Constitutional Revival
c/o general delivery
Enfield, Connecticut
Postal Zone 06083/tdc
Dear Andy:
Thanks very
much for your unsigned note, postmarked December 16, 1992. In response to my previous question
concerning 1:8:17 in the U.S. Constitution, you wrote the following:
Answer.
It is self evident that no state or any other governing body is
authorized to make laws for the District of Columbia or other enclaves which
belong to the United States. It should
be obvious that this provision of the Constitution was designed to make
Congress the equivalent to the Enfield Town Council or the Podunk Board of
Selectmen for the purpose of governing those areas.
[my emphasis]
I couldn't
agree more with your answer. In fact,
it is uncanny how close our thinking is on this question. In my research and writings, I often refer
to Congress as "City Hall" for the federal zone. In other words, if Congress wants to pass a
"dog leash" law for D.C., it is authorized to do so by 1:8:17 in the
Constitution. This dog leash law would
apply only inside D.C., and nowhere
else, right?
Now, let's
use a similar example, only this time let's incorporate a tax in our
example. Let's say that Congress wants
to tax the sale of dog leashes inside D.C.
This is an excise tax, right?
Congress is empowered to levy excise taxes, right? But, here's the rub: must the tax rate be uniform throughout the 50 States?
Wait a
minute, you ask, the question of uniformity only applies to federal excises
levied inside the 50 States. This tax
on the sale of dog leashes only applies inside the District of Columbia. The 50 States are irrelevant to the
application of this tax and, therefore, the issue of uniformity is also
irrelevant, is it not? Such an excise
tax need not be uniform throughout the 50 States, because it has no application
anywhere inside the 50 States. It is a "municipal"
tax. No State or any other governing
body is authorized to levy such a tax inside
D.C., just as Congress is not authorized to levy such a tax outside D.C. and inside the 50 States.
The key court
decision on this question is Downes v. Bidwell, which is one of The
Insular Cases, as they are called. You
might also read the several articles which appeared in the Harvard Law
Review on these cases. I have
enclosed a memo which I wrote some time ago on exclusive authority as
applied to direct taxes.
You also wrote that "it takes a wild imagination to
visualize the District of Columbia as a second 'United States'. Even if it was, it would still be subject to
the constraints of the Bill of Rights."
Let's postpone correspondence on the Bill of Rights until you and I can
clarify our respective positions on federal taxing authority, OK? In this context, the key question is
this: are federal municipal taxes subject to the uniformity and apportionment rules
found in the Constitution? My answer is
this: no, because those restrictions
only apply to federal laws which are levied inside the 50 States. One of the Supreme Court's best statements
on this dual or heterogeneous attribute of federal laws is the following
excerpt from the Hooven case:
... [T]he United States** may
acquire territory by conquest or by treaty, and may govern it through the
exercise of the power of Congress conferred by Section 3 of Article IV of the
Constitution ....
In exercising this power, Congress is not subject to the same
constitutional limitations, as when it is legislating for the United States***.
... And in general the guaranties [sic]
of the Constitution, save as they
are limitations upon the exercise of executive and legislative power when
exerted for or over our insular possessions, extend to them only as Congress, in the exercise of its legislative
power over territory belonging to the United States**, has made those guaranties [sic]
applicable.
[Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, 324 U.S. 652
(1945)]
[emphasis added]
Now, let's
imagine, just for the sake of argument, that the income tax provisions in the Internal Revenue Code are municipal statutes, which are "not
subject to the same constitutional limitations" which apply when Congress
"is legislating for the [50] United States" of America. You will notice that the IRC's petroleum
taxes are uniform throughout the 50 States, and in those provisions the term
"State" is defined to include the 50 States. However, when it comes to the graduated
income tax, the term "State" is defined to include only the District
of Columbia (and none of the 50 States). Isn't this odd? Not
really, when you realize that the graduated income tax is, indeed, a municipal
statute which is unaffected by the uniformity and apportionment restrictions in
the Constitution, for the reasons discussed above.
Last but not
least, we have in America a government of the "United States" and a
government of each of the several States;
each has citizens of its own.
Therefore, we have State Citizens, and we have federal citizens
(also known as "citizens of the United States"). See the Slaughter House Cases for the
seminal authority on this dual citizenship.
Now, the exercise of State Citizenship is an unalienable right,
endowed by the Creator (see the Declaration of Independence). But, and this is important, even crucial to
the issue of taxation, federal citizenship is a statutory privilege, the
exercise of which can be taxed with an excise tax without uniformity
throughout the 50 States. The term
"citizen of the United States" was first expressed in law by
the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Some
people say that it was put into the Constitution by the so-called 14th
Amendment, but we have now located two (2) Utah Supreme Court cases which found
that the Amendment was not properly ratified.
Therefore, the status of "United States citizen" is at best the creation of Congressional
legislation -- endowed by Congress and NOT by the Creator.
So, think of
federal citizens as citizens of the federal zone. The taxation of their incomes is a municipal
excise tax, just like the tax on dog leashes discussed above. The "income" is not the subject of
the tax; the subject of the tax is the
exercise of the statutory privilege known as federal citizenship (also
known as "U.S. citizenship").
The "income" is simply the measure of the tax.
I hope I have
made some sense out of the jungle of legal jargon and double-talk which gets in
the way of clear thinking on this subject.
Admittedly, the whole situation is made immensely complicated by the
deliberate vagueness and confusion which were incorporated into the Internal
Revenue Code and its regulations in the
CFR. But, I am confident we have now
proven that the graduated income tax provisions of the IRC are municipal
statutes which apply only to the federal zone (e.g. federal employees) and to the citizens of that zone, no
matter where they might "reside".
In fact, to be a "resident" of California, strictly speaking,
means that one is a federal citizen who resides outside the federal zone
and inside California. Technically
speaking, a State Citizen does not "reside" in the State of
his domicile.
I would
appreciate getting your written comments on all the above. In the meantime, thanks for your continuing
work to benefit the Freedom Movement in America today.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
November
4, 1992
Karl Loren, Author
c/o general delivery
Burbank, California state
Postal Zone 91504/tdc
Dear Karl:
Thank you for
the complimentary copy of Verity, Volume 2, Number 10, dated November 1,
1992. Although I do not care to get
embroiled in the trust controversy described in this issue of Verity,
your newsletter does contain the following paragraphs which, in my humble
opinion, contain serious errors.
Numbers in [brackets] are my paragraph numbers, for ease of reference:
[1] We in the United States tax U.S.
Citizens on their income whether they live in the U.S. or in a foreign country.
We tax those U.S. Citizens,
regardless of residence, on their income whether they received it from within
the United States or from outside
the United States.
[2] We even go so far as to tax aliens who reside
within the United States ‑‑
on their income from either within the U.S.
or outside the U.S.
[3] A U.S. Supreme Court case [Cook v. Tait, 265 U.S. 47 (1924)]
requires the U.S. Citizen abroad to
pay taxes in the U.S.
[4] The Supreme court ruled in this case that the
United States has the power to tax its citizens on their worldwide income solely by reason of their citizenship.
[5] "No other major country in the world
taxes its nonresident citizens on their
foreign-source incomes at all" according to Marshall J. Langer, Professor
of Law, Miami University, author of Practical
International Tax Planning. There
is even a tax law that makes it illegal to change your U.S. citizenship for the purpose
of avoiding taxes! [citing IRC Section
877(a)]
[6] We even go so far as to tax nonresident aliens who reside outside
the U.S., but who receive income
FROM within the United States.
[citing IRC Sections 871(a) and 871(b)]
[7] But, the IRS certainly does not try to
collect income taxes from a nonresident alien who receives his ONLY income from
sources without the United States.
[8] It would be ludicrous to even pause to
consider the possibility of the United
States claiming tax jurisdiction over a nonresident alien earning income from a non-US Source!
I am somewhat chagrinned to be writing
this letter in the first place, because you purchased The Federal Zone
some months ago, and your written communications to me seemed to imply that you
understood, and agreed with, the book.
The above quoted paragraphs from Verity, dated November 1, 1992,
now leave me wondering just how much of The Federal Zone you actually
read and understood. Let me proceed
with an analysis of your statements, paragraph-by-paragraph:
[1] The
Internal Revenue Code (IRC) and the regulations which promulgate that Code (26
CFR) do not impose federal income taxes on "U.S. Citizens". The regulations at 26 CFR 1.1‑1(b) and
(c) state that income tax liability is imposed on the worldwide income of
"citizens of the United States" and "residents of
the United States". In English,
there is a world of difference
between a proper noun and a common noun.
Proper nouns are capitalized;
common nouns are not. If you
think this distinction is irrelevant or merely academic, then it is now
incumbent upon you to carry the burden of finding and demonstrating one single reference to "U.S. Citizens"
in the IRC and its regulations.
References to "Citizen" or "Citizens"
in the first word of a sentence, or in paragraph headings, do not count,
because formal English requires that terms in such grammatical positions be
capitalized.
Moreover, the Hooven case
quoted and discussed in The Federal Zone proves that the term
"United States" has at least three different meanings in law. This fact is supported by the same meanings
which are found in Black's Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition. The late John Knox once confided to me that
the Solicitor General in De Lima v. Bidwell actually argued that the
term "United States" has at least five (5) different meanings in the
Constitution. I am also told that James
Madison anticipated the ambiguity found in the term "United States",
and documented this ambiguity in his notes on the Constitutional
Convention. These notes were reportedly
published in 1840, but to date I have been unsuccessful in locating a copy of
these notes. Your paragraph [1] is
ambiguous for failing to define precisely which of these several meanings you
are utilizing. This is crucial because
you make the all-important distinction between income derived from sources within the "United States" and
income derived from sources without
the "United States". A
precise definition of "United States" is therefore pivotal to any and
all discussions of federal tax law.
Moreover, the 50 States are
considered to be "foreign countries" with respect to the "United
States", for purposes of federal taxation, because the regulations clearly
define the "United States" to be the territory over which the federal
government has exclusive rights.
This is the very same term that is found in 1:8:17 in the Constitution
and for this reason "exclusive" is also a pivotal term. The 50 States of the Union retain all rights
not reserved by the people and not explicitly enumerated for the federal
government by the Constitution (see the 9th and 10th Amendments for proof).
[2] Again, this paragraph fails to provide
a precise definition of "United States". Moreover, it makes reference to "aliens" who
"reside within the United States".
If you study IRC 7701(b)(1)(B) very carefully, you will discover that an
"alien" is an individual who is not a "citizen of the
United States" and a "nonresident" is an individual who is not a
"resident of the United States (within the meaning of subparagraph (A)". IRC 7701(b)(1)(A) is important because it
defines the three tests which distinguish "resident aliens" from
"nonresident aliens". These
three tests are the only ways in which an "alien" can be a
"resident alien". Therefore,
these three tests define "residence" for purposes of federal income
taxation. See also IRS Publication
519: "For tax purposes, an alien
is an individual who is not a U.S. citizen." Therefore, a State Citizen who is not also a federal citizen
is an alien for federal tax purposes.
Your paragraph [2] is vague and therefore void.
[3] Again, you make reference to a
"U.S. Citizen". See
discussion of paragraph [1] above.
[4] Now you make reference to the
"United States", "its citizens" and
"their citizenship". Oddly,
this paragraph is grammatically and legally correct, because the Congress does
have exclusive legislative jurisdiction over its own federal citizens,
no matter where on planet Earth they may "reside". The enclosed materials go into great depth
to explain the distinction between federal citizens and State Citizens,
so I won't belabor this distinction here.
It is important to realize that the distinction between these two
classes of citizenship is as important and fundamental as the distinction between
the State and federal governments. See
the Cruikshank case, K. Tashiro v. Jordan, and Ex parte
Knowles for proof. The Slaughter House Cases are the seminal
decisions in this area. If you fail to
educate yourself about this important legal history, you will continue to
propagate the kind of confusion which is evident in Verity for November
1, 1992.
[5] Here again you are back on track, but
it is not clear whether you are back on track knowingly and intentionally,
or not. Congress has authority to tax
its own federal citizens, wherever they reside and wherever the source
of their income. Therefore,
"resident citizens" and "nonresident citizens"
are treated the same in federal tax law because the worldwide income of both groups is taxed. Your paragraph [5] does make a grievous
error, however, by stating that the tax law makes it illegal to change your
"U.S. citizenship" for the purpose of avoiding taxes. Your paragraph [5] then cites IRC
877(a). This is not what Section 877(a)
says, nor is expatriation made illegal by any subparagraphs of Section
877. Read them! IRC 877 merely discusses the rules which
shall govern federal tax liability when expatriation occurs. It does not outlaw expatriation!
[6] This paragraph is also correct on its
face, but it too suffers for lacking a precise definition of "United
States" and "U.S."
Sections 871(a) and 871(b) are governed by the statutory definition of
"United States" that is found at IRC 7701(a)(9). This definition, in turn, is governed by the
statutory definition of "State" that is found at IRC
7701(a)(10). IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO
TAKE CAREFUL NOTE OF THE EXACT WORDING OF 7701(a)(10):
The term "State" shall be
construed to include the District of
Columbia, where such construction is necessary to carry out the provisions
of this title.
[emphasis added]
Now, it is true that the terms
"includes" and "including" are qualified by
IRC 7701(c), but notice that "include" is not qualified by IRC
7701(c). This may seem like nit-picking,
but the published rules of statutory construction do apply here. Specifically, the rule of inclusio unius est exclusio alterius
(the inclusion of one is the exclusion of others) states that an
irrefutable inference must be drawn that what is omitted or excluded from a
statutory definition was intended to be omitted or excluded. The term "include" is excluded
from 7701(c). The term
"California" is excluded from 7701(a)(10). Therefore, all by itself, this rule of
statutory construction allows us to infer that "include" is not
expansive and "California" is excluded from the statutory
definition of "State" found at 7701(a)(10).
There are other rules of statutory
construction which produce the same result, e.g.,
ejusdem generis (the federal zone and
the 50 States are not in the same general class of entities because the 50
States are members of the Union, while the areas within the federal zone are
not). Now the burden is upon you to
prove otherwise. Don't forget that any
doubt must be resolved in favor of those upon whom the tax is sought to be
laid; the Supreme Court has said so,
more than once!
[7] The IRS most certainly does try to collect income taxes from
nonresident aliens who receive their ONLY income from sources without the
"United States". For purposes
of income taxation, the "United States" as defined in the IRC is no
larger than the territory over which Congress exercises exclusive legislative
authority, i.e., the federal
zone. If you study Treasury Decision
2313 carefully, you will come to discover that Frank Brushaber was classified by
the Treasury Department as a nonresident alien. His court documents prove that he claimed to be a State Citizen
who lived and worked in New York City.
