The Double Trouble of Taxation
by Ron Paul | April 20, 2008
Texas Straight Talk
Taxes were on the forefront of many Americans’ minds this week as they scrambled to meet the April 15th deadline to file their returns. Tax policy in this country hurts taxpayers twice – once when they pay taxes, and then when the government spends the money. Americans are sick and tired of the financial burden and the endless forms to fill out. To add insult to injury, after collecting this money the government does some very detrimental things to the economy.
The burden of complying with the income tax is tremendous. Since its inception in 1913, the tax code has gone from 400 pages to over 67,000. The Tax Foundation estimates that around $265 billion dollars and 6 billion hours are spent just on compliance. That expense amounts to about 22 cents of every dollar the IRS collects. Imagine the boon to the economy if we spent that time and money expanding our businesses and creating jobs!
Aside from the direct loss of money and productivity, the funds from the income tax enable the government to do some very destructive things, such as vastly over-regulating economic activity, making it difficult to earn money in the first place. The federal government funds over 50 agencies, departments and commissions that formulate rules and regulations. These bureaucracies operate with little to no oversight from the people or Congress and generate around 4,000 new rules every year and operate at a cost of about 40 billion dollars. There are some 75,000 pages of regulations in the Federal Register that Americans are expected to know and abide by. Complying with these governmental regulations costs American businesses more than one trillion dollars per year, according to a study by Mark Crain for the Small Business Administration. This complicated system drives production to other countries and shrinks our job market here at home.
Big government is destructive when it takes your money and when it spends it. There is no economic benefit to supporting a government sector as massive as ours. In fact, this country thrived for well over 100 years without an income tax. Today, if you took away the income tax, the government would still have revenue from other sources equal to total government spending in 1990, when government was still too big. $1.2 trillion should be more than enough to fund a government operating within its constitutional confines, and that is exactly what we need to get back to.
I have introduced legislation many times to abolish the IRS and the income tax. It is fundamentally un-American to require taxpayers to testify against themselves and be considered guilty until proven innocent. Abolishing the IRS altogether would trigger an avalanche of real growth in the economy.
With these financial hard times only just beginning, this would be the most efficient and logical way to get our economy growing again, and Americans would need not dread the 15th of April every year.
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The war continues!!
TRUTH ATTACK!
NEWS FROM THE FRONT
April 22, 2008
Gary Thomason, Pres. Tom Cryer, CC&BW Pastor Joe Larson, Chaplain
OPERATION STOP THIEF!
A TREMENDOUS SUCCESS!!
TRUTH TROOPERS AND MANY OTHER FREEDOM LOVERS UNITE TO HELP INTRODUCE THE TRUTH TO MILLIONS!
734 POST OFFICES COVERED ACROSS AMERICA!!
Your phenomenal response to the call to turn the government’s theft day into an opportunity to alert millions of Americans to the tax fraud that the IRS has been perpetrating on working American households for generations has been heart-warming and is an indication that TA has the backing of patriotic Americans across the country. T-Troopers, which now include Restore the Republic (formerly AFTF) groups who accounted for over 100 post offices, mustered roughly 400 groups, some with as many as a dozen or more and some consisting of one brave and lone T-Trooper, appearing at as many post offices.
But that is only part of the picture. Many other Freedom Lovers in the Freedom Movement answered the call, swelling that number to an incredible 734 Groups!! Ron Paul Meet-up Groups, Constitution Party groups, Libertarian Party Groups, and other groups, joined by patriots that just came marching from parts unknown, signed up. They just kept coming and coming right up to the event.
Truth Attack supplied the ammunition, including signs, tips, checklists and flyers, but you Truth Troopers and the many volunteers who joined you in this project pulled it off and made this a big success. TA had projected and hoped for as many as 200 groups to participate, so when the registrations soared past 350 we ran out of signs. A rush order for another shipment of signs allowed us to send out another two hundred materials packages with signs, but the registrations kept pouring in even after it was too late for packages to be delivered before April 15. Nearly 200 more groups received emailed materials and made their own signs. Thousands and thousands of TA flyers, copies of AFTF and Republic Magazine were handed out.
Reports from these groups are almost identical. Every group we've heard from thus far reports a warm reception from the public, a chilly reception from the post office (most not knowing what to do, so they did nothing) and a rewarding sense of accomplishment afterwards. All report having a good time, keeping the event upbeat and cheerful, making exactly the kind of impression we want to make and many ended up on the local news, the ripples from the splash they made going on and on. Well done T-Troopers and thank you fellow freedom lovers!!
TA wants to post a page on Operation Stop Thief showcasing your hard work (and all the fun you had doing it). Please send us your accounts, photos and videos and examples of newspaper and television coverage of the project. Let us know how it went at your OST and what you think would make it better so both TA and other groups can benefit from your experience next year.
WHY ALERTING THE PUBLIC IS IMPORTANT—EVEN IF THEY DON'T BELIEVE THE MESSAGE RIGHT AWAY
YOUR EFFORTS CAN MAKE A GREAT DIFFERENCE TO A GREAT MANY WHETHER YOU CONVINCE AMERICA OR NOT
In a letter to an inquiring citizen an IRS official slipped up and admitted that the enforcement of the income tax as the IRS portrays it depends upon the public's believing that the IRS is acting within the law. As long as the public believes the IRS's distorted misrepresentation of the law the theft of our labor will continue unabated. Thus, the importance of raising doubts and questions in the public's collective mind. Knowing the question is the first step toward knowing the answer—what we know—that the government is NOT acting within the law.
There was a time when each of us was under the same spell. When someone told us that there is no law making us liable or that "income" does not mean what the IRS says it means we did not abandon our beliefs and accept those claims at first. Neither will the public. But when we learned there was a question we went in search of the answer. If no one had ever raised the issue we would still be just as unaware of the truth as we had been all our lives.
So, when you tell your co-worker, your neighbor, your friends at church or the guys at the barber shop (or gals at the beauty parlor) the truth about the tax laws don't be surprised or discouraged if they laugh at you (just like we all laughed at whoever told us). You've planted the seed of truth and the seed of doubt in the government's lies. The government relies on the public's undying belief that it is obeying the law and even a doubt, an awareness that the government may not be on the up and up, is enough to begin to undermine that essential element of the government's scam.
But raising those doubts is even more important for those who the government has singled out to drag away as political prisoners. Many of your fellow patriots have been and are being prosecuted for nothing more criminal than learning the truth and daring to confront the government with its lies. Many have gone and will continue to go to prison simply because jurors are convinced that the government is obeying the law so the defendant must be disobeying the law.
Every jury in every "tax crime" case goes into the courtroom believing that the law is as the government tells them. That important aspect of the case, that the defendant cannot possibly believe something other than what everyone "knows" is "true", is GIVEN, ceded in advance, by the jury. Juries are convicting their fellow Americans without one scintilla of proof that the defendant was liable for the income tax, or that the defendant was required to file a tax return, or that the defendant had "income" to start with. The government never produces any evidence that the defendant does not believe what he claims to believe, and the burden to prove that is supposed to be borne by the accuser, not by the defendant.
If a jury in an armed robbery case were shown no evidence that there was a weapon involved in the robbery would it convict the defendant of armed robbery? Of course not. Everyone owes income tax, everyone must file, all that comes in is income and, of course, the earth is flat. Juries "know" these things are "true" so require no proof of them. By raising doubts, by letting people know that there is an issue, a genuine issue, about the income tax law, juries will start to demand that the government prove its case, ALL OF ITS CASE, in "tax crime" cases.
The government cannot prove that the defendant is liable for the tax and it cannot prove that his personal earnings are income and it cannot prove that one who is not liable and has no income is under any lawful duty to file a return and bare his personal financial details to the government because none of those is true.
Irwin Schiff, Sherry Jackson and many, many more like them are in prison because a jury "knew" the earth is flat so could not believe those defendants "believed" otherwise. The jury gave the lie to the government and placed the burden on the defendant to prove his own innocence while the courts prevented him or her from showing the law to the jury so it could see for itself.
So, what you are doing is more important than what any thousand lawyers or politicians can do. You are righting the overturned "justice cart", leveling the playing field and providing the most important component in our justice system, a jury that requires the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt each and every element of the crime it is accusing one of us of having committed.
Can you think of anything more important on your list of things to do today?
TRUTH ATTACK WELCOMES
PASTOR JOE LARSON AS CHAPLAIN
DECORATED WARRIOR JOINS TRUTH ATTACK AS CHAPLAIN
What is bigger and stronger than the 800 pound American Tourister gorilla we call our federal government? We all know the answer to that question, and having that force on our side is essential if we are to succeed in this lop-sided conflict. In 1776 in the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson invoked an authority higher than that of King George to establish a right to break away from that government and to institute our own. Countless times "miracles" allowed the revolution to continue and to ultimately succeed in spite of its obvious impossibility. That greatest of all authorities is still on call, waiting for our plea.
Pastor Joe Larson has volunteered to once again present that plea for divine inspiration and guidance—even outright intervention—to free us from chains many times more burdensome than those broken in 1776. "Pastor Joe", as he prefers to be known, a former helicopter gun-ship pilot in Viet Nam, decorated for his valor, wounded in combat for his country, has devoted the remainder of his life to preaching the gospel and to restoring one of His greatest gifts, the American dream of freedom, self-determination and being dependent only upon ourselves and each other, not an indifferent and power-crazed government.
Pastor Joe has graciously agreed to serve as our chaplain and will be providing words of wisdom, encouragement and inspiration in future issues of News From the Front. Welcome Brother Chaplain and thank you for your service to our country, our Maker and our Mission.
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