Taxation Constitutional Amendment

Taxation Constitutional Amendment

Since the only legitimate authority that the government can have is delegated to it by the individuals governed, and no one can delegate an authority he does not have; and since no individual has moral right to force his neighbor to disclose his income, property, or sales information, he cannot delegate such authority to his government. Therefore income, property, and sales taxes are expressly forbidden.

Thus, to preserve liberty and prosperity of the people, The only sources of revenue allowed to government are these: public property user fees, and voluntary contributions.

If a poor person cannot afford to pay a user fee, he should convince a jury of his peers of that, and be relieved of the fee.

The government shall not raise a user fee above the point where more than 10% of the citizens under their jurisdiction are acquitted of it by the jury of their peers.

Explanation:

Since government gets all of its legitimate authority by delegation from the governed, the government has no authority to force anyone to do anything accept what you and I have moral right to force him to do. If you as individual have no moral right to force your neighbor to disclose his income, you cannot delegate this authority to your government to force him for you. The same goes for disclosures of sales, or property inspections. If you have no moral right to force your neighbor to disclose his sales information, or force him to reveal his property, the government has no right to force him either; because the only legitimate authority the government has is what you delegated to it, and you cannot delegate an authority you do not have!

According to this fundamental principle of liberty (and I call it the Benson Principle, please See http://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewt...p?f=19&t=12347), income, sales, and property taxes are immoral, for they require an authority the government cannot properly have, because you do not have that authority.

So the only legitimate avenues of revenue for the government that remain are public property user fees, and voluntary contributions.

The idea here is, if you use it, you pay for it.

How do you pay for police? Police can be paid from public property user fees. Plus, if you want 911 operator respond to your calls, you better pay the fee to run it, etc. [Ok. It's probably better to finance 911 operators from road and sewer user fees, or something like that. It can be decided by popular vote as long as everyone is treated equally].

What about courts? A court is a public property. If you use it, you pay for it. And offending party should carry most of the expense.

What about defense? Well, you have your citizen militias at State and local level. Federal defense can also be paid for by the States from public property user fees and from voluntary contributions. At the border, the cost of operating customs can be born by customs user fees, etc.

Privacy = Liberty.

Government hates people's privacy because it prevents them from destroying people's liberty.

1% income tax destroys 100% of your privacy, because to calculate that 1% you have to disclose to the government the ENTIRETY of your financial life; this is a complete annihilation of privacy! A sales tax gives the government the right to monitor all transactions between people. Property tax gives the government the right to inspect your property every year. And since you as individual have no moral right to force your neighbor to disclose any such information, neither has the government, for you cannot delegate an authority you do not have!

This amendment is way better than what the Founders offered. For they allowed for import and excise taxes, which means that the government can monitor EVERYTHING you do, everything you produce, everything you sell, everything you buy, to see if a certain excise tax condition was met. Besides, if they don't like a behavior or a product or a service they can just uniformly tax it with an excise tax and thus control the people. Since no private individual under jurisdiction of this government has the moral right to do any such thing, the government has no authority to do it either, because again, no one can delegate an authority they do not have.

My amendment fixes all these problems in the original Constitution.

It also has an iron clad check on the amount of the fees: if the politicians will raise a user fee too high, everyone will escape the fee through the "jury" clause of the amendment, and the government will get nothing, because the jury of peers will acquit everyone. Thus, under this amendment for a fee to be paid, the people in general have to believe it is not excessive. That's the beauty of the jury check on the government. Besides, if jury nullification is spelled out like that in black and white in the Constitution itself (in this amendment) it will be that much harder to hide this power from the people again, (which power they already have, but don't yet know it). It's all about persuasion. The more clear, explicit and persuasive the law is the more likely it will be understood and followed by the people in general, to preserve their liberty. (The need amply demonstrated by last 100 years).

So the people are in greater control here.

Thus this amendment is a triple protection for your liberty, and is based on Fundamental principles of liberty.

This brief amendment would replace the entire federal tax code. And you will have your freedom.