Therefore, State Citizens who are not also federal citizens
are "nonresident aliens" as far as federal income taxes are
concerned. How many millions of
Americans have been victimized by the deliberate and criminal confusion which
has been fostered by vague and ambiguous terms in the IRC? I say at least 100 million, counting all
those who have paid income taxes and passed away since 1913.
[8] It certainly is ludicrous for the "United States" to claim tax
jurisdiction over nonresident aliens who earn income from "non-US"
sources, but IT makes this claim all the time.
By IT I mean the authority granted to Congress by 1:8:17 and 4:3:2 in
the U.S. Constitution, which authority MUST be lawfully delegated to the
Internal Revenue Service (a private mercantile organization which collects
interest payments for the Federal Reserve banks).
The evidence is overwhelming that
Congress simply does not have exclusive legislative authority over the 50
States. The study entitled
"Jurisdiction Over Federal Areas Within the States" makes this case over
and over and over. At last count, this
study cites more than 700 federal and state court cases which all found the
same thing: Congress does not enjoy
exclusive legislative jurisdiction inside the boundaries of the 50 States until
and unless a State Legislature cedes its sovereign jurisdiction to
Congress, and does so for a specific parcel of land (called an
"enclave").
At this point in the game, Karl, you
can no longer claim ignorance of this massive body of case law. Congress cannot impose a direct tax on State
Citizens unless that tax is duly apportioned. The earnings of State Citizens are exempt from taxation by
the fundamental law. The apportionment
rule is found in the fundamental law, but there are no apportionment provisions
anywhere in the Internal Revenue Code.
The burden is now upon you to prove otherwise!
A man with
your intelligence should not hesitate to admit that the ambiguities in the IRC
had to be intentional. We know that the
Treasury Department can be clear when it needs to be clear. The most important ambiguity is found in the
several meanings of "State" and "United States" in the
statute and its regulations. There is
an obvious reason why the definitions are not crystal clear and completely
unambiguous, and that reason is MONEY.
A crystal clear and completely unambiguous definition of federal income
tax jurisdiction would limit the definition of "United States" to the
federal zone and no more. There is a
massive amount of case law which proves that Congress does not exercise
exclusive legislative jurisdiction upon any of the Citizens or the
territory of the 50 States.
In support of
all my observations above, I have enclosed for your information the drafts of
several chapters from the third edition of The Federal Zone, which has
not yet been published. I strongly
encourage you to devour this material, and also the court cases and other
publications cited therein. If you
persist in claiming that there is nothing to be made of difference between
"Citizens" and "citizens", particularly in
the face of all the evidence which I am now sharing with you, then I will be
forced to conclude that you and I going in opposite directions. At the very least, I will be forced to
conclude that your understanding of federal tax law does not warrant the high
costs you are charging for your trust advisory services.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
Enclosures
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
October
1, 1992
Hi John,
I've
continued to think about De Ganay v. Lederer, 250 U.S. 376. Here's a decision table to help us organize
our thoughts. It is not necessarily
rigorous or exhaustive, but provides a useful framework. For what it's worth, this table
distinguishes stockholder dividends from corporate profits, as follows:
Case 1:
Both stockholder and corporation are overseas.
Plaintiff Defendant 16th
Result
Overseas overseas yes
Congress cannot tax at all
because
NRA corp.
both are beyond its jurisdiction.
overseas overseas no
Congress cannot tax at all because
NRA corp.
both are beyond its jurisdiction.
The decisive factor here is territorial
jurisdiction. The 16th Amendment is
irrelevant.
Case 2:
Corporation is chartered by a Union State (a/k/a
"State corp."). The tax on
stockholder dividends is a "direct" tax, per Pollock.
Plaintiff Defendant 16th
Result
overseas State yes Congress can tax without apportionment
NRA corp.
because stockholder is not protected by
the Constitution.
overseas State no Congress
can tax without apportionment,
NRA corp.
because stockholder is not protected by
the Constitution.
State State
yes Congress can tax without apportionment
Citizen corp.
if both are inside a Union State.
State State no Congress
cannot tax without apportion,
Citizen corp.
Congress can tax with apportion,
if both are inside a Union State.
The decisive factor here is the protection afforded by
the applicable Constitution(s), if any.
Note that a ratified 16th Amendment makes a difference for State
Citizens, but not for overseas NRA's.
Case 3:
Corporation is chartered by a Union State (a/k/a
"State corp."). The tax on
corporate profits is always an "indirect" tax:
Plaintiff Defendant 16th
Result
either State yes Congress can tax if tax is uniform and
NRA corp.
corporation is inside a Union State.
either State
no Congress can tax if tax is uniform and
NRA corp.
corporation is inside a Union State.
The decisive factor here is that profit generation by
State corporations is a revenue-taxable activity because corporations are
privileged creations of government (they enjoy the privilege of limited
liability). The tax rates must be uniform, however.
Case 4:
Corporation is chartered inside federal zone (a/k/a
"domestic").
The tax on corporate profits is always an indirect tax.
Plaintiff Defendant 16th
Result
either domestic yes
inside federal zone, Congress
can tax
NRA corp.
without uniformity or apportionment
either domestic
no inside federal zone,
Congress can tax
NRA corp.
without uniformity or apportionment
The decisive factor here is that profit generation by
"domestic" corporations is a revenue-taxable activity because these
corporations are privileged creations of Congress. Tax rates need not be uniform
or apportioned; only majority
rule needs to be satisfied.
Summary
Thus, if my
analysis of corporate profits is correct, the 16th Amendment is not relevant,
even if the corporation is chartered by a Union State. Congress is free to define a tax on
corporate profit as an excise tax, and Congress need only satisfy the
uniformity rule if the corporation is chartered by a Union State. Congress need only satisfy majority rule if
the corporation is chartered inside the federal zone (see Chapter 13, 3rd
edition).
The situation
is a bit different if the subject is dividends. The status of dividend recipients then becomes relevant, as does
the ratification of the 16th Amendment.
I distinguish dividends from profits because they can be taxed separately.
There is no compelling logical reason why dividend payors must be held
liable for the tax on dividends;
dividend recipients could be designated the liable party (if not the
withholding agent).
So, the De Ganay case does not represent a threat
to the thesis of The Federal Zone after all. This is so because the dividend recipient was unprotected
by the Constitution and the corporation was engaged in a privileged, revenue-taxable
activity, even if it was chartered by
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
If this
analysis does anything, it reveals a need to distinguish overseas NRA's (like
Emily De Ganay) from State Citizens (like Frank R. Brushaber). The current Internal Revenue Code does not
make this distinction, however.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
Conklin Rebuttal (briefly)
by
Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
July 4, 1992
Liability of Individuals
Conklin is saying that nobody is made liable for income
taxes. His ad in The Connector
of May 1992 stated: "My name is
Bill Conklin and I have searched the Internal Revenue code for twelve
years: it is my opinion after extensive
research that there is no statute that
makes anyone liable for the income tax ..." [emphasis added]. This statement is wrong; "withholding agents" are
specifically made liable by Sections 1441 and 1461 of the Internal Revenue Code
(IRC).
Effect of Regulations
Conklin has written privately that Congress cannot
promulgate regulations which exceed the statute and that a regulation cannot
exceed the limitations created by the statute.
The preponderance of case law proves that the regulations in 26 CFR do have the force and effect of law. See 2 Am Jur 2d, Section 289 et seq.
See also the Federal Register Act and Administrative Procedure Act. The regulations in 26 CFR are not so easily
swept away.
In re: Becraft
This is not a good decision because Becraft's research
concludes that only "aliens here and citizens abroad" are liable for
federal income taxes. This conclusion
is easily disproven by 26 CFR 1.1-1(b), one of the key regulations which define
the income tax liability of individuals:
In general, all citizens of the United States**, wherever resident, and all
resident alien individuals are liable to the income taxes imposed by the Code
whether the income is received from sources within or without the United
States**.
[26 CFR 1.1-1(b), emphasis added]
Moreover, that court reduced Becraft's argument to one
elemental proposition, and rejected it for "absurdity" and
"frivolity":
The Sixteenth Amendment does not authorize
a direct non‑apportioned income tax on resident United States citizens
[sic] and thus such citizens are not subject to the federal income tax
laws. We hardly need comment on the
patent absurdity and frivolity of such a proposition.
Well, the Brushaber decision found
otherwise. Moreover, the Becraft
court uses the term "resident United States citizen", which manifests
a lack of understanding of the relevant regulations and their legislative
history. The citizen/alien dimension is
a birth status (or naturalization
status). The resident/nonresident dimension
is a location status. The term "resident United States
citizen" only makes sense if one intends to distinguish it from "nonresident
United States citizen", "resident alien" and "nonresident
alien". The Becraft court
would benefit enormously by mastering The Matrix as explained in The Federal
Zone. Their failure to define
terms is a serious, if not fatal flaw.
U.S. v. Collins
* By citing Collins as an authority
for defeating The Federal Zone thesis, Conklin confuses judicial
jurisdiction with legislative jurisdiction.
The two are obviously different:
district court jurisdiction is created by statute, legislative
jurisdiction is created by the Constitution.
* Collins ruled: "The argument
that the sixteenth amendment does not authorize a direct, non-apportioned tax
on United States citizens similarly is devoid
of any arguable basis in law" [emphasis added]. This statement is demonstrably false because
the Brushaber decision supports
this argument.
* Collins also ruled: "For seventy-five years, the Supreme
Court has recognized that the sixteenth amendment authorizes a direct
nonapportioned tax upon United States citizens throughout the nation, not just
in federal enclaves, see Brushaber
...." Brushaber is NOT an
authority for this statement; Brushaber
ruled that income taxes are indirect taxes and the only effect of the 16th Amendment was to overturn the Pollock
principle. Read it!
The existence of one or more apparently unfavorable
cases does not invalidate The Federal Zone (see Unfavorable Case Law
below).
Sixteenth Amendment
Most federal courts refuse to recognize the mountain of
material evidence which impugns the ratification of the so-called 16th
Amendment. However, the judge in U.S.
v. Benson admitted, on the record,
that there is no law if Bill Benson is correct. By citing Collins, Conklin is siding with irresponsible
judges who label the evidence a "political" question. Well, it wasn't a "political"
question in the years immediately after the amendment was "declared"
ratified. Both the Collins and Becraft
decisions are badly defective because they attempt to sustain the obvious fiction that there is no material
evidence against the 16th Amendment.
Mr. Conklin needs to choose between fact and fiction. (Racing firemen don't stop for curb dogs.)
Treasury Decision 2313
This Treasury Decision is crucial evidence that The
Federal Zone's status and jurisdiction arguments are valid. Frank Brushaber declared himself to be a citizen
of the State of New York, and a resident of the Borough of Brooklyn, in the
City of New York. Both the federal
courts and the Treasury Department found that Frank Brushaber was a NONRESIDENT
ALIEN, according to their own rules!
The Secretary of the Treasury had no basis for extending T.D. 2313 to
those who were not parties to the Brushaber case. Frank Brushaber did err in assuming that his
defendant was a foreign
corporation; the Union Pacific Railroad
Company was a domestic corporation,
because it was originally created by an Act of Congress. Conklin has neglected to mention T.D. 2313 anywhere in his published and private
communications.
The Three United States
The Hooven case is standing authority for the fact
that the term "United States" has three separate meanings, all
different from each other. Federal
courts had an excuse before this
decision; but after Hooven, courts have no excuse for failing to
specify which of these three meanings they intend,
with each and every use of the term. This 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. Moreover, Hooven is also standing authority for the
principle of territorial heterogeneity, an important theme in The Federal
Zone which Conklin ignores almost completely. Similarly, Conklin has failed even to mention "The Insular
Cases" or to deal with the obvious relevance of Downes v. Bidwell,
namely, excise uniformity doesn't
rule inside the federal zone; the
majority rules inside the federal zone.
Knowledge of the Book
Conklin has not purchased The Federal Zone, and
has yet to admit that he has even read
the book. The failed ratification of
the Sixteenth Amendment figures prominently in the book's main logic. Territorial heterogeneity is a theme which
Conklin ignores almost completely. The
"void for vagueness" doctrine affords all of us an opportunity to
agree, on the vagueness at least. If the statute is clear, then why did
Conklin fail to find the sections that make withholding agents liable? He had 12 years, and he still missed them. The Spreckels
case ruled that "doubt is to be resolved in favor of those upon whom the
tax is sought to be laid." Wigglesworth
ruled that, in case of doubt, statutes levying taxes "are construed most
strongly against the Government, and in favor of the citizen". The continuing debate on all sides is
important empirical proof that the IRC should be nullified for vagueness. If the Supreme Court cannot be clear, then
nobody can; and their titles are
Justice.
Unfavorable Case Law
The existence of one or more apparently unfavorable
cases does not invalidate The Federal Zone, particularly when those
cases are predicated on rebuttable assumptions (like the 16th Amendment, or
"clarity" in the statute, or arbitrary definitions of
"income"). The book proves
that chaos exists in the relevant federal cases: the Supreme Court has clearly contradicted itself when defining
the effects of a ratified 16th Amendment.
"The devil can quote scripture for his purpose," wrote William
Shakespeare. With courts in conflict,
one can cite authorities for either
side of any such unresolved debates.
The Prince of Darkness is also the Prince of Lies.
Private Law
There are many mysteries which are amazingly clarified
by The Federal Zone, including the "private law" nature of the
IRC. The IRC is a municipal statute for
the federal zone. Congress is the
sovereign municipal authority for the federal zone. If Congress had intended the IRC to apply to all 50 States, Title
26 should have been enacted into positive, "public" law. It was not.
(For details, see Super Gun by Lori Jacques, pages 74-81.)
Uniform Commercial Code
The UCC is precisely on point, because federal tax
returns are "foreign bills of exchange" which are subject to rules,
regulations and case law which have built up around the UCC. The 50 States are "foreign" with
respect to each other, just as each is foreign with respect to the federal zone
(see In re Merriam). The UCC has
explicit provisions for reserving the unalienable rights of those who enter
such contracts, including but not limited to the right to due process and the
immunity against self-incrimination.
Moreover, the UCC has a guarantee that statutes must be construed in
harmony with the Common Law. The U.S. Constitution
is the last vestige of the Common Law at the federal level.
The Smoking Gun
The Federal Zone
documents the "smoking gun" -- awesome proof that the vagueness,
deception, confusion and jurisdictional ambiguities in the Internal Revenue
Code were deliberate.
MEMO
TO: John
Voss, Director, N.C.B.A.
other
interested parties
FROM: Paul
Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account
for Better Citizenship
DATE: June 9,
1992
SUBJECT: Do the
regulations in 26 CFR
have
the force and effect of law?
