Chapter 14:
Conclusions
The areas of
land over which the federal government exercises exclusive authority are the
District of Columbia, the federal territories and possessions, and the enclaves
within the 50 States which have been ceded to the federal government by the
consent of State Legislatures. This
book has referred to these areas collectively as "the federal zone" ‑‑
the zone over which Congress exercises exclusive
legislative jurisdiction, the zone over which the federal government is
sovereign. Author Ralph Whittington
itemizes the federal "states" and possessions as follows:
(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
State(s) and Federal Possessions, the "exclusive Federal
Jurisdiction" also extends over all Places
purchased by the Consent of the
Legislature of one of the Fifty State(s), in which the same shall be, for
the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful
Buildings.
[The Omnibus, page 87, emphasis
added]
In exercising
its exclusive authority over the federal zone, Congress is not subject to the
same constitutional limitations that exist inside
the 50 States. For this reason, 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 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.
Without
referring to it as such, Lori Jacques
has concisely defined the taxing effects of territorial heterogeneity as follows:
The "graduated income tax"
is not a constitutionally authorized tax within the several states; however, Congress is apparently not
prohibited from levying that type of tax upon the "subjects of the sovereign"
in the Possessions and Territories.
The definitions of "United States" and
"State" are stated "geographically to include" only those
areas constitutionally within congress' exclusive legislative jurisdiction upon whom a graduated tax can be imposed.
[A Ticket to Liberty, November 1990 edition, page
54]
[emphasis added]
It is in the
area of taxation where the restraints of the Constitution are most
salient. Congress cannot levy indirect
taxes inside the borders of the 50 States unless the tax rates are uniform across those 50 States. The mountain of material evidence which
impugns the ratification of the so-called 16th Amendment should leave no doubt
in anybody's mind that Congress must still apportion
all direct taxes levied inside the borders of the 50 States and outside the
federal zone. For example, if
California has 10 percent of the nation's population, then the State of
California would pay 10 percent of any apportioned direct tax levied by
Congress. Unfortunately, the IRS
currently enforces federal income taxes as direct taxes on the gross receipts
of individual persons without
apportionment. This results in
great tension between the law and its administration.
Similarly,
Congress is not empowered to delegate unilateral authority to the President to
divide or join any of the 50 States of the Union. Dividing or joining States of the Union can only occur with the
consent of Congress and of the
Legislatures of the States affected.
For many reasons like this, the IRC would be demonstrably
unconstitutional if it applied to areas over which the 50 States exercise
sovereign jurisdiction.
It is conclusive, therefore, that the IRC is municipal
law for the federal zone only. As the municipal authority with exclusive
legislative jurisdiction, Congress is "City Hall" for the federal
zone.
The Bill of
Rights also constrains Congress from violating the fundamental rights of
Citizens of the 50 States. These rights
include, but are not limited to, the right to work for a living, and the right
to enjoy the fruits of individual labor.
These activities are free from tax under the fundamental law.
The fundamental law is the
Constitution for the United States of America, as lawfully amended. The first 10 amendments institutionalize a
number of explicit constraints on the acts of Congress within the 50
States. The most salient of these
amendments are those that mandate due process and prohibit self-incrimination.
The Internal
Revenue Code and its regulations impose taxes on the worldwide income of United
States** citizens and United States** residents. Throughout this book, two stars "**" after the term
"United States**" are used to emphasize that the "United
States" in this context has the second of three separate and distinct
meanings.
These meanings were defined by the
Supreme Court in the pivotal case of Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt,
which is still the standing case law on this question. The high Court indicated that the Hooven
case would be the last time it would address a definition of the term
"United States". Therefore,
this ruling, and the preceding case law and law review articles on which it was
based, must be judicially noticed by the entire
American legal community.
The United
States**, as that term is used in the IRC, is the area over which Congress exercises
exclusive legislative authority; it is
the federal zone. If you are not a
United States** citizen, then you are an alien with respect to this United States**. If you are not a United States** resident, then you are
nonresident with respect to this
United States**.
