Now Comes The Cover-Up

Income Tax Documents Missing From National Archives

Underway: Operation “What's Left?” -- More Volunteers Needed

July 19^th: Be There!  Push Is Coming To Shove
 

After years of government stonewalling in providing answers to basic questions about the fraudulent origin and illegal enforcement of the income tax system, another layer of the tax fraud has now been uncovered: the systemic removal of key legal and historical documents from the National Archives related to the meaning of “income” within the 1916 Income Tax Act, which was adopted by the political branches following the ratification of the 16^th (Income Tax) Amendment in 1913, and the Supreme Court’s 1916 interpretation of “Income” within the meaning of the 16^th Amendment.

From the homepage of the National Archives

Why This Is So Offensive and Tyrannical?

Some People say the 16^th Amendment does not give the government the power to impose a labor tax – a direct, un-apportioned tax on an individual’s income earned from his labor, and measured by his salary, wage and compensation. Among those saying this are the United States Supreme Court, and ALL people quoted in the years just prior to and just following the adoption of the 16^th Amendment, including those quoted in the Congressional Record, Law Reviews, the Journal of Political Science and the New York Times.

Other People say the 16^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives the government the power to impose a direct, un-apportioned tax on the People’s labor, as measured by salaries, wages and compensation. Among the people saying this are lower court judges, those at the IRS and DOJ, H&R Block, tax attorneys, intimidated jurors and the news reporters who quote them.

What officials from the congressional committees, the Treasury Department and the White House were saying in their written correspondence in the years 1913-1916 would prove invaluable in resolving this conflict.
 

1913-1917

America’s current money and tax policies have their roots in the events that occurred between 1913 and 1917. In those years the political branches of the government gave America a central bank (the Federal Reserve System) and the Income Tax. Some say the income tax provides the central bank with what is referred to in the world of finance as “lender security,” removing all risk of non-payment by the government of the principal and interest on the money the central bank lends to the government by taxing and taking the “first fruits” of the labor of all Americans.

Here, in this article, we are only interested in the income tax.

Prior to the adoption of the 16^th Amendment, the taxing clauses of the Constitution gave Congress two taxing powers: 1) the power to impose uniform indirect taxes (such as the uniform excise tax on gasoline and the uniform tariff on steel; and 2) apportioned direct taxes (such as a head tax).

In 1913 the 16^th Amendment was purportedly ratified. It reads, “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

Notice, the 16^th Amendment does NOT say, “Congress shall have the power to lay and collect DIRECT taxes without apportionment”. Any reasonable person would agree that the power to impose a DIRECT, UN-APPORTIONED tax would be a new power, not granted by the original taxing clauses of the Constitution, that would forever fundamentally alter and remove one of the most powerful limitations on our government.

Eventually, the Supreme Court got around to defining the word “income” within the meaning of the 16^th Amendment -- but not before 1916.

In 1913, just months after the “ratification” of the 16^th Amendment (the Income Tax Amendment), the political branches adopted the Income Tax Act of 1913, within which the political branches deliberately stretched the constrained authority of the 16^th Amendment, by laying and collecting an UN-APPORTIONED tax directly on People’s labor as measured by their salaries, wages and compensation, AND by instituting withholding at the source.

However, in 1916, the Supreme Court brought the action of Congress and the Executive branch to a screeching halt. The Supreme Court ruled in Brushaber (and the cases bundled with it), that the 16^th Amendment gave Congress no new taxing power (a direct tax on labor without apportionment would be a new taxing power, not granted by the taxing clauses of the original Constitution), and that “income” within the constitutional limitations of the 16^th Amendment is corporate gain or profit, and passive and “unearned” income from real estate and investments. NOTE: The ability to tax passive income from investments and real estate (by nature an indirect, excise tax) was the only rationale given by those behind the ratification of the 16^th Amendment, prior to its ratification. The publicly stated aim by those proposing the 16^th Amendment was the power to tax “accumulated wealth.”

In 1916, immediately following the Brushaber decision, Congress amended the Income Tax Act, to bring the law into compliance with Brushaber. Our interpretation of the language of the 1916 Act (amended in 1917), when read together with the language of the Brushaber decision, is that the 1916 Act brought the law into compliance with Brushaber in three ways: first, by explicitly stating that the "income" being taxed under the 1913 Act is not the same as the "income" being taxed under the 1916 Act, the 1916 Act removed a tax imposed by the Act of 1913 (the direct, un-apportioned tax on labor as measured by salaries, wages and compensation); second, it outlawed the withholding of wages from the paychecks of citizens; and third, it directed the Executive Department to refund the monies withheld in 1917.

However, the political branches and the central bank were not going to give up the labor tax too easily. In Section 25 of the Federal Income Tax Act of 1916, Congress merely declared that the "income" subject to the 1913 Act was not the same “income” to be taxed under the 1916 Act. However, Congress did not go any further in defining what, specifically was taxable and what was NOT taxable. Why not? We believe the reason is that the political branches wanted to perpetuate the labor tax, which is what they have now been getting away with for 87 years.

The National Archives

The official, historical record of the political branches is maintained in the national archives by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Click here for NARA’s web site.

Warehoused in two separate facilities in the Washington DC area, are the historical records documenting the entire administrative and legislative history of the United States. Literally millions of documents record the process of governing this nation from the birth of our Republic and record, for all time, the inner workings of our servant government. The archive contains, (among many things), inter-office correspondence, legislative reports, inter-departmental memos, internal analyses, legal opinions, committee reports, etc.

The definition of “Income” within the meaning of Section 25 of the 1916 Income Tax Act would certainly be found in the correspondence of the House Ways and Means Committee and in the correspondence of Chief Counsel’s Office at the Department of Treasury for the years 1913 through 1917. For sure, the true meaning of Section 25 of the 1916 Income Tax Act would be found in that correspondence. It is inconceivable that the Treasury Department and the finance committees would not have been in the thick of all these legal developments having to do with money and taxes during 1913, when the 16^th Amendment and the 1913 Income Tax Act were passed, and in 1916-1917, when the Brushaber decision was handed down from the Supreme Court and the Income Tax Act of 1916 was passed and amended.

 

Now, A Cover-up

Last month, representatives of WTP went to the National Archives to pull the correspondence of the Office of Chief Counsel for the Treasury Department and for 1913 through 1917.

The index of records showed the records were available for 1903 through 1912 and for 1918 and after. However, the index contained the statement “No Longer Available,” for the years 1913 through 1917.

At the same time, the researchers requested the correspondence for the House Ways and Means Committee for 1916. What was received was a box with a large, but empty envelope marked “Retained.”

The researchers found additional instances of record deletions where, despite the fact the records appeared available in the Archive index – it was discovered after the record group was physically “pulled” from deep storage in the archives, that it was EMPTY.

It is inconceivable – and intolerable -- that the official records documenting the planning, strategizing and legal communications of the Department of Treasury and congressional committees during the implementation of the single most oppressive and controversial function of government known to Americans are simply “No Longer Available.”

Management level archivists at NARA were unable to explain these gaping holes of missing records

In effect, individuals, in explicit violation of federal law, have, since 1992, been systemically DELETING evidence from the official records of this nation – in an attempt to rewrite history – and to conceal the fraud that has been perpetrated by our government for almost 90 years.

 

Operation “What’s Left?”

WTP intends to pull many more records from numerous Record Groups at both Archive II (where the records of the Treasury Department and the IRS are located) and at Archive I (where the records of congressional committees are located). We intend to determine what, if any, historical records are left (and which are missing), regarding the constitutional and statutory “authority” of the government to impose a labor/slave tax, in the government’s own words.

An objective of this project is to determine the intent of the framers of the 1913 and 1916 (amended in 1917) Income Tax Acts, by obtaining from the Legislative and Executive branches, official memoranda, notes, letters, reports and other records from the period 1913 through 1917.

Without revealing the specific Record Groups, the methodology will include a review of the file indices at Archive I and Archive II, the preparation of pull sheets for the records of interest, the review of the records pulled, the selection of the records to be scanned, the scanning of the selected records, and the preparation of a report.

Another objective of this project, using a similar methodology, is to determine the government's rationale, if any, for the lack of Federal Register publication of any Treasury Directive Orders or regulations specifying the organizational structure of the Internal Revenue Service and authorizing the collection of income taxes from people living and working within the external boundary of the 50 united states.

WTP has leased a six-bedroom house in College Park, Maryland for two months, beginning June 15^th, at a cost of $5,000. We have also leased furniture and furnishing for the house at a cost of $3,000. Finally, we are leasing computer and document management equipment for several thousand dollars.

The Research Team will use the house as they participate in the project. We will lease a second house if necessary.

A trained researcher from Texas will manage this project for the We The People Foundation for Constitutional Education, Inc. Initially, eight WTP members will be arriving this weekend. Early next week they will be photo ID’d and receive their NARA Research Cards (a five minute process). They will split into two teams to review the historical documents of interest.

This initial group will work the 21^st through Friday the 26^th or longer – their choice.

Some replacements are needed for the following week. Someone from the first week will remain in town to see that the second group is “carded” and set up properly. This process will need to be repeated each week, until July 15^th or longer.

Casual but professional dress is preferred at least for the first day there.  After that jeans or shorts are ok.

Team members are asked to bring the following:

• Notebook computer and a scanner, if possible (recommend either a Canon or MircoTech)

• #2 pencils or mechanical pencils

• Quarters to use the Archive lockers

The following items are prohibited in the archives; however they can be stored in the Archive lockers:

• No Ink Pens

• No blank sheets of paper, NOTE: any non-blank paper has to be approved and stamped before allowed into Archives.

• No cell phones

WTP is looking for volunteers to go to Washington for multiple-day segments through August 14^th to help with this important research project. Teams of participants will be organized between the two primary archive facilities and will help during “office hours” with the examination and copying of records. Examination of records will involve reading many legal documents and identifying target documents for additional evaluation, review and retention.

If you have an interest in participating, please contact the WTP office via e-mail at bob@givemeliberty.org. Although you need not be an “official” legal researcher to participate, individuals that are not familiar with the subject matter or are uncomfortable with examining large quantities of historical correspondence should probably refrain from volunteering.

Depending on your response, we will lease a second multi-bedroom house, not far from the first.
 

Thousands Needed In DC on July 19^th : Be There!

Make you plans NOW to be in Washington DC on Monday, July 19, 2004 for a vitally important one-day WTP event.

You will recall that on May 10, 2004, we sent letters to President Bush, Senator Kerry, Treasury Secretary Snow, Attorney General Ashcroft and IRS Commissioner Everson, respectfully requesting that they send a representative to meet with us at the National Press Club and to answer the few questions we included with the letters.

You will recall that we also attached the latest and damning evidence in support of our position that the government has no authority to force companies to withhold money from the paychecks of their workers and to turn that money over to the IRS, and the government has no authority to force workers to file a tax return and to pay a tax on their labor measured by their salary, wages and compensation.

Finally, you will recall that we respectfully advised the officials that if this opportunity turns out to be as fruitless as our prior attempts to have our questions answered we will file a motion in the District Court to enjoin the IRS and DOJ from engaging in any further enforcement actions against those who fail to withhold, file and pay the labor tax, until the underlying issues in our Right to Petition for Redress lawsuit are determined by the court.

We are leasing the main ballroom at the National Press Club for July 19. The agenda is taking shape. The morning is set aside for the discussion with the government’s representatives and/or a discussion with constitutional scholars. If the government does not send any representatives to answer our Petition questions, we will march from the National Press Club to the federal District Court to file the motion for injunctive relief, attaching all of our evidence regarding: a) the fraudulent origin and illegal operation and enforcement of the income tax; b) our Petition for Redress of Grievances and government’s failure to answer our questions and to justify its behavior; and c) THE TAMPERING WITH THE EVIDENCE GOING ON AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES.

In all likelihood, this will be the most important step in the now five-year long Petition process. Push is now coming to shove. It will be important to have an overflow crowd at the National Press Club (the ball room can seat 400), and thousands joining in on the march to the court house.

WTP encourages all those who withhold and pay the labor tax out of fear and the hundreds of thousands of people who have stopped filing and paying to join us. Let’s stand together.

We will have more to say about the July 19 event in an article we will post tomorrow.

Click Here to make a donation and help fund the National Archives research and the historic Right To Petition lawsuit and public awareness project. You have our sincerest Thanks.