The debate fostered by the claims on N.C.B.A.'s $50,000
Reward appears to have reached the following point of departure:
Mr. Conklin has argued that the IRC makes nobody
liable for federal income taxes.
This argument was defeated by reference to
clear sections of the IRC which make "withholding agents" liable for
federal income taxes.
I do not as yet know if Mr. Conklin is a
withholding agent.
In a private communication, Mr. Conklin
has also argued that the regulations in 26 CFR create no liability because
"a regulation cannot exceed the limitations created by the statute."
The purpose of the remainder of this memo is to cite some of the case law which is relevant
to the questions of validity, and of the legal force and effect, of regulations
promulgated by the Secretary of the Treasury.
The attached abstracts from American Jurisprudence reveal a
substantial body of case law which is not always entirely consistent on this
question. For example:
A regulation
cannot supply omissions of the statute.
[2 Am Jur 2d, Section 289]
-but-
A regulation which fulfills the purpose of
the law cannot be said to be an addition to the law.
[ibid.,
Section 300]
The following are notable excerpts from the attached Am
Jur sections that deal with the effect and validity of rules:
Rules, regulations, and general orders enacted by administrative agencies
pursuant to the powers delegated to them have
the force and effect of law. [page
119]
There have been applied to
administrative regulations the
principles that everyone is presumed to know the law or that ignorance of the law is no excuse, and
the courts will take judicial notice of them.
[page 120]
... [T]here is no violation of the Federal
Constitution in an act of Congress which provides for a defense to an action
under the statute based on good faith
reliance upon any administrative regulation .... [page 120]
Administrative regulations are held to be
"laws" for various purposes, including jurisdiction of courts and
criminal liability. If Congress imposes criminal sanctions for
disobedience of regulations, it can hardly be contended that such regulations
are not a "law" for the purposes of the Criminal Code. [page 121]
Compliance
with valid administrative regulations is compliance with law, as has been
held where it was sought to induce actions contrary to the regulations or to
impose liability for actions which accorded with regulations. [page 122]
Valid
administrative rules or regulations are generally regarded as legislative
enactments, and have the same effect as
if enacted by the legislature. They
have the force of a statute and the same effect as if part of the original
statute. They become integral parts
of the statutes, particularly where they are legislative in nature ‑‑
that is, are called for by the statute itself.
[page 122]
While in the strict sense of the term an
administrative regulation is not actually a "statute" but is at most
an offspring of a statute, a regulation
may be deemed to come within the term "statute." [page 123]
...[R]ules and regulations will be upheld
where they are within the statutory authority
of the agency and reasonable, ... they must be sustained unless
unreasonable and plainly inconsistent
with the statute. [page 123]
Only
when discretion has been arbitrarily exercised, resulting in injustice or
unfairness, do the courts intervene to
strike down a rule promulgated by the proper agency designed to give
appropriate effect to the provisions of the act involved. [page 124]
Administrative regulations which go beyond what the legislature can authorize are void
and may be disregarded. [page 124]
Regulations
which are legislative in character should
not be overruled by the courts unless clearly contrary to the will of the
legislature. [page 124]
Thus there are applicable the rules in
regard to presumption of validity
and partial or entire invalidity; and, just as in individual cases hardship
and loss may flow from legislative acts which are nevertheless valid, so
administrative regulations may also operate.
[page 125]
Administrative rules and regulations, to be valid, must be within the authority conferred upon
the administrative agency. A rule
or regulation which is broader than the statute empowering the making of rules,
or which oversteps the boundaries of interpretation of a statute by extending
or restricting the statute contrary to its meaning, cannot be sustained. [page 127]
They are valid and binding only when they
are in furtherance of the intention of the legislature as evidenced by its
acts, and a regulation, valid when promulgated, becomes invalid upon the
enactment of a statute in conflict with the regulation. However, an administrative regulation will not be considered as having been
impliedly annulled by a subsequent act of the legislature unless the two are
irreconcilable, clearly repugnant, and so inconsistent that they cannot have
concurrent operation. [page 127]
Administrative regulations which go beyond what the legislature has authorized, which violate the statute, or which are inconsistent or out of harmony with the statute conferring the
power, have been said to be void. [page
128]
... [A]dministrative regulations, to be
valid, are required to be appropriate, reasonable, or not inconsistent with
law. A rule or regulation which is within the broad rulemaking powers commonly
conferred on administrative agencies will be sustained by the courts. [page 128]
... [A] regulation which fulfills the
purpose of the law cannot be said to be an addition to the law. Before
a rule or regulation may be declared void it must be definitely in excess of
the scope of authority, or plainly or palpably inconsistent with law. [page 129]
... [A]n administrative agency may not create a criminal offense or any liability not sanctioned by the
lawmaking authority, especially a liability for a tax or inspection
fee. [page 129]
... [I]ssuance
of regulations is in effect exercise of delegated legislative power. [page 770]
Administrative Procedure Act ... and
Federal Register Act ... set up procedure which must be followed in order for agency rulings to be given force of law. [page 770]
Contents
of Federal Register are judicially noticed and may be cited by volume and
page number. [page 772]
... [F]ederal courts are required to take
judicial notice of contents of Federal Register. [page 772]
Code
of Federal Regulations being nothing more than supplemental edition of Federal
Register, court is entitled to take judicial notice of cited regulation in
brief of prosecution[,] and conviction of defendant thereon is not precluded by
government's failure to introduce such applicable section in evidence. [page 772]
Court was
required to take judicial notice of the Federal
Register and the Code of Federal
Regulations. [page 772]
In closing, the following excerpt from an unpublished treatise
by attorney Lowell Becraft is extremely relevant to the force and effect of
regulations:
In 5 U.S.C., section 301, heads of
Executive departments are given authority to make and publish regulations. It has been previously demonstrated how the
current federal income tax laws in question today relate back to the 1916
income tax act. Section 15 of that act
defined the terms "State" and "United States" in clear
jurisdictional terms. All income tax acts passed by Congress have
authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to promulgate regulations, which
he has done since the first income tax act in 1913. All of the income tax
regulations published since January 28, 1921, have defined the people subject
to the tax as "citizens of the United States subject to its
jurisdiction." Thus, this
phrase has been a part of the regulations for some 67 years, and applied to the
1918, 1921, 1924, 1926, 1928, 1932, 1934, 1936 and 1938 acts, as well as the
1939 and 1954 Codes.
The Secretary of the Treasury and
the United States are firmly bound by these prior regulations as well as the
current Treasury Regulation 1.1-1(c),
which defined the subject of the current tax as a "citizen subject to its jurisdiction." A long line of Supreme Court cases holds
that an executive department head such as the Secretary of the Treasury is
bound by the regulations he so promulgates and publishes ....
And the Supreme Court has found that regulations consistently promulgated
in the same language for repeatedly re-enacted laws are very significant. In Old Colony R. Co. v. Commission of
Internal Revenue, 284 U.S. 552, 52 S.Ct. 211 (1932), the Supreme Court held
that such regulations are given an
implied legislative approval:
"The repeated re-enactment of a statute without substantial change may
amount to an implied legislative approval of a construction placed upon it by
executive officers," 284 U.S., at 557
[emphasis added]
This brings us to the following regulation; it mentions
liability explicitly:
In general, all citizens of the United States, wherever resident, and all resident
alien individuals are liable to the income taxes imposed by the Code
whether the income is received from sources within or without the United
States.
[26 CFR 1.1-1(b)]
MEMO
TO: John
Voss, Director
National
Commodity and Barter Association
FROM: Paul
Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account
for Better Citizenship
DATE: June 7,
1992
SUBJECT: Federal
Income Tax Liability
As distinct from
the regulations published in 26 CFR, does the Internal Revenue Code itself
specifically make anybody liable for
federal income taxes? Answer: a
"withholding agent" is specifically named as a "person" who
is made liable for such a tax. The
proof is found in the combination of Sections 1441 and 1461 of the IRC, as
follows:
Section
1441. Withholding of Tax on Nonresident
Aliens.
(a) General Rule. -- Except as otherwise provided
in subsection (c), all persons, in
whatever capacity acting ... having the
control, receipt, custody, disposal, or payment of any of the items of income
specified in subsection (b) (to the extent that any of such items
constitutes gross income from sources within the United States), of any nonresident alien individual or of
any foreign partnership shall ... deduct and withhold from such items a tax
equal to 30 percent thereof, except that in the case of any item of income
specified in the second sentence of subsection (b), the tax shall be equal to
14 percent of such item.
Section
1461. Liability for Withheld Tax.
Every
person required to deduct and withhold any tax under this chapter is hereby
made liable for such tax and is hereby indemnified against the claims and
demands of any person for the amount of any payments made in accordance with
the provisions of this chapter.
[emphasis added]
Therefore, if Bill Conklin is a withholding agent, then
he is liable for the federal income tax on the amount he withholds. The question now becomes: Is Bill Conklin a withholding agent? Yes or No?
It is impossible to answer this question from your $50,000 Reward
advertisement, and I cannot tell from any of the written communications I have
received from him to date.
Now, permit me
to specify the conditions under which Bill Conklin would actually be liable for
such a tax, by using a practical and realistic example. Let us say that Bill Conklin has a good
friend named Sam who is an Air Force budget analyst. This friend is responsible for a government research budget,
which provides grants for research in various areas of human resources. Sam is impressed with Bill Conklin's
knowledge of the IRC. With Bill's
consent, Sam agrees to hire Bill under contract to the Air Force to provide tax
consulting to other Air Force budget analysts like Sam. When Bill gets this money, he calls his
colleague Johnny to help him work on this project, and agrees to pay Johnny a
flat rate of $60 per hour from the research grant.
Johnny, by
the way, is a nonresident alien, as confirmed by a recent formal affidavit
served on the Secretary of the Treasury.
Having accepted funds from the Air Force, Bill is thereby receiving
money from a source that is "inside the United States". Rather than paying Johnny the full $60 per
hour, the statute requires Bill to withhold 30 percent from Johnny's wages, per
Section 1441 of the IRC. Moreover, Bill
Conklin is the "person" who is liable for this tax, not Johnny. However, Johnny would be required to file a
"return" on Form 1040NR, because he had "gross income" as
defined in Section 872(a), to show that the tax had already been withheld and
therefore paid. The tax is actually
paid by the "person made liable", that is, Bill Conklin.
Now, to
elaborate this example just a little more, Bill hires two more people, both of
whom declare themselves to be "United States citizens" and
both of whom complete and sign a valid W-4 certificate. By law, Bill is also required to act as
their "withholding agent", albeit at rates that are different from
the flat 30 percent levied against the gross income of nonresident aliens. Graduated
tax rates are applied to their taxable income.
Once again, as their withholding agent, Bill is also liable for the
amounts which he withheld from their pay, as authorized by W-4 certificates
that were lawfully and validly executed.
The tax is actually paid by the "person made liable", that is,
Bill Conklin.
Incidentally,
the above Sections are listed in the IRC definition of "withholding
agent", as follows:
(16) Withholding Agent. -- The term
"withholding agent" means any person required to deduct and withhold
any tax under the provisions of section 1441,
1442, 1443, or 1461.
[IRC 7701(a)(16), emphasis added]
John, maybe I
should withdraw my original claim and submit another one for the full $50,000
amount. This is my formal notice to you
that I have reserved my right to do so, even though and regardless of the fact
that I have already filed one claim for $1 of this reward.
As I write
this, I must add that my colleague John C. Alden just now informed me that
recent N.C.B.A. literature admits that withholding agents are specifically
defined by statute to be liable for federal income taxes. For the record, I have not yet read your
literature on this subject, and honestly heard about the literature for the
first time from John C. Alden.
Thank you
very much for your consideration.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
copies: John
Pleasant
Brett
Brough
other
interested parties
MEMO
TO: John C.
Alden, M.D.
FROM: Paul
Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account
for Better Citizenship
DATE: June 7,
1992
Let's combine two recent analyses into one: the "liability" question and The
Matrix "chain" of logic.
It is interesting that the only "person"
actually made liable by the statute
is a withholding agent.
When you go to the sections listed in the definition of
"withholding agent", the term "nonresident alien" is
mentioned.
When you go to the definition of "nonresident
alien", the term is defined as "not a citizen" and "not a
resident".
The terms "citizen" and "resident"
are entirely dependent on the meaning of "United States".
The definition of "United States" is dependent
on the meaning of "District of Columbia" and the "States".
The definition of "States" is dependent on the
meaning of the "District of Columbia" and "include". And so on.
Notice how the thread from "liability" takes
you right back down the same path already traversed in my original claim to the
$50,000 reward. It's like a pile of
spaghetti, only the strands merge.
That is, "include" may be expansive, but it
can only encompass territory over which the "United States" is sovereign.
For purposes of acquiring citizenship at birth, a person
is born subject to the jurisdiction of
the "United States" if his birth occurs in territory over which
the "United States" is sovereign (from Am Jur).
We end up at the same place -- sovereignty --
which vaults us into the domain of the study entitled Jurisdiction
over Federal Areas within the States (see Chapter 11 and also Becraft's
excellent brief on jurisdiction).
As you may already know, there is a large number of
cases which define the res judicata
of sovereignty. We are right where we
want to be!
MEMO
TO: John C.
Alden, M.D.
FROM: Paul
Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account
for Better Citizenship
DATE: May 28,
1992
SUBJECT: Sovereignty
and The Matrix
I want to try
some logic on you; it's an extension of
the matrix logic discussed in The Federal Zone. Let's use the following schema, in order to
develop a "chain" of logic:
c a
|----|----|
R | Rc | Ra | R
|----|----|
N | Nc | Na | N
|----|----|
c a
Use capital letters to identify one matrix dimension,
and small letters to identify the other matrix dimension.
Now, take an
index card and cover up row 1 (the "Resident" row). This leaves only row 2 (the
"Nonresident" row), columns 1 and 2.
If you are a "Nonresident", then it is important to know
whether you are a "citizen" or not.
If you are a "citizen", then you are an "Nc" and you
pay tax on your worldwide "income".
If you are not a "citizen", then you are an "alien"
and you are an "Na". The
definition of "citizen" is therefore pivotal.
Now, move the
index card so it covers only column 2 (the "alien" column). Whether you are a "Resident"
citizen ("Rc") or a "Nonresident" citizen ("Nc"),
you are still a "citizen" and you pay tax on your worldwide
"income" regardless of where you "Reside". The definition of "citizen" is
again pivotal.
Once again,
move the index card so it covers only row 2 (the "Nonresident"
row). Whether you are a Resident
"citizen" ("Rc") or a Resident "alien"
("Ra"), you are still a "Resident" and you pay tax on your
worldwide "income" regardless of your status. Now the definition of "Resident"
becomes pivotal.
Finally, move
the index card so it covers only column 1 (the "citizen"
column). If you are an
"alien", then it is important to know whether you are a
"Resident" or not. If you are
a "Resident", then you are an "Ra" and you pay tax on your
worldwide "income". If you
are not a Resident, then you are an "Na". The definition of "Resident" is again pivotal.
We deduce from the above that the definitions of
"citizen" and "Resident" are both pivotal. Are these two definitions related in any
way? Yes, they both refer to the same
thing, namely, the "United States".
If you are not a "citizen" of the "United States",
then you are an alien with respect to
the "United States". If you
are not a "Resident" of the "United States", then you are a
Nonresident with respect to the
"United States". The definitions
of "citizen" and "Resident" thus pivot around the same
term: "United States".
Although
Becraft's essay does an excellent job of describing the jurisdiction of
the "United States", it lacks the necessary rigor to define precisely
the status of its "citizens".
As a result, his discussion of tax "subjects" is vague and
confusing (e.g., "aliens here,
citizens abroad"). This is
surprising, since our logic proves that the terms "citizen" and
"Resident" both pivot around the meaning of "United States",
the jurisdiction of which Becraft
appears to understand quite well, but the citizens
of which Becraft appears to misunderstand.
His confusion might have been eliminated by better research into the
exact definition of "citizen".
Compare his
discussion of tax "subjects" with the key we have found in American
Jurisprudence:
"A person is born subject to the
jurisdiction of the United States, for purposes of acquiring citizenship at
birth, if his birth occurs in territory over which the United States is sovereign ...."
I keep coming back to this statement, because it is so
clear and unequivocal. It's too bad
that Becraft didn't quote this definition and incorporate it into his
treatise. A "citizen of the United
States" is a person who was either born or naturalized in the "United
States" and is also subject to its jurisdiction. Thus, you are a "citizen of the United States" if you
were born in the "United States" and you are subject to its
jurisdiction. You are also a "citizen
of the United States" if you were naturalized in the "United
States" and you are subject to its jurisdiction. Pure logic allows for the following two
permutations: (1) you were born in the
"United States" but you are not now subject to its jurisdiction
and (2) you were naturalized in the "United States" but you are
not now subject to its jurisdiction.
"Expatriation" is the legal way of accounting for these two
permutations.
There are
three official definitions of "United States", only two of which are
singular nouns (the nation and the federal zone). Using grammatical rules, the term "its jurisdiction"
can only apply to the nation or to the federal zone, but not to the 50 States
(because the 50 States are plural).
So, we have to choose between the nation and the federal zone, and the
best way to do so is to understand the meaning of "sovereign" as used
above. The terms "citizen"
and "Resident" pivot around the meaning of "United States",
and the term "United States" pivots around the meaning of
"sovereign". Clearly, that
territory over which the "United States" is sovereign becomes
logically and absolutely fundamental to the whole discussion.
Having come
this far, the door is now open to Becraft's excellent treatise on jurisdiction,
and to the myriad of cases which define the territory over which the
"United States" is sovereign.
The cases all demonstrate that this territory does NOT include the 50
States. (I am not aware of a single
case which found otherwise.) Therefore,
the term "United States" is NOT the nation in this context, because
the 50 States belong, without question, to the nation. The logic is not only correct; it also conforms to the intent of the
Constitution.
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
May
18, 1992
Charles L. Harrison
Corresponding Secretary
Monetary Realist Society
c/o general delivery
St. Louis, Missouri
Postal Zone 63131/tdc
Dear Charles:
I am writing
in response to a statement that is made in your bulletin for April 1992 in the
article entitled "He Didn't Do It;
I Saw Him with My Own Eyes!".
This article makes the following statement:
"... the XVIth Amendment was never properly
ratified by the states, and thus, there IS no income tax!"
This statement is incorrect because it is a non sequitor. Enclosed please find a collection of essays which examine this
notion in depth. With all due
respect to authors Benson and Beckman, and to the leaders of Patriot groups
around the country, this assertion is not only misleading, but also the cause
of much unnecessary confusion among the membership, and would-be membership, of
these groups. I believe that, if you
take the time to review the logic in the enclosed papers, you will come to see
why there can be an income tax without the 16th Amendment.
In "The
Insular Cases" that were decided at the turn of the century, 12 years
prior to the so-called 16th Amendment, the Supreme Court gave its blessing to a
doctrine which I have called "territorial heterogeneity" in my recent
book entitled The Federal Zone.
In exercising its exclusive authority over the federal zone, Congress is
not subject to the same constitutional limitations that exist inside the 50 states. Specifically, Congress is not required to
apportion direct taxes levied inside the federal zone, with or without a 16th
Amendment.
For reasons
like this, the areas that are inside and outside the federal zone are
heterogeneous with respect to each other.
This difference results in a principle of territorial
heterogeneity: the areas within (or inside) the federal zone are
subject to one set of rules; the areas without (or outside) the federal zone
are subject to a different set of rules.
The Constitution rules outside the zone and inside the 50 States. The Congress rules inside the zone and
outside the 50 States.
The 50 States
are, therefore, in one general class, because all constitutional restraints upon Congress are in force throughout
the 50 States, without prejudice to any one State. The areas within the federal zone are in a different general class, because these same constitutional
restraints simply do not limit Congress inside that zone. This principle of territorial heterogeneity
is documented in detail in Chapters 12 and 13 of The Federal Zone: Cracking
the Code of Internal Revenue. It stems from our pivotal finding that the
IRC is a "municipal statute", the territorial extent of which is the
federal zone. Congress is the
"City Hall" for the federal zone.
Now, there
certainly are a host of reasons to believe
that a failed 16th Amendment nullifies the federal income tax. Among these reasons are statements in the Federal
Register by Commissioners of Internal Revenue, and other written
communications which have issued from the Internal Revenue Service over the
years, that the 16th Amendment is the federal government's general authority to
tax the incomes of individuals and corporations. If you are building a reliance defense, the Federal Register
statements are certainly a good place to start, because of the legal status
extended to notices that are published therein.
Nevertheless,
given the huge mass of evidence which seriously impugns its ratification, in the
face of which Congress has now fallen silent, the act of declaring the 16th
Amendment ratified was an act of outright fraud by Secretary of State Philander
C. Knox in the year 1913. Therefore, it
is not surprising that succeeding officials in the federal government, like
Donald C. Alexander in the year 1974, might also be victims of this fraud,
because the work of Benson and Beckman was not published until the year
1985. It is entirely possible that IRS
officials were acting in good faith when they told America, for so many years,
that the 16th Amendment was their required authority. That's how sinister Knox's fraud actually was. However, a failed 16th Amendment does not mean
that Congress now has no authority whatsoever to levy direct taxes on incomes,
particularly when those incomes derive from sources that are situated inside territory over which Congress has
exclusive legislative jurisdiction, i.e.,
the federal zone.
I sincerely
hope that this letter, and the enclosed materials, do provide you with a
satisfactory clarification of the 16th Amendment and the real constitutional
implications of its failure to be ratified.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
enclosures
Memo
TO: Friends,
Neighbors, Colleagues
and all
interested people
FROM: Paul
Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account
for Better Citizenship
DATE: April
8, 1992
SUBJECT: The
"Key"
In the course
of doing further research for the next edition of The Federal Zone, I
was directed by the work of author Lori Jacques to investigate the reference
work American Jurisprudence. I
was delighted to find a definition which provides the "key" we have
all been looking for. This key provides
yet more dramatic support for the major jurisdictional thesis of The Federal
Zone, namely, that the Internal Revenue Code is a municipal statute and
"citizens of the United States" are those who are born or naturalized
into this municipal jurisdiction.
Congress is the "City Hall" for the federal zone. Read the following very carefully:
Sec. 1420. -- Who is born in United States and subject to
United States jurisdiction
A
person is born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, for purposes
of acquiring citizenship at birth, if his birth occurs in territory over which
the United States is sovereign, even though another country provides
all governmental services within the territory and the territory is
subsequently ceded to the other country.
[!!!]
[3A Am Jur 2d, page 1419]
Note that the
term "United States" is used in its singular sense, that is,
"... territory over which the United States is
sovereign". This is crucial
evidence to support my argument that the term "United States", as used
in the IRC, refers to the second of three official definitions of that
term by the U.S. Supreme Court. Note,
in particular, the pivotal word "sovereign",
which controls the entire meaning of this passage. The federal zone is the area over which Congress
is sovereign; it does not include the
50 States because Congress is not sovereign over the 50 States. Chapter 11 in The Federal Zone is
dedicated to discussing sovereignty in
depth. My thesis is bolstered even
further by the qualifying phrase "... even though ... the territory is
subsequently ceded to the other country."
Governmental sovereignty over any territory is relinquished when that
territory is ceded to another
country, but not before. (See Chapter 11 for details.) An
area of land joins the federal zone if and only if one of the 50 States cedes
that land to Congress.
Now refer to
the definition of "citizen of the United States" as published in the
Code of Federal Regulations for the Internal Revenue Code:
(c) Who is a citizen. Every person born or naturalized in the
United States and subject to its
jurisdiction is a citizen.
[26 CFR 1.1-1(c), emphasis added]
Notice the
singular sense of "its jurisdiction" in this regulation. If a person is naturalized in the "United States", he is automatically
"subject to its jurisdiction", because the Constitution
authorizes Congress to legislate rules for immigration and naturalization. On the other hand, a person is born "subject to its
jurisdiction" if his birth occurs in territory over which the "United
States" is sovereign.
Therefore, a person is born subject to the jurisdiction of the
"United States" if his birth occurs inside the federal zone.
Notice also
that the letter "c" in "citizen" is in lower case. This is the case that is used in the
word "citizen" throughout the
Internal Revenue Code and throughout the regulations. Those who argue against the upper/lower case
distinction are overlooking this remarkable consistency, spanning more than
8,000 pages of law and regulations.
Such amazing consistency could never have happened by accident; the odds against such an accident are
astronomical. We must discount all
references to "Citizen" in the first word of any sentence,
because English grammar requires that it be capitalized in that position. The other occurrences of "Citizen"
are found in the first word of heading phrases, for example:
(b) Citizens
or residents of the United States liable to tax.
[26 CFR 1.1-1(b)]
Whatever ambiguity
this usage may create is totally eliminated by the statutory definition of
"United States" in the IRC.
It is now conclusive that the term "United States", as defined
in the IRC, is the federal zone.
The above
citation from American Jurisprudence is the key we have all been looking for:
it is succinct, unequivocal, and razor sharp. It is the key which unlocks the chains that bind our freedom, the
chains which now belong on the Congress of [belonging to] the united States of
America.
Account for Better Citizenship
c/o general delivery
San Rafael, California state
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
April
7, 1992
Free State Constitutionists
c/o general delivery
Baltimore, Maryland
Postal Zone 21228/tdc
Dear Free State Constitutionists:
I have
recently received from you a document entitled:
I hereby accept this challenge, in good faith and with a
sincere intent to get to the bottom of this mess we call federal income
taxation. A document very similar to
yours has been disseminated by the Save-A-Patriot Fellowship for some years.
Your document
is erroneous because it is based on obsolete technology and an evident failure
to penetrate the intentional deceptions which are built into the Internal
Revenue Code and its regulations. See
enclosed documents. For example, your
Fact #1 states:
RESIDENTS OF THE STATES OF THE UNION ARE
NOT REQUIRED BY LAW TO FILE FORMS 1040 AND THEY ARE NOT LIABLE FOR THE PAYMENT
OF A TAX ON "INCOME" UNLESS THEY ARE WITHHOLDING AGENTS.
This statement is erroneous because all "U.S.
citizens" are liable for federal taxes on their worldwide income,
regardless of where they "reside" and even if they are "residents of the States". I assume by "States" you mean the
50 States of the Union. See 26 CFR
1.1-1 et seq. Congress has the power to delegate to the
Secretary of the Treasury the authority to issue regulations which have the
force and effect of law. Therefore, it
is somewhat misleading to argue that the statute does not contain this or that
specific provision when the regulations do.
Moreover, if
a "resident of the States" should receive dividends from stocks
and/or interest from bonds issued by "domestic" corporations, the
income derived therefrom would be included in the quantity "gross
income" as defined at IRC 872(a).
The payor of the dividends or interest is the "withholding"
agent, not the recipient. This is explained clearly in Treasury
Decision 2313. Frank Brushaber declared
himself a citizen of the State of New York, and a resident of the Borough of
Brooklyn, in the city of New York. As
such, T.D. 2313 designated him a nonresident
alien. Any other allegations about his citizenship and residence assume facts
that were not in evidence.
For your
information, I have enclosed a number of other letters, and a memorandum to
individuals at the Save-A-Patriot Fellowship.
I have heard nothing from them in response to my memorandum.
I have also enclosed an order form for my recently
published book entitled The Federal Zone: Cracking the Code of Internal Revenue. The following succinct statement is directly
over the target (which explains to me why we are getting so much flak about our
understanding of the statute and its regulations):
3A Am Jur 1420, Aliens and Citizens,
explains: "A Person is born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States,
for purposes of acquiring citizenship at birth, if his birth occurs in
territory over which the United States is sovereign ..."
[quoted in A Ticket to Liberty,
November 1990, page 32]
This statement, in and of itself, has enough power to
unlock the entire puzzle of federal income taxation. When you understand sovereignty as it applies to federal and
State jurisdiction, you will own the key.
And then you can share this key with others. You would expect the government to create a flood of propaganda
and other diversions in order to distract everyone from the core of their
deception. This core is found in the
statutory definitions of "State" and "United States".
The
constitutional authority for the IRC is 1:8:17 and 4:3:2. The Supreme Court gave its blessing to a
legislative democracy inside the federal zone in the case of Downes v.
Bidwell (see enclosed).
Accordingly, within the federal zone, Congress is not restrained by the
apportionment rule for direct taxes, nor by the uniformity rule for indirect
taxes. The "majority" rules
inside the federal zone, not the constitution.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
enclosures
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
March
27, 1992
Bill Conklin
N.C.B.A.
c/o general delivery
Denver, Colorado state
Postal Zone 80231/tdc
Dear Bill:
This is my
sincere attempt to claim the $50,000 Reward which you have recently publicized
in newspapers around the country.
Before I detail my claim, I wish to express my solemn intent to rebate
$49,999 back to the N.C.B.A., in the event that I earn the reward. Thus, you will owe me $1.00 if I win, and I
will gladly pay you $1.00 if I lose. By
the way, who are the judges in this contest?
Are they unbiased? Are they
federal?
1. What statute
makes Bill Conklin liable to pay an income tax?
Before I can
address this question, I need to know your answers to the following two
questions:
(a) Are you a "citizen of the United
States"?
(b) Are you a "resident of the United States"?
If your answer to either of these questions is YES, then
you are liable for federal taxes on the income which you derive from worldwide
sources, as follows:
In general, all citizens of the United
States, wherever resident, and all resident alien individuals are liable to the
income taxes imposed by the Code whether the income is received from sources
within or without the United States. ...
As to tax on nonresident alien individuals, see sections 871 and 877.
[26 CFR 1.1-1(b)]
If you have any question as to the meaning of the term
"citizen of the United States", then base your answer on the
following definition:
Every person born or naturalized in the
United States and subject to its jurisdiction is a citizen.
[26 CFR 1.1-1(c)]
If you are not
a "citizen of the United States", then you are an alien with respect to the "United
States". If you have any question as to the meaning of "resident
alien", then base your answer on the following definition:
Definition of Resident
Alien and Nonresident Alien. ‑‑
(1) In General. ‑‑ For purposes of
this title (other than subtitle B) ‑‑
(A) Resident
Alien. ‑‑ An alien individual shall be treated as a
resident of the United States with respect to any calendar year if (and only if)
such individual meets the requirements of clause (i), (ii), or (iii):
(i) Lawfully
Admitted for Permanent Residence. ‑‑ Such individual is a
lawful permanent resident of the United States at any time during such calendar
year.
(ii) Substantial
Presence Test. ‑‑ Such individual makes the election provided
in paragraph (3).
(iii) First Year Election. ‑‑
Such individual makes the election provided in paragraph (4).
[IRC 7701(b), emphasis added]
If you are
not resident, then you are nonresident.
Accordingly, if you are not a "citizen of the United States"
and you are not a "resident of the United States", then you are a
"nonresident alien" by definition:
(B) Nonresident
Alien. ‑‑ An individual
is a nonresident alien if such individual is neither a citizen of the United
States nor a resident of the United States (within the meaning of subparagraph
(A)). [see above]
[IRC 7701(b), emphasis added]
If you are a
nonresident alien as defined, then you are liable for federal taxes on your
"gross income" as defined:
(a) General Rule. -- In the case of a nonresident
alien individual, except where the context clearly indicates otherwise, gross
income includes only --
(1) gross income which is derived from sources
within the United States and which is not effectively connected with the
conduct of a trade or business within the United States, and
(2) gross income which is effectively connected
with the conduct of a trade or business within the United States.
[IRC 872(a)]
If you are
unclear what is meant by the term "United States", you may utilize
the general definition found in the Internal Revenue Code, as follows:
(9) United States. -- The term "United
States" when used in a geographical sense includes only the States and the
District of Columbia.
[IRC 7701(a)(9)]
If you are
unclear what is meant by the term "States" in this definition of
"United States", you may utilize the definition found in the Internal
Revenue Code, as follows:
(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.
If you are
unclear about the operative meaning of the term "include" in the
above definition of "State", you may utilize the following clarification
of the terms "includes" and "including", as follows:
(c) 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)]
You will note that the term "include" is not
mentioned in the definition of "includes" and "including"
at 7701(c). However, words importing
the plural include and apply to the singular form of those words:
Section
1. Words denoting number, gender, and
so forth.
In determining the meaning of any Act of
Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise -- words importing the
singular include and apply to several persons, parties or things; words importing the plural include the
singular;
[1 U.S.C. 1]
Thus, the
definition of "State" also applies to the meaning of
"States", and the definition of "includes" also applies to
"include". The phrase
"It includes ..." is singular in syntax; the phrase "they include ..." is plural in syntax. Thus, the term "include" when used
in the IRC shall be deemed to include other things otherwise within the meaning
of the term defined. Therefore, the
meaning of "State" is not restricted to the District of
Columbia. To determine what other
things are otherwise within the meaning of the term defined, see the following:
(g) United
States. The term "United
States" when used in a geographical sense includes any territory under the sovereignty of the United States. It includes the states, the District of
Columbia, the possessions and territories of the United States, the air space
over the United States, and the seabed and subsoil of those submarine areas
which are adjacent to the territorial waters of the United States and over
which the United States has exclusive rights, in accordance with international
law, with respect to the exploration and exploitation of natural resources.
[26 CFR 1.911-2(g)]
Thus, based upon the preceding, you may define the
"United States" to consist only of the following constituent
components:
(1) District of
Columbia ......................... Federal State
(2) Commonwealth
of Puerto Rico .................. Federal State
(3) Virgin
Islands ............................... Federal State
(4) Guam
......................................... Federal State
(5) American
Samoa ............................... Federal State
(6) Northern
Mariana Islands ................ Federal Possession
(7) Trust
Territory of the Pacific Islands .. Federal Possession
Inclusive of the aforementioned Federal
States and Federal Possessions, "exclusive federal jurisdiction" also
extends over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature
of one of the Fifty States, in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of
Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings.
[see 1:8:17 and 4:3:2 in U.S.
Constitution]
Therefore,
you may, as I have done, define the territory under the sovereignty of the
"United States" to consist of the District of Columbia, the federal
territories and possessions, and the enclaves ceded to Congress by acts of
State Legislatures (such as military bases and the like). I have coined the term "Federal
Zone" to refer to all territory which is under the sovereignty of the
"United States". This
interpretation conforms to the second of three Supreme Court definitions of the
term "United States", as follows:
The term "United States" may be
used in any one of several senses. It
may be merely the name of a sovereign
occupying the position analogous to that of other sovereigns in the
family of nations. It may designate the territory over which the sovereignty of the United
States extends, or it may be the collective name of the states which are
united by and under the Constitution.
[Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt,
324 U.S. 652]
[emphasis added]
To summarize,
you are liable for federal taxes on income derived from worldwide sources if
you are either a "citizen of the United States" or a "resident
of the United States" as those terms are defined above. If you are neither, then you are a
nonresident alien and, as such, you are liable for federal taxes on all income
which is derived from sources within the United States (as defined above), and
on all income which is effectively connected with the conduct of any
"United States" trade or business.
For example, if you are employed by the federal government, your pay
comes from a source inside the United States (as defined). Similarly, if you receive dividends from
bonds issued by the federal government, or by corporations chartered in the
District of Columbia (i.e.,
"domestic" corporations), this "income" derives from a
source that is within the United States (as defined) and it is taxable. See Treasury Decision 2313 for a clarification
of the taxability of bond interest and stock dividends issued by domestic
corporations to nonresident aliens.
If you are unclear as to the meaning
of the term "income", please understand that the Supreme Court has
instructed Congress it cannot by any definition it may adopt conclude the
matter (of defining income), because Congress cannot by legislation alter the
Constitution, from which alone it derives its power to legislate, and within
whose limitations alone that power can be lawfully exercised. Even though the 16th Amendment was never
ratified and the word "income" is not found in the Constitution,
Congress has continued to obey this prohibition. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has issued numerous official
definitions of the term "income", perhaps the most famous of which is
the decision which issued this prohibition, namely, Eisner v. Macomber,
252 U.S. 189. The Supreme Court has had
to define "income" so many times, it decided that the definition was
finally settled in Merchant's Loan & Trust v. Smietanka, 255 U.S.
509.
Finally, the 16th Amendment is not the
constitutional authority for the IRC.
That authority issues from 1:8:17 and 4:3:2 in the U.S.
Constitution. The IRC is a
"municipal" statute which is not affected by either the apportionment
rule or the uniformity rule in the Constitution. Think of Congress as "City Hall" for the federal
zone. Congress has exclusive legislative authority within the federal zone (see Downes
v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244, which is discussed in the attached memorandum to
staff members of the Save-A-Patriot Fellowship). The operant "rule" that applies to the IRC is majority rule. If you want to change the IRC, then change
the composition of the Senate and House of Representatives.
2. How can Bill Conklin file a tax return
without waiving his Fifth Amendment protected Rights?
Sign your
name with the following phrase above your signature:
with
explicit reservation of all my unalienable rights and without prejudice to any
of my unalienable rights UCC 1-207
In order to inform the world as to the meaning of this
phrase, you may opt to attach an explanation like the following:
My use of the phrase "WITH EXPLICIT
RESERVATION OF ALL MY RIGHTS AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE UCC 1-207" above my
signature on this document indicates: that I explicitly reject any and all
benefits of the Uniform Commercial Code, absent a valid commercial agreement
which is in force and to which I am a party, and cite its provisions herein only to serve notice upon ALL agencies
of government, whether international, national, state, or local, that they, and
not I, are subject to, and bound by, all of its provisions, whether cited
herein or not; that my explicit
reservation of rights has served notice upon ALL agencies of government of the
"Remedy" they must provide for me under Article 1, Section 207 of the
Uniform Commercial Code, whereby I have explicitly reserved my Common Law right
not to be compelled to perform under any
contract or commercial agreement, that I have not entered into knowingly, voluntarily, and intentionally; that my explicit reservation of rights has
served notice upon ALL agencies of government that they are ALL limited to
proceeding against me only in harmony with the Common Law and that I do not,
and will not accept the liability associated with the "compelled"
benefit of any unrevealed commercial agreements; and that my valid reservation of rights has preserved all my rights and prevented the loss of
any such rights by application of the concepts of waiver or estoppel.
Put simply,
if you are signing a tax return, you are entering a commercial agreement with
the "United States".
Government officials are bound by the Uniform Commercial Code to
preserve your rights unless you waive any of them with knowingly intelligent
acts, done with sufficient awareness of the relevant circumstances and likely
consequences (see Brady v. U.S., 397 U.S. 742, 748 (1970)). This places government officials on notice
that they must disclose in advance
all terms and conditions attached to that commercial agreement. Your explicit reservation of rights prevents
the loss of any of your rights, including your Fifth Amendment protected
right against self-incrimination, by application of the concepts of waiver or
estoppel.
Finally, per
28 U.S.C. 1746, if you are a nonresident alien, you should modify the perjury
jurat on all IRS forms by indicating that you are making your affirmation
"without the United States, under the laws of the United States of
America". I have attached the
operative statute, for your information.
Note also the Form 1040X and 1040NR instructions for foreign
addresses. If you do not follow these
instructions, the "United States" is entitled to presume that
you have a "domestic" address and that you are, therefore, "resident"
in the "United States" as defined.
If you have
any questions about the above, and/or you wish additional clarification, please
don't hesitate to contact me in writing at the above address. Copies of The Federal Zone: Cracking the
Code of Internal Revenue have
already been forwarded to John Voss, Sharon Voss, and Brett Brough. Much additional clarification of my answers
in this letter can be found in that book.
Thank you
very much for your interest in the Internal Revenue Code.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
enclosures
copies: John
Voss
John
Pleasant
Brett
Brough
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
March
29, 1992
The Sovereign Advisor
Common-Law Service Center HQ
3rd Judicial District
c/o general delivery
Sacramento, California state
Dear Sovereign Advisor:
I was very
happy to receive a complimentary copy of The Sovereign Advisor recently from
a friend and colleague in the freedom movement. Please accept my qualified praise for your first edition, the
December Issue "91". I am
writing to share with you some of the many thoughts which occurred to me as I
was reading this first issue.
First of all,
I am alarmed by what I consider to be a glaring contradiction which is evident
in your newsletter. On page 2 in the
article entitled "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Liftoff!", you state:
There are several groups out there that
are deliberately trying to keep you within the system by claiming you are an American Citizen, this is a false and
misleading term. ... Now if you are or claim to be an American Citizen and you are located within any one of the states
of the union you are a federal citizen, subject to the municipal laws of the
district of columbia [sic].
On page 6, in
the article entitled "Is the United States Guilty of Genocide?" you
state:
The State of California was required to
have its own Citizens, who were first, State Citizens, then as a consequence of
State Citizenship were American Citizens,
known as Citizens of the United States, (Capitol [sic] "C") there
were [sic] no specific class as this, but for traveling and protection by the
United States government while out of the country, they were generally called Citizens of the United States. (capital "C")
It is difficult enough to identify oneself with the
freedom movement in the United States of America
without also having to reconcile the positions of various organizations which
contradict each other. It is entirely
impossible to reconcile those sections of your newsletter which flatly
contradict each other.
Second, the
former paragraph quoted above states that there are several groups "out
there" that are deliberately trying to keep us within the system by
claiming that we are American Citizens.
I strongly object to this statement, for several reasons. Your statement implies that you are privy to
the motivations of individuals and groups who make this claim, when you are
not. Unless people have actually
revealed their motivations to you, I don't see how you can be so privy to those
motivations. Such a statement in your
newsletter suggests a desire on your part to convince readers that you have all
the answers, and that others in the freedom movement do not. This sounds more like crass commercial
advertising than serious legal scholarship, and it does serious damage to your
overall credibility.
I, for one,
have been known to utilize the term "American Citizen" and I have not
done so with the purpose of keeping myself and others "within the
system" as you put it. If I am not
an American, then I do not know what I am. I have also distributed a great deal of written materials, among
them an affidavit of revocation, which utilizes the term "American
Citizen" by defining it clearly to mean a "free sovereign natural
born Citizen per 2:1:5 in the U.S. Constitution". I would certainly hope that you would have
the courtesy to extend your respect to any of us who take the time to define
our terms with care, and not accuse us of trying to keep people "in the
system", even though our choice of definitions may not agree with yours.
Since our
nation has been known as the United States of America at least since the U.S. Constitution was ratified, your
definition of "American Citizens" as federal citizens is misleading
and confusing. There is a popular,
colloquial sense in which we are ALL Americans. I would hesitate to recommend that any Americans stop using that
term to identify themselves, particularly when The Sovereign Advisor
obviously cannot make up its own mind about the meaning of "American
Citizens".
Elsewhere in your newsletter, you
state:
An American Citizen is an Indian who
leaves the reservation; a U.S. Citizen
residing outside the District of Columbia in one of the federal judicial
districts; an alien residing in one of
the several states; a State Citizen
residing outside of the several states of the union.
In this statement, did you mean to say that an American
Citizen is a "U.S. Citizen" or a "U.S. citizen"? Your use of the phrase "residing
outside the District of Columbia" is also confusing. The distinction that is made between the
terms "resident" and "nonresident" at IRC 7701(b)(1)
suggests that one can be either a "U.S. Citizen" or a
"U.S. citizen", regardless of whether one is a
"resident" in the District of Columbia or not. One attribute is a birth status; the
other attribute is a location status.
Note, in particular, your own citation of Cook v. Tait, which
stated that "citizens of the United States wherever they are resident"
are subject to the income tax, which is based upon citizenship of the United
States. The phrase "wherever they
are resident" is very revealing in this context.
IRC Section 7701(b)(1)(B)
makes it very clear that one is an "alien" with respect to the "United States" if and only if one is
not a "citizen of the United States". You have used the term "alien"
without defining it, and without proper citations in case law. (See Treasury Decision 2313.) The definition found in the IRC makes it
very clear that one is an alien if and only
if one is not a "citizen of the United States". Therefore, the term "alien" as
defined encompasses all of the following: State Citizens, Citizens of foreign
countries like France, and beings from other planets. Very simply, you are an "alien" if you are not a
"citizen", and you are a "nonresident" if you are not a
resident (see IRC 7701(b)(1)(A)-(B)).
Allow me to offer the following clarifications. I define an "American Citizen" to
mean a sovereign State Citizen. (You
are free to disagree with this definition, but bear with me for the moment,
please.) As such, a sovereign State
Citizen is identifiable by the term "U.S. Citizen", which is
an abbreviated way of saying "Citizen of the United States of
America", or "Citizen of one of the 50 States of the
Union". The term "United
States" in this context means the 50 States of the Union, united by the
Constitution.
A sovereign
State Citizen is not a "citizen
of the United States" (which is another way of saying "U.S. citizen")
because the "United States" in this
context means the subjects and jurisdiction over which Congress has exclusive
legislative authority. In order to
solve a very large number of terminology problems, I refer to this jurisdiction
as "The Federal Zone", namely, the areas of land over which the
Congress has exclusive legislative authority.
These areas of land consist of the District of Columbia, the federal
territories and possessions, and all federal enclaves ceded to Congress by acts
of the State Legislatures. The
authority to have exclusive jurisdiction over these areas of land issues
from 1:8:17 and 4:3:2 in the U.S. Constitution. You may choose to disagree with this interpretation of the term
"exclusive", but in doing so you are disagreeing with the Supreme
Court of the United States (see Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244
(1901)). The authority for the IRC is not the so-called 16th Amendment,
despite statements to that effect which have been published in the Federal
Register by former Commissioners of Internal Revenue.
Accordingly,
an "alien residing in one of the several states" is a "nonresident
alien" with respect to the
"United States" as defined in the IRC, that is, with respect to The Federal Zone, if he was born in one of the
50 States. An "alien residing
in one of the several states" is a "resident alien" with respect to the "United
States" as defined by the IRC, i.e.,
with respect to The Federal Zone, if
he was born in a foreign country like France and he was lawfully admitted for
permanent residence. Notice the
phrase "lawfully admitted for permanent residence". Birth status and location status create four
different cases: resident citizen,
nonresident citizen, resident alien, and nonresident alien.
Congress has
jurisdiction over immigration and naturalization; Congress does not have jurisdiction over sovereign State
Citizens, because They created the Constitution, and the Constitution created
Congress. I presume that you are using
the term "several states" to mean the 50 States, even though you have
not capitalized the word "states".
I prefer to use the lower-case "states" to refer to federal
territories and possessions and upper-case "States" to refer to the
50 Sovereign Members of the Union.
The phrase
"State Citizen residing outside of the several states of the union"
is also ambiguous, because it does not identify whether this "State
Citizen" is residing inside The Federal Zone, or inside a foreign country
like France. It makes a
difference. If this "State
Citizen" resides inside The Federal Zone, then he is a "resident
alien" by definition (see substantial presence test at
7701(b)(1)(A)). If he resides inside a
foreign country like France, then he is a "nonresident alien" with respect to The Federal Zone, but he
is still a "Citizen of the United States of America" and, as such,
Congress does have jurisdiction over him as long as he resides therein. He could request the protection of the U.S.
State Department, for example, by seeking help from an American embassy, and his status as a "Citizen of the
United States of America" would entitle him to that protection.
Finally, I am
very concerned about the poor state of grammar, spelling and punctuation in
your newsletter. Any organization which
claims to know a technical subject like law, and which claims to know it well
enough to publicize a newsletter on a specialized aspect of law, should be
willing to embrace the minimum standard for language accuracy. You have made a big issue of upper and lower
case letters, then you refer to the seat of government and "the municipal
laws of the district of columbia".
When the District of Columbia is obviously at issue here, you should
know better than to refer to the first letter in "Citizen" as
"Capitol C", when the correct term is "capital C". Then you refer to "capital C"
immediately after referring to "Capitol C". (Is it possible that your staff is infiltrated?) The Congress conducts its business in the
"Capitol" building; upper
case letters are referred to as "capital" letters. If you are attempting to write in an
expository style, then do everything to insure that your exposition is clear,
unequivocal and precise. Otherwise, you
run the risk that a competing group will criticize you for being motivated by an intent to equivocate in
your newsletter, when you are not so motivated (as far as I can tell).
Please accept
these criticisms in the constructive spirit in which they are made. The issues which you have raised in your
newsletter are just too terribly important to risk any loss of credibility
through contradictions and substandard English. Our language is rich and powerful enough to accommodate the most
exacting requirements of any discipline.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
March
17, 1992
Louis Watson
International Tax Technology
c/o general delivery
San Diego, California state
Postal Zone 92128/tdc
Dear Lou:
Thank you for
the time and energy that went into your presentation in Sparks, Nevada last
Friday evening. I have been debating
whether or not to write you about my experience there. Since I am still thinking about it, now four
days later, I am taking the chance that you will read this letter with an open
mind and an honest interest in what I have to say.
Please bear
in mind that, at least twice during your lecture, you invited the audience to
challenge anything you were saying.
Unfortunately for me, when I took you up on your offer, your response
was anything but receptive. In fact,
after my first question, your volume increased dramatically and your tone of
voice became defensive and harsh. It is
for this reason that I feel I am taking a chance that you may not read this letter with an open mind
and an honest interest in what I have to say.
Let me begin
with a somewhat technical point which, as it turns out, is representative of
the many problems we all experience with the IRC. As you already know, the word "include" and its several
variations are utilized in many key definitions within the IRC. After much research and writing on the
subject, I personally believe that it begs the question to make our point with
a partial quotation from Black's Law Dictionary. If it does anything, such a partial reading
exposes our own biases, more than anything else. Fortunately, we can't afford, nor do we need bias to win our argument
with the IRS and to convince the general public of the validity of our
position. The following is the complete
definition of "include" from Black's, Sixth Edition:
Include. (Lat. inclaudere,
to shut in, keep within.) To confine
within, hold as in an inclosure, take in, attain, shut up, contain, inclose,
comprise, comprehend, embrace, involve.
Term may, according to context, express an enlargement and have
the meaning of and or in addition to, or merely specify a
particular thing already included within general words theretofore used. "Including" within statute is
interpreted as a word of enlargement or of illustrative application as
well as a word of limitation.
[emphasis added]
Notice, in
particular, that this definition permits both the expansive as well as
the restrictive meanings. For this
reason, it is misleading to quote only the first definition, "to confine
within ...", when we attempt to decipher the IRC definitions of
"State" and "United States". Moreover, the statute itself manifests an expansive intent when
it defines "includes" and "including" as follows:
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)]
I find it
quite fascinating that the word "include" is not mentioned in this
definition. Are we therefore justified
in arguing that "includes" and "including" are expansive,
but "include" is restrictive?
This is not an idle question, because the word "include" is
used in the definition of "State" at 7701(a)(10), and the word
"includes" is used in the definition of "United States" at
7701(a)(9). Black's doesn't help
us here, because it embraces both the
expansive and restrictive meanings. How
do we resolve this ambiguity?
One could
argue that "includes" is the singular form of the verb, while
"include" is 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. An entry in the Code of
Federal Regulations of 1961 explains how plural forms include the singular, and
vice versa:
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 170.59, revised as of January
1, 1961]
On the basis
of this regulation, therefore, one is justified in arguing that
"include" is also expansive because it is merely the plural
form of "includes", which is expansive per 7701(c). I believe that this same rule is found in
Title 1 of the U.S. Code, but I can't quite put my finger on the citation just
now.
It would be
nice if this were the end of the story, but unfortunately for us, it is
not. There are other published rules
which produce different results. One
well established rule of statutory construction is the rule of inclusio unius est exclusio alterius. 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 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.
Now, the word
"include" is omitted from the expansive definition of
"includes" and "including" found at 7701(c), is it
not? Using the above rule, we are
permitted to draw an irrefutable inference that the word "include"
was omitted or excluded because it was intended
to be omitted or excluded. Well, if
"include" is not among the list of terms which are to be given an
expansive meaning, can we infer therefrom that it must be given a restrictive
meaning instead? If so, why?
Another rule
which raises even more questions is the "ejusdem generis" canon,
defined in Black's 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]
Is California
in the same general class as the District of Columbia? Is Puerto Rico in the same general class as
California? One of the major points of
my book is to distinguish the 50 States from the federal zone by using a
principle which I call "territorial heterogeneity". The 50 States are in one general 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
general class, because these same constitutional restraints simply do not limit
Congress inside that zone (see Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244).
This line of reasoning
allows for an expansive definition of "include", but expansive only
up to a point, and not beyond. What
is that point? Refer now, if you
would, to the start of the IRC section on definitions, which begins as follows:
When used in this title, where not
otherwise distinctly expressed or manifestly incompatible with the intent
thereof --
[IRC 7701]
So, if an
expansive definition of "include" results in applying the IRC to the
50 States, have we not produced a result that is "manifestly incompatible
with the intent thereof"? There
are no provisions for apportioning the direct taxes levied by the IRC, and the
Constitution still requires that direct taxes be apportioned. This fact is dramatically reinforced by the
17,000 State-certified documents which have been assembled by Red Beckman and
Bill Benson to prove that the so-called 16th Amendment was never ratified. It cannot have been the intent of the IRC to
violate the Constitution. Just how do
we resolve this apparent conflict? You
already know the answer: the
territorial scope of the IRC is the federal zone; the political scope of the IRC is the set of persons who are
"citizens" of that zone (whether those persons are natural born,
naturalized, or "artificially born" per the 14th Amendment).
We could
spend even more time reviewing the numerous decisions of the Supreme Court
which have adopted either expansive or restrictive definitions of
"include" and its many variations in order to arrive at those
decisions. I am now convinced that this
is a waste of time, because it doesn't settle the debate; it only aggravates the debate. If I leave you with any one single point, I
want to stress that the IRC utilizes words that have a long, documented history
of semantic confusion.
"Include" and its many variations are among those words:
This word has received considerable discussion in
opinions of the courts. It has been productive of much controversy.
[Treasury Decision 3980, Vol. 29]
[January-December, 1927, page 64]
[emphasis added]
Accordingly,
I am delighted if you agree with the main thesis of The Federal Zone,
that is, the principle of territorial heterogeneity. But I am also delighted if you disagree with this thesis, because
in doing so, your disagreement constitutes undeniable proof of a parallel
thesis of The Federal Zone, namely, that the IRC is null and void for
vagueness. The "void for
vagueness" doctrine is deeply rooted in our right to due process (under
the Fifth Amendment) and our right to know the nature and cause of an accusation
(under the Sixth Amendment). The latter
right goes far beyond the contents of any criminal indictment.
The right to
know the nature and cause of an accusation starts with the statute which any
defendant is accused of violating. A
statute must be sufficiently specific and unambiguous in all its terms, in
order to define and give adequate notice of the kind of conduct which it
forbids. If it fails to indicate with
reasonable certainty just what conduct the legislature prohibits, a statute is
necessarily void for uncertainty, or "void for vagueness" as it is
usually phrased. Any prosecution which
is based upon a vague statute must fail together with the statute itself. A vague criminal statute is unconstitutional
for violating the 6th Amendment.
For your
information, I have enclosed some additional materials which supplement the
arguments I have made in this letter.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
enclosures
copies: Chris
Wilder
Michael
Thomas
Red
Beckman
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
July
24, 1991
Church of Scientology International
c/o general delivery
Los Angeles, California state
Postal Zone 90028/tdc
Dear Church of Scientology:
Please accept
my sincerest praise for the courage and dedication you have shown by publishing
a full-page advertisement in the July 3, 1991 issue of USA Today. Your ad, "We Believe A Fair Tax Is
Worth Fighting For", was very professional, very informative, and very
convincing.
I am writing
to take issue with the contents of paragraph three of that ad, which reads:
This door opened a crack in 1913 with the passage
of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which allowed an income tax to be
instituted. This door has since swung
wide and Americans again are subjected to an unfair tax system.
Attached
please find a copy of my letter dated March 1, 1991 to Mr. David Miscavige,
author of the article "Freeing the U.S. From the IRS" which appeared
in Freedom magazine, May 31, 1990.
In my letter to Mr. Miscavige, I did my best to explain briefly how the 16th Amendment was never ratified; it was merely "declared" ratified
by Secretary of State Philander C. Knox in the year 1913, in the face of
serious evidence impugning the entire ratification process.
Moreover,
Congress never "passed" the 16th Amendment, because Congress has
never been empowered to amend the Constitution. Congress merely passed "resolutions" proposing that the
State legislatures ratify the text of a proposed amendment. Since three-fourths of the States failed to
ratify the text of the proposed amendment, the proposal never became a
law. Therefore, as law-abiding
Americans, we must act as if "the bill never became a law and was as
completely a nullity as if it had been the act or declaration of an
unauthorized assemblage of individuals," to quote an Illinois State court.
This issue is
not a minor legal technicality. It is
misleading to publish a statement that "the 16th Amendment was passed in
1913," without also referring to documented historical facts which prove
that the proposed amendment was simply not ratified. This issue is a major constitutional question. If any attempt to amend the Constitution
fails to obey the rules for amending that document, which rules are found in
the Constitution itself, then the text of that attempt cannot in any way be
considered a part of the Constitution and must be considered null and void.
The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the
land, and any statute, to be valid, must be in agreement with it, and therefore
with all relevant provisions for amending it.
It is impossible for both the Constitution and a law violating it to be
valid; one must prevail. That "one" is the
Constitution. This is succinctly stated
as follows:
The general rule is that an
unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in reality
no law, but is wholly void and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the
time of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding
it. An unconstitutional law, in legal
contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it
purports to settle just as it would be[,] had the statute not been enacted.
Since an unconstitutional law is
void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights,
creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no
protection, and justifies no acts performed under it ....
A void act cannot be legally
consistent with a valid one. An
unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to
the fundamental law of the land, it is superseded thereby.
No one is bound to obey an
unconstitutional law, and no courts are bound to enforce it.
[Sixteenth American Jurisprudence]
[Second Edition, Section 177]
[emphasis added]
I invite you
also to review the enclosed letter to the Save‑A‑Patriot
Fellowship, in which I stress the legal importance of being historically
correct about the so-called "16th Amendment". The preponderance of
historical evidence proves that the proposal to amend the Constitution failed
to obtain the approval of 36 States, and as such never achieved the status of a
ratified Amendment and never became an Article of that Constitution. It is not now a law, and never was a law,
not in this country, not in all of recorded history, not on this planet.
Thank you for
your consideration.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
March
1, 1991
Mr. David Miscavige, Chairman
Religious Technology Center
Freedom Magazine
c/o general delivery
Los Angeles, California state
Postal Zone 90028-6329/tdc
Dear Mr. Miscavige:
I enjoyed
reading your article entitled "Freeing the U.S. From the IRS" which
appeared in the May 31, 1990 issue of Freedom magazine.
The article
cites numerous excellent reasons for abolishing federal income taxes. I agree with every one of your
conclusions. I cannot, however, agree
with all of your "facts".
Specifically, in your first paragraph, you write,
Since 1913, when an income tax was made
possible by the passage of the 16th Amendment, Americans have faced a filing
deadline 78 times. When the constitutional
amendment was passed, voters were promised this new tax would be fairly
administered.
I cannot
agree with this statement, because the evidence which is available to me
indicates that the 16th Amendment was
never lawfully ratified. It was
merely "declared" ratified by the U.S. Secretary of State in 1913,
Philander Knox, in the face of serious evidence impugning the entire
ratification process.
Enclosed
please find a detailed summary of the evidence against the 16th Amendment, and
a brief analysis of the legal and economic implications of acting on these
facts. That is, as law‑abiding
Americans, we must act as if "the bill never became a law and was as
completely a nullity as if it had been the act or declaration of an
unauthorized assemblage of individuals", to quote an Illinois State court.
I would enjoy
hearing from you on this important question.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
April
10, 1991
Dr. Lois Callahan, President
College of San Mateo
c/o general delivery
San Mateo, California state
Postal Zone 94402/tdc
Dear Dr. Callahan:
I am writing to
file a formal complaint against the offices of television station KCSM, which
are located in Building 9 on your campus.
Last evening,
I personally witnessed an act of political censorship by the staff of station
KCSM. My colleague, Mr. Godfrey Lehman,
had previously received a written invitation to appear on the KCSM program
"Legal Currents" at 7:30 p.m.
The scheduled topic was "Income Tax Filing: What are your rights? Where will the money go?" In addition to a cover letter, the
invitation included two maps with directions to KCSM offices, a temporary
parking permit, and wardrobe guidelines.
I personally drove Mr. Lehman and accompanied him to this scheduled
event.
After our
arrival, the second scheduled guest arrived, Mr. Larry Wright, Public Affairs
Officer with the Internal Revenue Service in San Francisco. Upon learning of KCSM's plans to air the two
guests together, Mr. Wright objected to the presence of Mr. Lehman on the same
program. He cited what he termed a
long-standing policy of the IRS to avoid all confrontations over the tax law
outside the court room. A KCSM staff
member was also present to hear Mr. Wright's objections. This staff member tried in vain to persuade
the IRS agent to modify his position.
At this
point, the KCSM staff member left the room in order to obtain a decision from
her management. She returned some
minutes later to inform all of us that Mr. Wright would be allowed to appear on
the program, but that Mr. Lehman would not
be allowed to appear on the program. At
this point, Godfrey Lehman and I obtained permission to view the "Legal
Currents" program on a television monitor which was already installed in
the office where we had been meeting.
The aired program offered no explanation for Mr. Lehman's absence, offered
no apology for the abrupt change of scheduled programming, and made no
reference whatsoever to Mr. Godfrey Lehman, despite the fact he had already
informed numerous colleagues of his scheduled appearance.
Now that I
have summarized the relevant facts of this event, I wish to express my outrage
at such a blatant act of political censorship by the management of television
station KCSM. When a private Citizen is
flatly denied access to public broadcast media, while government agents are
allowed to prevail, do we not thereby undermine the very foundations of our
constitutional republic? Have we not
emphatically and dramatically denied that Citizen his right to freedom of
speech, a right which is explicitly guaranteed by the First Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States? Even
if the station can be persuaded at some future date to abide by some
"equal time doctrine", how can we begin to assess the real damage to
that Citizen's precious civil rights?
When government distortion and intimidation are sponsored without
challenge, are we not paving a sure path away from educated electorates, in the
direction of police state tactics and totalitarian control?
I am asking these questions because I require
answers to these questions. Is it, or is it not the policy of the
administration of the College of San Mateo to encourage this brand of media
censorship? on the campus of a public
educational institution? in the offices
of a publicly licensed broadcast station?
Are you now aware that government "public relations" agents
have been allowed to prevail over the written invitation to a private Citizen,
a published author and a recognized constitutional authority on the federal tax
law?
I would greatly appreciate your immediate attention to this important matter. If I can assist you in any way to investigate this incident, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
copy: Board of
Trustees,
San Mateo
County Community College District
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
March
18, 1991
Mr. Peter Gabel, President
New College of California
c/o general delivery
San Francisco, California state
Postal Zone 94102/tdc
Dear Mr. Gabel:
I was shocked
to read the recent San Francisco Chronicle article about the threatened
IRS seizure of one of your classroom buildings. With this letter, I hope to make you fully aware of the powerful
forces which can be made available to defend your college against this unjust
and illegal attack. Permit me to get
right to the major points:
Our research
into the U.S. Constitution, Congressional taxing powers, and the Internal
Revenue Service has uncovered a mountain of material evidence which supports
the following conclusions:
1. Wages are not taxable income, as the term is
clearly and consistently defined by several key decisions of the U.S. Supreme
Court that remain in force today.
2. The U.S. Constitution authorizes Congress to
levy "direct taxes" on private property, but only if those taxes are
apportioned across the 50 States.
3. The IRS now enforces the collection of
"income taxes" as direct taxes without apportionment, and cites the
16th Amendment for its authority to do so.
4. The 16th Amendment, the so-called
"income tax" amendment, was never lawfully ratified by the required
36 States, but was declared ratified by the U.S. Secretary of State in the year
1913.
5. The 16th Amendment could never have done
away with the apportionment rule for any direct taxes if it never became a law
in the first place.
The
documentary substantiation for these conclusions is found in the attached
formal petition, dated December 24, 1990, to Congresswoman Barbara Boxer, my
Representative in the Congress of the United States. Rep. Boxer has, to date, failed to respond to this formal
petition. For this reason, we have
recently filed a formal Request for Investigation by the Marin County Grand
Jury, a copy of which is attached for your review. We have requested the Marin County Grand Jury:
1. to investigate possible obstruction of
justice and misprision of felony by Rep. Barbara Boxer for her failure, against
a spoken promise before hundreds of witnesses at Pt. Reyes Station on August
22, 1990, to examine the material evidence of felony fraud when U.S. Secretary
of State Philander C. Knox declared the 16th Amendment ratified,
2. to subpoena or otherwise require
Representative Boxer to explain, under oath, why she and her staff have failed
to answer our formal, written petition for redress of this major legal
grievance with agents of the federal government,
3. to review the material evidence against the
so-called 16th Amendment which we have assembled and are prepared to submit in
expert testimony, under oath, to the Marin County Grand Jury.
Mr. Gabel, we
have developed a network of constitutional and legal experts whose resources
can be made available to assist you on very short notice. As you can infer for yourself from the
attached materials, we see the IRS attack on your college as an illegal and
unconstitutional act by an agency of the Federal Reserve System. This attack is designed to harass and
intimidate an educational institution dedicated to the goals of social responsibility
and progressive change. These goals are
inimical to the purposes for which the IRS was established. You must fully appreciate that the Internal
Revenue Service is not a service to the American people. It is not a service to the U.S. Government. It is a service to the Federal Reserve
System, which is not an agency of the federal government.
After you
have had a chance to review this letter and its attachments, may I recommend
that we meet privately to discuss your situation and to consider the several
ways in which we can bring our collective expertise to bear upon it. For example, I am ready on short notice to
present the results of our research in a guest lecture to your law students and
faculty, at no charge to the College.
Similarly, I am prepared to share with you the material evidence against
the 16th Amendment which I currently hold in my possession. I should think that a fight for the very
survival of your college would provide an excellent motivation for one exciting
moot courtroom drama for all faculty members, students, and staff.
Please feel
free to call me at your earliest convenience.
If I have not heard from you by this coming Friday, I will contact your
office by telephone to discuss this letter and hopefully arrange a
meeting. Thank you very much for your
consideration, and good luck!
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
attachments
copies: selected
colleagues
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
March
25, 1991
Marion McEwen
FIJA California
c/o general delivery
Hayward, California state
Postal Zone 94541/tdc
Dear Marion:
I obtained
your name and address from the Special Conference Issue of The FIJA Activist. I am writing you to request any advice or
assistance you may be able to provide to me in a matter of utmost importance to
the general welfare of all American Citizens.
In the summer
of 1990, I personally received material evidence that the 16th Amendment, the
so-called income tax amendment, was never lawfully ratified. This evidence indicates that the act of
declaring the 16th Amendment "ratified" was an act of outright fraud
by then Secretary of State Philander C. Knox.
In August of 1990, I brought this evidence to the attention of
Congresswoman Barbara Boxer, my representative in the Congress of the United
States. In front of several hundred
witnesses at a community meeting sponsored by Rep. Boxer, she did agree to
examine the evidence to which I refer.
During the next several months, I heard nothing from Rep. Boxer's office
on this matter.
In December
of 1990, I personally prepared a formal, written petition to Rep. Barbara
Boxer, reminding her of her promise to examine the material evidence against
the 16th Amendment, and reminding her also of her solemn oath of office, by
which she swore to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United
States. A copy of this formal, written
petition is enclosed, for your review.
To date, I have received no responses from Rep. Boxer nor from any of
her staff on this matter.
Accordingly,
on March 11, 1991, I filed a formal Request for Investigation by the Marin
County Grand Jury. As stated in the
summary section of our completed form, we requested the Grand Jury to do the
following:
1. investigate possible obstruction of justice
and misprision of felony by Rep. Barbara Boxer for her failure, against a
spoken promise before hundreds of witnesses, to examine the material evidence
of felony fraud when U.S. Secretary of State Philander C. Knox declared the
16th Amendment ratified,
2. to subpoena or otherwise require Rep. Boxer
to explain, under oath, why she and her staff have failed to answer our formal,
written petition for redress of this major legal grievance with agents of the
federal government,
3. to review the material evidence against the
so-called 16th Amendment which we have assembled and are prepared to submit in
expert testimony, under oath, to the Marin County Grand Jury.
In a written
response dated March 13, 1991, the Marin County Grand Jury declined to proceed
with an investigation. Their reasons
were stated as follows:
In the panel's opinion that subject matter
was not within its jurisdiction. We
serve in a watchdog manner over local public departments and agencies. As a result of Proposition 115 this Grand
Jury is apparently relegated to civil matters, whereas indictment and
accusation cases are to be handled by a special criminal Grand Jury.
These reasons were cited, despite a recent newspaper
article which described the Grand Jury as follows:
The Grand Jury operates under the auspices
of the Superior Court and has the authority to investigate the personnel and
operations of any county, city or local government agency as well as the
conduct of any elected, appointed or
hired official.
[Coastal Post, March 4, 1991, p. 3, emphasis
added]
I do
understand from your newsletter that there is a parallel FIGJA (grand jury)
organization. Because I intend to write
to them directly, I would appreciate it very much if you could do more than
merely refer this letter to them. For
example, I would be very interested to know if there is any way I can
successfully persuade the Marin County Grand Jury to reconsider their decision
to decline the investigation which I have requested.
Please
understand that I have no personal vendetta against Rep. Boxer, nor do I wish
to create an embarrassing situation for her.
I agree with her positions on a number of important public policy
issues, and wish her the best of luck in her bid for a seat in the Senate of
the United States. Nevertheless, she is
my elected Representative in the Congress of the United States, and the First
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does guarantee my right to petition the
Government for a redress of grievances.
If Rep. Boxer
has anyone to fear, it is Rep. Boxer herself.
If she or her staff have, in fact, chosen to ignore this matter, then
she is failing to do the job she was elected to do, and she may in fact be
guilty of obstructing justice and misprision of felony (see attached).
For your
information, I am also planning to write to Supervisor Gary Giacomini of the
Marin County Board of Supervisors. In the
March 11, 1991 issue of the Coastal Post, Supervisor Giacomini was
quoted to say:
"It's a bad time for us that are in
government with no money coming from Washington or the State. Nineteen
years ago when I got started, the
federal government paid 34 percent of
the county budget. Now they pay 7
percent. There are dues to pay for
the deficit in Washington and dues to pay for war," he explained.
[emphasis added]
To many, there is little if any connection between
federal income taxes and the current fiscal squeeze on state and local
governments, or the poor state of the national economy in general. On the contrary, the research I have done
during the past 9 months now convinces me that the connection is direct. Federal income taxes are used to make interest
payments to the Federal Reserve banks, and their collection agency is the
Internal Revenue Service. The IRS is
not a service to the people of the United States. It is not a service to the government of the United States. It is a service to the Federal Reserve
System, a private credit monopoly described as "one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known"
by Congressman Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the U.S. Banking and Currency
Commission for some 22 years. Witness
McFadden's statement published in the Congressional Record of June 10, 1932:
Mr. Chairman, we have in this
country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the
Federal Reserve banks. The Federal
Reserve Board, a Government board, has cheated the Government of the United
States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the
national debt. The depredations and
iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks acting
together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several
times over. This evil institution has
impoverished and ruined the people of the United States; has bankrupted itself, and has practically
bankrupted our Government. It has done
this through the defects of the law under which it operates, through the
maladministration of that law by the Federal Reserve Board, and through the
corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.
Some people think the Federal
Reserve banks are United States Government institutions. They are not Government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which
prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and
their foreign customers; foreign and
domestic speculators and swindlers; and
rich and predatory money lenders. In
that dark crew of financial pirates there are those who would cut a man's
throat to get a dollar out of his pocket;
there are those who send money into States to buy votes to control our
legislation; and there are those who
maintain an international propaganda for the purpose of deceiving us and of
wheedling us into the granting of new concessions which will permit them to
cover up their past misdeeds and set again in motion their gigantic train of
crime.
The
manipulations of the Federal Reserve System and their effects on the entire
American economy have been shrouded in considerable secrecy for too many years
now. This secrecy has been a conscious
and deliberate feature of its corrupting influence on officials in all branches
of the federal government. To
illustrate my point, I have now personally witnessed documents which prove that
a federal grand jury in Orem, Utah issued two formal indictments against the
Federal Reserve System, but those indictments were subsequently obstructed by
the Department of Justice and by the Federal judiciary. These documents show that the first
indictment was issued on or about February 16, 1982. The second indictment was issued on or about July 7, 1982. This documentation can be made available to
you upon request.
I sincerely hope that this letter has provided you with
a glimpse of just how serious and widespread a problem the so‑called 16th
Amendment has created for millions of Americans, a problem that now extends
through two whole generations of our brief history as a nation. As I myself have come to appreciate the true
essence of this problem, I have also come to the conclusion that the millions
of hard-working Americans burdened by this scourge now deserve an honest
explanation. This explanation can only
be forthcoming if we, the people, exercise our unalienable right to correct a
government which has now drifted so far off course, it hardly resembles the
constitutional republic it was designed to be.
