Shot In The Dark: Crushing of Dissent

December 01, 2004

Crushing of Dissent

IRS agent-turned-tax-dissenter goes to trial:

Joseph Banister, 41, a leading figure in the "tax honesty" movement, was taken into custody Nov. 19 by IRS agents and released on $25,000 bond after pleading not guilty.

Joseph Banister

A Certified Public Accountant in San Jose, Calif., Banister has been telling his clients they don't need to file federal income tax returns because the 16th Amendment, which gives Congress "power to lay and collect taxes on incomes," was never properly ratified.

He'll lose, of course. Read Vox for more.

I'm pretty convinced that the bulk of the reason for our current tax system is so the feds can dangle cases like this over our heads, lest we get uppity...

Posted by Mitch at December 1, 2004 07:26 AM | TrackBack

Comments

Please don't be parroting the rantings of Vox Day on the tax laws. The income tax is one of the worst programs ever dreamed up by the U.S. government, but claiming that it was never ratified, (whether on the "gotcha" theory of typographical differences or asserting that it never passed some states whose legislatures sure thought they ratified it) or that it doesn't cover income of people living in any state (on the notion that the 50 states aren't included in "the United States") is disingenuous and semiliterate at best.

Nick

Posted by: NickM at December 6, 2004 11:58 PM