Therefore, if you were born outside the federal zone, if you live and work outside the federal zone,
and if you were never naturalized or
granted residency privileges by the
federal zone, then you are a nonresident
alien under the Internal Revenue Code, by definition. Be clear that an "alien" here is
not a creature from outer space. The
term "alien" is the creation of attorneys, and so is a "citizen
of the United States", a status not even contemplated with the organic U.S.
Constitution was first drafted.
Nonresident
aliens only pay taxes on income that is derived from sources that are inside
the federal zone. According to explicit
language in the Internal Revenue Code, gross income for nonresident aliens includes only gross income which is
effectively connected with the conduct of a trade or business within the United
States**, and gross income which is
derived from sources within the United States**, even if it is not connected
with a U.S.** trade or business. Thus, employment
with the federal government produces earnings which have their source inside
the federal zone.
Similarly, unearned dividends paid to
nonresident aliens from stocks or bonds issued by U.S.** domestic corporations
also have their source inside the federal zone, and are therefore taxable. Frank Brushaber was such a nonresident
alien.
For any
federal tax liability that does exist, a nonresident alien can utilize Form
1040NR to report and remit that tax liability to the IRS. As a general rule, a nonresident alien need
not report or pay taxes on gross income which is derived from sources that are outside
the federal zone, or on gross income which is effectively connected with the
conduct of a trade or business that is outside the federal zone.
The regulations specify a key
exception to this general rule: a
return must be filed, however, by nonresident aliens engaged in any U.S.**
trade or business, whether or not
they have derived income from any U.S.** sources.
The law of
presumption has made it possible for the federal government to impose income
taxes on individuals who had no tax liability in the first place. The regulations which promulgate the
Internal Revenue Code make it very clear that all aliens are presumed to be nonresident aliens because of their
"alienage", that is, because of their status as aliens from birth.
However, through their own ignorance,
in combination with a systematic and constructive fraud perpetrated upon them
by the federal government, nonresident aliens may have filed 1040 forms in the
past, in the mistaken belief they were required to do so, when they were not required to do so by any statute or
regulation.
The receipt
of these forms, signed under internal
U.S.** penalties of perjury, entitles the federal government to presume that
nonresident aliens have "elected" to be treated as residents and/or
they have volunteered to be treated as taxpayers.
A completed, signed and submitted 1040
or 1040A form is a voluntarily executed commercial agreement which can be used
as prima facie evidence, in criminal
trials and civil proceedings, to show that nonresident aliens have voluntarily
subjected themselves to the federal income tax. This presumption was described in a decision of the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in the 1974 ruling of Morse v. U.S. which
stated:
Accordingly, when returns were filed in Mrs. Morse's name declaring income to her
for 1944 to 1945, and making her potentially liable for the tax due on that
income, she became a taxpayer within the
meaning of the Internal Revenue Code.
[Morse v. United States, 494 F.2d 876, 880]
[emphasis added]
Within the
borders of the 50 States, the "geographical" extent of exclusive
federal jurisdiction is confined to the federal enclaves; this extent does not encompass the 50 States
themselves. We cannot blame the average
American for failing to appreciate this subtlety, particularly when officials
in Congress and elsewhere in the federal government have been guilty of
constructive as well as actual fraud ever since the year 1868.
Not only are the key definitions of
"State" and "United States" confusing and vague; the term "income" isn't even
defined in the Code or its regulations, and neither is its "intent". Close examination of the Internal Revenue
Code ("IRC"), reveals that the meaning of "income" is
simply not defined, period! There is an
important reason in law why this is the case.