I do honestly
believe that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of our
rights, it is also our right to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new
government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers
in such form, as to us, the U.S., shall seem most likely to effect our safety
and our happiness.
To this end,
I dedicate my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor. Won't you please join me?
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
copy: Lowell A.
Airola, Foreperson
Grand Jury
of Marin County
Gary
Giacomini, Member
Marin
County Board of Supervisors
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
April 29, 1991
Dianne Bast
Heartland Institute
c/o general delivery
Chicago, Illinois
Postal Zone 60605/tdc
Dear Dianne:
At the
request of my colleague, Kirby Ferris, enclosed please find a collection of
papers and letters which summarize our continuing research and political action
with respect to the 16th Amendment and related subjects.
It has been
difficult obtaining reliable information on the Federal Reserve System, because
this syndicate has been shrouded in almost total secrecy since its creation. Even though I take exception to the
religious prejudice he sometimes exhibits, author Eustace Mullins does appear
to have the inside track on the origins and development of this syndicate. In particular, the enclosed quote from A
Writ for Martyrs is the most succinct statement of "The Problem"
that I have been able to find anywhere.
Interestingly,
the enclosed quote by Eustace Mullins is entirely consistent with statements by
Beardsley Ruml in the January 1946 issue of American Affairs
magazine. Mr. Ruml, Chairman of the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York at that time, was the person who devised the
income tax withholding system. In this
article, he wrote,
By all odds, the most important single
purpose to be served by the imposition of federal taxes is the maintenance of a
dollar which has stable purchasing power over the years.
In other
words, federal income taxation is the counterbalance to the flood of paper
money which pours into the economy as the Fed creates it "out of thin
air". Without this counterbalance,
inflation would skyrocket. "...
[W]ithout the use of federal taxation all
other means of stabilization, such as monetary policy and price controls
and subsidies, are unavailing,"
concluded Ruml [emphasis added].
What does all
this mean? It means that income taxes
have nothing to do with the funding of government services. The report of the Grace Commission confirmed
the same finding. All individual income
tax revenues go to pay for interest on the national debt, which debt is owed to
a private credit monopoly once described by Congressman Louis T. McFadden as
"one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known".
Therefore, as
you study the many problems that exist with the so-called
"ratification" of the 16th Amendment, try to realize the true motives
which underpin the chicanery that occurred in that ratification process. For example, the Governor of the State of
Arkansas vetoed the resolution to amend the Constitution. The Kentucky Senate Journal recorded a vote
of 9 FOR and 22 AGAINST the resolution.
An Illinois State court ruled that "it never became a law, and was
as much a nullity as if it had been the act or declaration of an unauthorized
assemblage of individuals."
Nevertheless, the U.S. Secretary of State in the year 1913, Philander C.
Knox, "declared" it ratified anyway.
It is no coincidence that this act by Secretary Knox occurred in the
same year the Federal Reserve Act was passed by Congress.
For your
information, I have also enclosed a copy of a recent bibliography which we have
assembled on the subjects of income taxes, the 16th Amendment, and the Federal
Reserve System. These references are an
excellent place to continue your education.
If there is anything else we can do for you, please don't hesitate to
contact us.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
copy: Kirby
Ferris
enclosures:
bibliography
assembled papers
c/o
general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
May
29, 1991
Producers
60 Minutes
c/o general delivery
New York, New York
Postal Zone 10019/tdc
Dear Producers:
I am writing
this letter at the request of my colleague, Mr. Godfrey Lehman. In his letter to you dated May 21, 1991,
Godfrey has already written an excellent summary identifying the major problems
which his research has discovered with federal income taxes and the Internal
Revenue Service.
Do you have any interest in developing a
special segment to discuss the mass of new evidence which now seriously impugns
the ratification of the 16th Amendment, the so-called income tax amendment?
The material
evidence in our possession proves that the 16th Amendment was never lawfully
ratified. This evidence indicates that
the act of declaring it "ratified" was an act of outright fraud by
Secretary of State Philander C. Knox in the year 1913. You may already know that fraud has no
statute of limitations.
To date, I
have already filed four formal petitions for redress of this major grievance
with the Congress of the United States.
Three were addressed to Barbara Boxer, the Representative for the
Congressional district in which I reside.
The fourth petition was addressed to Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, Chairman of
the House Committee on Ways and Means.
Copies of these petitions are enclosed, for your review, in addition to
a collection of letters and other materials.
To many,
there is little if any connection between federal income taxes and the current
fiscal squeeze on state and local governments, or the disintegration of the
national economy in general. On the
contrary, the research I have done during the past year now convinces me that
the connection is direct.
Federal
income taxes are used to make interest payments to the Federal Reserve banks,
and their collection agency is the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS is not a service to the people of
the United States. It is not a service
to the government of the United States.
It is a service to the Federal Reserve System, a private credit monopoly
described as "one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever
known" by Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency
Committee, 1927-1933.
The
manipulations of the Federal Reserve System and their effects on the entire
American economy have been shrouded in considerable secrecy for too many years
now. This secrecy has been a conscious
and deliberate feature of its corrupting influence on officials in all branches
of the federal government.
This secrecy has also made it very difficult to obtain
reliable information about the Federal Reserve. Even though I take exception to the religious prejudice he
sometimes exhibits, author Eustace Mullins does appear to have the inside track
on the origins and development of this syndicate. In particular, the enclosed excerpt from A Writ for Martyrs
is the most succinct statement of "The Problem" that I have been able
to find anywhere. In his recent book The
Shadows of Power, author James Perloff puts it this way:
The year 1913 was an ominous one --
there now existed the means to loan the government colossal sums (the
Federal Reserve), and the means to exact repayment (income tax). All that was needed now was a good reason
for Washington to borrow. In 1914,
World War I erupted on the European continent.
America eventually participated, and as a result her national debt
soared from $1 billion to $25 billion.
I sincerely
hope that this letter has provided you with a glimpse of just how serious and
widespread a problem the so‑called 16th Amendment has created for
millions of Americans, a problem that now extends through two whole generations
of our brief history as a nation. As I
myself have come to appreciate the true essence of this problem, I have also
come to the conclusion that the millions of hard-working Americans burdened by
this scourge now deserve an honest explanation. This explanation can only be forthcoming if we, the people,
exercise our unalienable right to correct a government which has now drifted so
far off course, it hardly resembles the constitutional republic it was designed
to be.
Please feel
free to contact me at any time concerning this proposal for "60
Minutes" coverage of the 16th Amendment fraud. Thank you very much for your consideration.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
enclosures
c/o
general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
May
29, 1991
Mr. Dennis Bernstein
Radio Station KPFA
c/o general delivery
Berkeley, California state
Dear Mr. Bernstein:
Do you have
any interest in developing a segment to discuss the mass of new evidence which
now seriously impugns the ratification of the 16th Amendment, the so-called
income tax amendment?
The material
evidence in our possession proves that the 16th Amendment was never lawfully
ratified. This evidence indicates that
the act of declaring it "ratified" was an act of outright fraud by
Secretary of State Philander C. Knox in the year 1913. You may already know that fraud has no
statute of limitations.
To date, I
have already filed four formal petitions for redress of this major grievance
with the Congress of the United States.
Three were addressed to Barbara Boxer, the Representative for the
Congressional district in which I reside.
The fourth petition was addressed to Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, Chairman of
the House Committee on Ways and Means.
Copies of these petitions are enclosed, for your review, in addition to
a collection of letters and other materials.
To many,
there is little if any connection between federal income taxes and the current
fiscal squeeze on state and local governments, or the disintegration of the national
economy in general. On the contrary,
the research I have done during the past year now convinces me that the
connection is direct.
Federal
income taxes are used to make interest payments to the Federal Reserve banks,
and their collection agency is the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS is not a service to the people of
the United States. It is not a service
to the government of the United States.
It is a service to the Federal Reserve System, a private credit monopoly
described as "one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever
known" by Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency
Committee, 1927-1933.
The
manipulations of the Federal Reserve System and their effects on the entire
American economy have been shrouded in considerable secrecy for too many years
now. This secrecy has been a conscious
and deliberate feature of its corrupting influence on officials in all branches
of the federal government.
This secrecy
has also made it very difficult to obtain reliable information about the
Federal Reserve. Even though I take
exception to the religious prejudice he sometimes exhibits, author Eustace
Mullins does appear to have the inside track on the origins and development of
this syndicate. In particular, the
enclosed excerpt from A Writ for Martyrs is the most succinct statement
of "The Problem" that I have been able to find anywhere. In his recent book Shadows of Power,
author James Perloff puts it this way:
The year 1913 was an ominous one -- there
now existed the means to loan the government colossal sums (the Federal
Reserve), and the means to exact repayment (income tax). All that was needed now was a good reason
for Washington to borrow. In 1914,
World War I erupted on the European continent.
America eventually participated, and as a result her national debt
soared from $1 billion to $25 billion.
I sincerely
hope that this letter has provided you with a glimpse of just how serious and
widespread a problem the so‑called 16th Amendment has created for
millions of Americans, a problem that now extends through two whole generations
of our brief history as a nation. As I
myself have come to appreciate the true essence of this problem, I have also
come to the conclusion that the millions of hard-working Americans burdened by
this scourge now deserve an honest explanation. This explanation can only be forthcoming if we, the people,
exercise our unalienable right to correct a government which has now drifted so
far off course, it hardly resembles the constitutional republic it was designed
to be.
Please feel
to contact me at any time concerning this proposal for KPFA coverage of the
16th Amendment fraud. Thank you very
much for your consideration.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
enclosures
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
July
21, 1991
Ken Ellis
Maintenance Engineer
KPFA-FM 94.1
c/o general delivery
Berkeley, California state
Postal Zone 94704/tdc
Dear Ken:
I enjoyed our
brief conversation after the last meeting of the Free Enterprise Society in
Berkeley. Enclosed is a copy of my
letter of May 29, 1991 to Dennis Bernstein.
For your
information, Lewis v. United States, 680 F.2d 1239, June 24, 1982 is the
Ninth Circuit Court decision which proves that the Federal Reserve is a private
corporation.
Two full
pages are dedicated to the details of this ruling in Alan Stang's excellent
book entitled Tax Scam, published by Mount Sinai Press, P. O. Box 1220,
Alta Loma, California 91701, telephone (714) 980-3165. Stang's mailing address is 4770 West
Bellfort, #269, Houston, Texas 77035.
Quoting Stang from page 232:
Mr. Lewis was hit by a truck owned by the
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, so he sued. The trouble was that he sued the U.S. government under the
Federal Tort Claims Act, in the belief that the bank is a government agency. The Court ruled against Mr. Lewis,
explaining that he had mistakenly named the wrong defendant, that the
government had nothing to do with it
-- and that Mr. Lewis should
have sued the Bank, which is a private corporation.
You know, if
I wished to subvert the monetary system of any country, I would arrange a secret
meeting of finance moguls, require all participants to use first names only,
shield the meeting from the scrutiny of press and public, draft legislation
which was too long for experts to understand without lengthy study, and ram it
thru Congress two days before Christmas, after donating first class travel fare
to all my opponents, glossing over dozens of major differences between the
House and Senate versions, and scheduling a vote at 1:30 in the morning, after
all my opponents were scattered to the four winds.
Those who
prefer to regard the events at Jekyll Island as an unsubstantiated conspiracy
appear, to me, very similar to those who even now retain their belief that Lee
Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin of President Kennedy. If there were no conspiracy, then why all
the evidence indicating that there was?
One can argue that some author doesn't have his facts straight because
that same author harbors a prejudice or two, but to argue this way in the face
of incriminating facts really begs the question that is raised by the facts
themselves. The secrecy alone is
something which I personally find abhorrent to our principles of due process,
representative government, and freedom of the press. If anyone can produce a credible challenge to the facts we
allege, then let's hear from them.
Until then, the facts as we know them speak for themselves. All by itself, the fraud surrounding the
16th Amendment is substantiated by 17,000 State-certified documents.
Isn't this mass of evidence enough to
justify maybe even a brief mention on a publicly funded radio station?
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
copy: Dennis
Bernstein
interested
colleagues
c/o general delivery
San
Rafael, California
Postal
Zone 94901/tdc
August
23, 1990
Editor
Point Reyes Light
c/o general delivery
Pt. Reyes Station, California state
Postal Zone 94956/tdc
Dear Editor:
On the
evening of August 22, 1990, in Point Reyes Station, Congresswoman Barbara Boxer
publicly consented to inspect personally the evidence against the 16th
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1913 Income Tax). This evidence shows that the 16th Amendment was fraudulently ratified. We applaud her courage and her willingness
to pursue the truth in this matter.
Six States
are on official federal record as opposing the 16th Amendment. If we can prove to Representative Boxer that
seven additional States were so immersed in fraudulent procedures as to nullify
their ratification proceedings, we will have produced a total of thirteen votes
against the 16th Amendment. Such proof
will effectively nullify the Income Tax in the United States of America, since
36 of 48 States were required to ratify a constitutional amendment in 1913.
Needless to
say, this is a mind-boggling assertion, but fraud has no statute of
limitations. We do not ask our
neighbors to take our claims lightly.
We do want the opportunity to prove our case to the American
people. Therefore, we will publish the
document numbers that are pertinent in the "dirty seven" States that
we have identified. Each and every one
of you will be able to request your own certified copies of these documents
from the State houses of those seven States.
Remember that
an income tax is absolutely unnecessary to finance the U.S. government. From 1787 until 1942 (when the income tax
had reached a nominal 2 percent on corporations only) our nation demonstrated
unprecedented prosperity. Ironically,
the national debt has increased as income taxes have increased. Before long, the interest on the national
debt will exceed the total income tax revenues collected by the federal
government. It doesn't take a genius to
figure out what that means.
Not one penny
of your Form 1040 check goes anywhere except into the vaults of the private
banks of the Federal Reserve System (see report of the Grace Commission). Every penny of income tax is diverted to pay
interest to bankers on the money they authorize the U.S. Treasury to print (i.e., create out of thin air) as Federal
Reserve Notes, and then LOAN to us! We
advise all American Citizens to pay very close attention as this story
unfolds. Imagine being able to raise
your own personal credit limit simply by raising your hand. The U.S. Congress does it all the time when
it passes laws to raise the federal debt limit.
Again, our thanks to Congresswoman Barbara Boxer for her
willingness to keep an open mind and to seek the truth in this matter.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell, Founder
Account for Better Citizenship
Reader’s Notes:
Reader’s Notes: