Taxation of government granted privileges based on the

income derived from those privileges is not the problem.

Millions of people cowering in fear and filing and remitting payments to the government as if such tax applied to them when IT CLEARLY DOES NOT

IS THE PROBLEM.

Such mindless and stubborn refusal to acknowledge or even look at the truth has created the presumption in both the courts and the bureaucracies that EVERYONE owes the tax just because the IRS says so.

Sorry, that dog wont hunt. A tax is only owed if the LAW says so, IRS interpretations be damned. The Supreme Court has ruled not once, but TWICE on the question of the 16th amendment and the power of Congress to tax and what exactly is income.

They have stated unequivocally that the 16th amendment gave Congress NO NEW POWER of taxation, and that the amendment merely clarified that "income taxes" are indirect excises, and NOT direct taxes.

They also stated unequivocally, that the 16th DOES NOT authorize a tax on a salary [or on wages *correction see below], and that Congress has NO POWER to define "income" to mean anything OTHER THAN what it meant to the voters at the time of the adoption of the 16th amendment - which is the same definition it had in the 1909 CORPORATE TAX ACT - meaning a gain or profit derived from the exercise of a government privilege.

Exchanging your labor for money is not a privilege, it is a matter of common right, which the courts have also repeatedly stated.

So why the hell do you keep insisting on paying a tax you do not owe and then bitching about the evil government? STOP PAYING if you don't owe it or shut the hell up.

UPDATE:

Here are some additional citations to the one's I've posted in response below concerning the 1909 act and it's applicability with respect to what the court has declared "income" to mean and how that is a limitation upon Congress.

"The Treasury Department cannot, by interpretive regulations, make income out of that which is not income within the meaning of the revenue acts of Congress, nor can Congress, without apportionment, tax as income that which is not income within the meaning of the 16th Amendment."
Helvering v. Edison Bros. Stores, 133 F.2D 575

"The individual, unlike the corporation, cannot be taxed for the mere privilege of existing. The corporation is an artificial entity which owes its existence and charter powers to the state; but the individuals' Right to live and own property are natural rights for the enjoyment of which an excise cannot be imposed." Corn v. Fort, 95 S.W.2d 620 (1936)

"As has been repeatedly remarked, the corporation tax act of 1909 was not intended to be and is not, in any proper sense, an income tax law. This court had decided in the Pollock case that the income tax law of 1894 amounted in effect to a direct tax upon property, and was invalid because not apportioned according to populations, as prescribed by the Constitution. The act of 1909 avoided this difficulty by imposing not an income tax [direct], but an excise tax [indirect] upon the conduct of business in a corporate capacity, measuring however, the amount of tax by the income of the corporation".
Stratton's Independence, LTD. v. Howbert, 231 US 399, 414 (1913)

"[Income]must be given the same meaning, in all the Income Tax Acts of Congress that it was given in the Corporate Excise Tax Act, and what that meaning is has become definitely settled by the decisions of this court. In determining the definition of the word 'income' thus arrived at, this court has consistently refused to enter into the refinements of lexicographers or economists, and has approved in the definitions quoted, what it believes to be the commonly understood meaning of the term which must have been in the minds of the people when they adopted the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution." Merchants Loan & Trust v. Smietanka, 255 US 509 (1921)

"[Income is] derived--from--capital--the--gain--derived--from--capitol, etc. Here we have the essential matter--not gain accruing to capitol, not growth or increment of value in the investment; but a gain, a profit, something of exchangeable value...severed from capitol however invested or employed and coming in, being "derived", that is received or drawn by the recipient for his separate use, benefit and disposal--that is the income derived from property. Nothing else answers the description...". [emphasis in original]
Eisner v. Macomber, 252 US 189 (1920)

"Whatever difficulty there may be about a precise and scientific definition of 'income', it imports, as used here, something entirely distinct from principle or capital either as a subject of taxation or as a measure of the tax; conveying rather the idea of gain or increase arising from corporate activities."
Doyle v. Mitchell Brother, Co., 247 US 179 (1918)

And, to show the very intent of the tax being passed in 1909 incase there were any questions:

"...I therefore recommend an amendmentimposing on all corporationsan excise tax measured by 2% in the net income of such corporations. This is an excise on the privilege of doing business as an artificial entity"
President Taft, Congressional Record, June 16, 1909, Pg. 3344