Operation Stop Withholding Continues to Roll
Day 31:
Gene Chapman Enters “Death Zone”
Larken Rose Raided, First Amendment No Concern to IRS
Lear Files Habeas Corpus to Free Husband
The
nationwide meeting tour to organize America’s workers and companies to
enforce the People’s Right to Petition for Redress of Grievances rolled
through Oregon and through Washington this week.
Bob Schulz, Chairman of We The People Foundation continued his relentless
call for ordinary people and business owners to legally terminate their wage
withholding and to stop paying and filing in order force the government to
answer the 537
legal questions regarding the federal income tax, i.e., “No Answers, NO
Taxes.”
In each meeting, Schulz reviews in substantial detail the Foundation’s well documented, four year attempt to get official answers to the Petitions for Redress – one of which directly challenges the legal jurisdiction of the IRS and exposes the gross violations of constitutional rights that IRS systemically commits in its daily operations and enforcement actions. The other Petitions challenge the government’s abuses of its limited powers regarding making war, creating money and its police authority. To date, the US government has reneged on the explicit agreements it has made to provide official answers.
This past 10 days, Schulz has spoken to hundreds of people in Reno, Nevada as well as Medford, Bend, Corvallis and Portland, Oregon. On this past Monday evening, Schulz spoke to a crowd of about 150 in Seattle, Washington and to an even larger crowd in Spokane Tuesday evening.
At one point during the “question and answer” segment in Portland, someone asked how many in the audience had stopped withholding or filing. A sea of arms immediately went up with people eagerly volunteering how many years they had stopped filing – including one gentleman that had not filed in 22 years. Another audience member at an earlier Oregon meeting read a letter from the local IRS office stating that IRS had received so many challenges and letters concerning the tax laws that they were having trouble answering the volume of letters and would try to respond within 6 or 7 weeks.
It was very clear from these anecdotes that IRS does indeed have a growing problem. Not only are the masses continuing to learn more each day of the details of the tax fraud, but people are in fact, terminating their “voluntary compliance” with the tax system and directly challenging the authority of the government.
Schulz is scheduled to appear in Denver and Colorado Springs, Colorado this weekend.
Click here to see more pictures from Schulz’s travels and meetings from the past 10 days including traveling through snow in both the high Sierras and in Oregon’s Cascade mountain range.
Day 31:
Gene Chapman Enters “Death Zone”
Austin Texas -- Gene Chapman is now on the 31st day of his death fast. All he wants is the government to answer a single legal question: “What law makes me liable to pay the income tax?” They have not yet provided him an answer. His question is among the 537 questions from the WTP sponsored Petitions for Redress of Grievances that the US government will not answer. DOJ and IRS reneged on their July, 2001 agreement to answer those questions.
Chapman stated this weekend that he has now entered the “death zone” that ensues during a protracted hunger fast. He has already lost 50 pounds during the past four weeks. His heart is beginning to hurt and pound disturbingly and he is finding his energy significantly depleted requiring significant periods of rest to recover.
Chapman started his fast on April 15 and is determined to become, if necessary, the nation’s first acknowledged martyr in the effort to expose the tax fraud for what it is.
Yesterday, the IRS responded to an e-mail sent on behalf of Chapman to the
IRS internet “help line.” The carefully worded deceptions in the responses
are worth noting for the record given that a man is about to die to get his
single question about US tax law answered.
The most glaring problem with the IRS response is that, once again, IRS
fails to cite any specific law that actually makes Gene Chapman, or anyone,
liable to pay the tax. The e-mail response from IRS is reproduced
below in italics with WTP comments noted.
Your Question Was:
Where is MY tax liability in the law?
Gene Chapman http://genechapman.blogspot.com
The Answer To Your Question Is:
Thank you for your e-mail inquiry.
The United States income tax system is one of voluntary compliance in that
the government relies primarily upon the disclosure by the taxpayer of the
relevant facts (Helvering v Mitchell 303 us 391, 399)
Comment: We agree wholeheartedly -- it is voluntary.
The obligation to pay the
correct amount of tax, however, is mandatory as enacted by congress in the
various public laws comprising the Internal Revenue Code. The courts have
uniformly upheld this concept. For example, in Schiff v
United States, 919 f.2nd 830, 834, the Second Circuit Court of
Appeals stated that the payment of income taxes
is not optional and the average citizen knows that the payment of income
taxes is legally required.
Comment: IF
you have a legal obligation to pay, we agree – pay the tax. The question is
WHO is liable and WHERE is the liability imposed in the law? The Schiff
quote is clearly propaganda in that it implies that because the average
citizen “knows” or believes payment is required, that this somehow creates a
legal duty for Chapman and everyone else. Our nation is a nation of
law -- not perceptions about the law.
The
Internal Revenue Code, as enacted by Congress, authorizes the Commissioner
of Internal Revenue to promulgate regulations to
implement and clarify congressional intent when appropriate and/or
necessary. The underlying authority, however, is the Internal
Revenue Code, and the code remains in effect whether or not specific
regulations have been issued.
Comment:
Aside from the fact that it is unquestioned in US Jurisprudence that laws
require implementing regulations, the law itself, i.e., the USC Title 26,
the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) does not anywhere specifically impose a
liability for income tax. If it is there, the IRS seems unable to cite
it and end this matter for all time. Also, as was documented in the
Truth-in-Taxation Hearing, the “congressional intent” for the 16th
Amendment was clearly not the wages and salaries of ordinary Americans.
Taxpayers have taken a number of positions to the effect that the income tax laws do not apply because wages are not income, the 16th amendment was not ratified, they were citizens of a sovereign state and not a citizen of the United States, the Internal Revenue Code does not require the payment of taxes by an individual, and several other equally unsupportable legal positions. The courts have uniformly held these types of arguments to be frivolous and not supported by law, regulation, or judicial opinion.
Comment:
Let's dissect some of this propaganda:
“... wages are not income,...” – The Supreme
Court has on numerous occasions, defined income for purposes of the tax laws
as being a “gain or profit resulting from corporate activity”.
Additionally, even if we concede this important legal tidbit for a moment,
it is acknowledged that wages are listed in the tax code as being “items” of
income. Unfortunately for the IRS, to become taxable as “gross income”,
wages must come from taxable “sources”. There is a list of taxable
sources the IRS has jurisdiction over in Section 861. Please see
www.taxableincome.net for a complete discussion of this issue.
“... the 16 Amendment was not ratified,...” – The amendment was properly ratified only if you completely ignore: the rules of Jurisprudence regarding the passage of legislation, the large number of states that could not re-type a simple sentence in their amendment legislation (which voids their amendment vote), the 22 states that significantly violated provisions of their state’s constitutions while voting for the Amendment (thereby voiding their vote on the 16th) and by completely ignoring the vote by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, that voted 22-9 against the amendment, but had it recorded by the US Secretary of State as 22-9 in FAVOR of the amendment.
In 1984, tax law researcher Bill Benson traveled through the 48 states in existence in 1913 and got 17,000 certified, notarized copies of all amendment related documents from the state archives documenting the fraud of the ratification. This information was presented to the federal judiciary in 1986. The 9th Circuit refused to rule on the issue of fraud instead referring the People to the Congress to get answers to a “political” question.
Since 1986, no federal court has ruled on validity of the 16th Amendment. See Bill Benson’s site www.thelawthatneverwas.com for a more complete discussion.
“… the Internal Revenue Code does not require the payment of taxes by an individual…” – The IRC covers many types of taxes. We agree that some individuals are required to pay some of these taxes. However, with regard to INCOME taxes, the law does not make clear what ‘individuals’ are referred to in the income tax section (Subtitle A), nor is it clear what specific law makes the average American liable. This is what Chapman is asking for!
“…The courts have uniformly held these types of arguments to be frivolous and not supported by law, regulation, or judicial opinion” – First, if THESE arguments are frivolous, why don’t they say so? The IRS merely states arguments “of this type” have been held frivolous. The truth is the courts have REFUSED to address many of these important legal issues and they remain unanswered to this day.
The purpose of this Web site is to help taxpayers meet their obligation to voluntarily prepare and file a correct tax return. To that end, we will make every effort to respond to valid tax law questions. However, we will not respond to any inquiry relying on a frivolous position or an argument not supported by law beyond this notification.
Comment: “…obligation to [volunteer]…” If it wasn’t so sad, it could almost be funny. In reality, the IRS never directly answers legal questions that expose the fraud – these questions are contentiously asserted as “frivolous.”
Within days, Gene Chapman may die.
WTP hopes that everyone reading this column will pick up the phone and call either the IRS or Gene Chapman’s congressional representatives to voice your opinion about a government that wallows in deception and inaction as a man nears death waiting for an answer to a single question.
Chapman’s House Representative is Rep. Michael Burgess, (202) 225-7772.
Texas Senator Kay Hutchinson can be reached at 512-916-5834.
Click here
to see the latest details of Chapman’s fast including pictures and to listen
to short audio files Gene is creating as his fast continues.
Larken Rose Raided, IRS Continues Assault on First Amendment
On May 6th, tax law researcher Larken Rose, sat for eight hours on his living room couch as a dozen armed federal agents searched through and seized many of his private papers and computers.
Rose,
an outspoken proponent of the “861 Sources” argument, has for the past two
years, openly challenged the DOJ and IRS to charge him with failure to file
tax returns or pay the income tax. Rose sells no tax or legal services and
distributes all of his published research material available for free on his
website,
www.taxableincome.net. The only item Rose sells are copies
of his modestly priced video tape, Theft By Deception.
The tape details in both visual and narrative form, a compelling legal
argument documenting that the law itself, at Section 861, shows that the
wages and salaries of ordinary Americans are not taxable, because the wages
and salaries do NOT come from sources that are taxable under US law.
A list of the sources that are taxable is listed in Section 861. Rose’s
video also documents several key revisions in the tax code beginning in 1954
that clearly appear to be designed to conceal the legal fact that the
ordinary income of Americans is not taxable because it is exempt by the
Constitution.
Rose has reduced his complex legal argument to several key legal questions citing the Internal Revenue Code at Section 861. The government refuses to respond to Rose’s questions and insists the “861 sources argument” is legally “frivolous.”
Rose’s search warrant contained a sworn affidavit claiming several violations of federal law including Willful Failure to File (26 USC § 7203), Willful Failure to Pay a Tax (26 USC § 7201), Filing of False Tax Claims (26 USC § 7206(1) and 18 USC § 287). In addition, Rose may also be charged with using violence or the threat of bodily harm to try to stop federal employees from administering the tax laws (26 USC § 7212(a)) and conspiracy to defraud the United States (18 USC § 371).
According to a discussion Rose had with an IRS agent, the federales apparently consider it a federal crime for Rose to have sent free videos to IRS agents, and then to make public whom he had sent them to.
Irwin Schiff’s Free Speech Rights are also currently under legal attack in Nevada. Schiff is currently under a temporary restraining order prohibiting him from selling or distributing his book, “The Federal Mafia,” or from speaking in public about the income tax laws. Following intervention by the ACLU and several national library associations, the federal judge in his case extended the timeline for filing additional briefs regarding the important constitutional issues in the case. Click here to get more information on Schiff’s situation and to see court documents and listen to recordings of the ongoing hearings.
It is apparently, (according to the IRS anyway), now a crime to talk about the law or to publish an analysis of it. The May 6th raid on Rose was indeed another dark day for the First Amendment. Whether the nation will stand for these frontal attacks on the Right to Free Speech is a question that will be answered soon.
A
nation that can, with impunity, characterize the free speech of its People
as a crime will not, and cannot, long survive. The rights to openly
criticize government and discuss matters of governance are crucial to the
functioning of our constitutional republic. Our Founding Fathers would,
indeed, be horrified that the Rights they risked and gave their very lives
for could be lost in so short a time.
Lear Files Habeas Corpus to Free Husband
Rose Lear recently filed a Habeas Corpus motion on behalf of her husband Bill Lear who is now serving a one year sentence for his conviction on two counts of Willful Failure to File a 1040 tax return. The motion requests the court to vacate (void) the judgment based on lack of due process and jurisdiction.
The central legal issue raised in the Habeas motion focuses on the government’s failure to cite on the charging indictment any specific tax that Bill Lear failed to pay and failure to cite any statute that placed the legal obligation upon Lear.
The due process issues raised are troubling and go to the foundation of the legal system and our constitutionally protected rights regarding fair trials and prosecutions. In essence, Bill Lear has been convicted and is in prison even though the government has failed to assert in its criminal indictment ANY specific legal duty Lear failed to honor.
Click here to read the “points and authorities” supporting Lear’s Habeas Corpus motion.
Click Here to see the nationwide meeting schedule for Operation Stop Withholding
Click here to contact your Congressman and your local media.
Click Here to access Chapman's multi-media "blog" website.