At a time when the U.S. Supreme Court
did not enjoy the benefit of 17,000 State-certified documents which prove it
was never ratified, that Court assumed that the 16th Amendment was the supreme
Law of the Land. In what is arguably
one of the most important rulings on the definition of "income", the
Supreme Court of the United States has clearly instructed Congress that it
is essential to distinguish between what is and what is not "income",
and to apply that distinction according to truth and substance, without regard
to form. In that instruction, the
high Court has told Congress it has
absolutely no power to define "income" by any definition it may
adopt, because that term was considered by the Court to be a part of the U.S.
Constitution:
Congress cannot by any definition it may
adopt conclude the matter, since it
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, emphasis
added]
Clearly, the
Internal Revenue Code has not distinguished between what is, and what is not,
income. To do so would be an exercise
of power which Congress has been told, in clear and certain terms, it simply
does not have.
This is a Catch-22 from which the Congress cannot
escape, without officially admitting that the 16th Amendment is not Law. Congress either defines income by statute,
and thereby exercises a power which it does not have, or it fails to define
income, thereby rendering whole chunks of the Internal Revenue Code null and
void for vagueness.
If it argues that the word
"income" is not really in the Constitution after all, because the
16th Amendment was never ratified, Congress will be free to legislate the
meaning of "income" by any definition it may adopt, but in doing so
it will admit to the world that the "amendment" is null and void.
Moreover, the
"void for vagueness" doctrine is deeply rooted in our fundamental
Right to due process (under the Fifth Amendment) and in our fundamental Right
to know the nature and cause of any criminal 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 any accusation starts with the statute which a 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 the
doctrine is called. 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 5th and 6th Amendments.
The confusion
that results from the vagueness we observe in the IRC is inherent in the
statutes and evidently intentional, which raises some very serious questions
concerning the real intent of those
statutes in the first place. The hired
lawyers who wrote this stuff should have known better than to use terms that
have a long history of semantic confusion.
For this reason, and for this reason alone, we are now convinced that
the confusion is inherent in the language chosen by these hired
"guns" and is therefore deliberate.
Could money have anything to do with
it? You bet it does.
It is clear
that there is a huge difference between the area enclosed by the federal zone,
and the area enclosed by the 50 States of the Union. No one will deny that money is a powerful motivation for all of
us. Congress had literally trillions of
dollars to gain by convincing most Americans that they were inside its revenue base when, in fact,
most Americans were outside its
revenue base, and remain outside even today.
This is deception on a grand scale,
and the proof of this deception is found in the Code itself, and its various
amendments over time.
It is quite
stunning how the carefully crafted, multiple definitions of terms like
"State" and "United States" do unlock a huge number of
statutes, a mountain of regulations, and a pile of forms, instructions and
publications that are all horribly complex, and deliberately so.
As fate would have it, these carefully crafted definitions also
expose perhaps the greatest fiscal fraud that has ever been perpetrated upon
any people at any time in the history of the world.
It is now
time for a shift in the wind. Let
justice prevail. Let no man or woman be
penalized from the oppression that results from arbitrary enforcement of vague
and ambiguous statutes that benefit the few and injure the many. The Constitution for the United States of
America guarantees our fundamental right to ignore vague and ambiguous
laws because they violate the 6th Amendment.
This is the supreme Law of the
Land. Unlike other governments
elsewhere in space and down through time, the federal government of the United
States of America is not empowered to be arbitrary.
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. This Circular admitted that chattel slavery
was doomed, so the bankers needed to invent a new kind of slaves.
These statutory slaves are now
burdened with a bogus federal debt which is spiralling out of control. In a preliminary report, the White House
budget office has 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". The final version of that accounting report upped this projection
to more than eighty percent! It
is our duty to ensure that this statutory slavery is soon gone with the wind,
just like its grisly and ill-fated predecessor.
In the long history of the world, only a
few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of
maximum danger. I do not shrink from
this responsibility -- I welcome it. I
do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or
any other generation. The energy, the
faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and
all who serve it -- and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
[President John Fitzgerald Kennedy]
[Inaugural Address, January 1961]
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Reader’s Notes: