Talk:Tax protester/Archive 6

message: Dear fellow editors: On 5 October 2006 an anonymous editor at IP 216.81.197.249 inserted the following commentary in the article page:
::Note: Whomever wrote this is obviously biased against any attempt to hold the US Government accountable to the Constitution, and/or loves paying taxes to no end!
If it's OK to do this, I removed the coding and moved the text of the comment here to the talk (discussion) page, so the editor's comments can be seen more readily. Yours, Famspear 15:22, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Commentary on article

message: I've discovered there's a separate stub article called Tax protest. It doesn't contain much, if any, material in addition to this article, except perhaps some (unsourced) statements linking some tax protesters to white supremacists. But I'd thought I'd post the merge templates before just turning it into a redirect, as there might be something I missed. Anyone see something useful in that article? — Mateo SA (talk | contribs) 04:24, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've changed Tax protest to a redirect to this page (Tax protester). The tag's been up for a week, and Tax protest was a stub to begin with. — Mateo SA (talk | contribs) 04:53, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

text: The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 
The result of the debate was no consensus to move. —Mets501 (talk) 01:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Tax protest]] merging into this page 

message: Add "# Support" or "# Oppose" in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~
==== Survey - Support votes ====
#Support as nominator.   —  AjaxSmack   06:23, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Start US sub-articles if you like" -- that is what this move will accomplish.  It will preserve the edit histories and talk pages with the US specific articles while freeing up the generic titles for non-geographically biased overview articles.  See also comments below.    —  AjaxSmack   06:23, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In these cases, however, entire articles are about the US and the edit histories and talk pages should remain with the US specific articles.  See also comments below.    —  AjaxSmack   06:23, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Survey 

message: #Support as nominator.   —  AjaxSmack   06:23, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Survey - Support votes 

message: #Oppose - Tax resistance is not exclusively a US phenomena. Mahatma Gandhi was not a US citizen, for example. If articles like tax resistance are US centric, then they require editing not moving. Start US sub-articles if you like, but no article move. nirvana2013 09:16, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Start US sub-articles if you like" -- that is what this move will accomplish.  It will preserve the edit histories and talk pages with the US specific articles while freeing up the generic titles for non-geographically biased overview articles.  See also comments below.    —  AjaxSmack   06:23, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In these cases, however, entire articles are about the US and the edit histories and talk pages should remain with the US specific articles.  See also comments below.    —  AjaxSmack   06:23, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Survey - Oppose votes 

message: Common use of the term - I'm not sure if there is another term for this but "Tax protester" is also used in the media to define an individual that participates in a protest or rally in regard to taxes even if the group does not deny the obligation to pay a tax.  For example, this FairTax rally in Orlando :Image:Orlandotaxrallypic1.jpg and similar one in Atlanta was stated in the media to be tax protestors.[www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1674560/posts]  These groups do not deny the obligation to pay nor do they defy tax collection.  Such groups want tax policy change and take peaceful group action to promote change and awareness.  Should this common misuse of this term in popular culture be defined in the article?  Morphh  (talk) 02:05, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Dear Morphh: Yeah, or should the article say that it's just an alternative use of the term? Also, even the courts used to use the term to describe people who did not deny the obligation to pay the tax, but were just people protesting government policies, such as the Vietnam War. I forget where it is, but I believe it's in a footnote in Tax protester history. Yours, Famspear 04:10, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition 

message: A new user has inserted the following unsourced, non-neutral verbiage in the article:
::There have been supreme court rulings that state that the Income Tax is unconstitutional however the IRS has claimed that the supreme court's rulings are "inaplicable". THAT is ilogical [sic].
In the past, there have indeed been Supreme Court cases where the Court ruled certain very old versions of Federal income tax statutes to be unconstitutional -- for example, the 1895 Pollock case, as covered in various Wikipedia articles, interpreting an 1894 statute. The verbiage above, however, is misleading, and the IRS is actually correct. Except for the Murphy decision from the year 2006 (a decision, by the way, that was later vacated), which was not a Supreme Court case, there has been no Federal court decision ruling that the income tax imposed under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, the current tax code, is unconstitutional. Even in the Murphy case, the court did not rule the income tax itself unconstitutional.
The most recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on tax protester arguments under the 1954/1986 Code is the famous case of Cheek v. United States -- also covered here in Wikipedia. In Cheek, the Supreme Court stated:
::Claims that some of the provisions of the tax code are unconstitutional are submissions of a different order. They do not arise from innocent mistakes caused by the complexity of the Internal Revenue Code. Rather, they reveal full knowledge of the provisions at issue and a studied conclusion, however wrong, that those provisions are invalid and unenforceable. Thus, in this case, Cheek paid his taxes for years, but after attending various seminars and based on his own study, he concluded that the income tax laws could not constitutionally require him to pay a tax.
The Supreme Court in Cheek continued:
::We do not believe that Congress contemplated that such a taxpayer, without risking criminal prosecution, could ignore the duties imposed upon him by the Internal Revenue Code and refuse to utilize the mechanisms provided by Congress to present his claims of invalidity to the courts and to abide by their decisions. There is no doubt that Cheek, from year to year, was free to pay the tax that the law purported to require, file for a refund and, if denied, present his claims of invalidity, constitutional or otherwise, to the courts. See 26 U.S.C. 7422. Also, without paying the tax, he could have challenged claims of tax deficiencies in the Tax Court, 6213, with the right to appeal to a higher court if unsuccessful. 7482(a)(1). Cheek took neither course in some years, and, when he did, was unwilling to accept the outcome. As we see it, he is in no position to claim that his good-faith belief about the validity of the Internal Revenue Code negates willfulness or provides a defense to criminal prosecution under 7201 and 7203. Of course, Cheek was free in this very case to present his claims of invalidity and have them adjudicated, but, like defendants in criminal cases in other contexts who "willfully" refuse to comply with the duties placed upon them by the law, he must take the risk of being wrong.
Cheek, 498 U.S. at 205-206 (footnote omitted; emphasis added). The tax protester, Mr. Cheek, was ultimately convicted and went to prison.
The Supreme Court rulings from the late 1800s and from the period prior to World War II -- that various income tax statutes in the past were unconstitutional -- are indeed legally inapplicable to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. Generally, those rulings have been overturned by Constitutional amendment or have been overruled by the Supreme Court itself. Yours, Famspear 14:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Enigmatic language

message: I question the change of definition of tax protester made in this edit.  It changed from "an individual who denies the obligation to pay a tax (for which the government has determined that person is liable)" --> "an individual who does not pay a tax for which a government body has determined that person is liable".  I find that they imply two very different things and I feel the first is more accurate.  The second sounds much more like a tax evasion or tax resister.  The term of protester seems to only imply that they protest the tax but may not define that they refused to pay it.  If the current definition is accurate in some strict legal sense, then I suggest we define the common usage first and then follow with the more legal interpretation.  The common usage is just the protesting of a tax imposed or protesting for a tax structure change.  In a stricter sense, it could describe someone who denies the obligation to pay a tax (but do pay it) and with the current definition (if correct) would imply in the strictest sense, that they actually refused to pay the tax. On a similar note... the lead starts off "In United States tax administration".  Not quite the worldly view.  Are we making this a U.S. article or is it still to represent tax protesting in general?Morphh  (talk) 23:02, 05 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with editor Morphh, and I have changed the definition back to the first one. Actually, this change had somehow slipped by me. Yours, Famspear 02:39, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Do we know of other terms that other countries use?  Tax protesting as a concept certainly is not a U.S. issue.  Perhaps we could pose the question on WikiProject Taxation to some of our foreign friends.  France has to have a term for this as many times as they've gone through the tax revolt ringer.  Morphh  (talk) 12:51, 06 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Definition change

message: After watching the 'zeitgeist' movie, I decided to spent a little time online to try and determine for myself what parts of it were true, and which are false.  On looking into the tax part, I came across this page:
http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/jsiegel/Personal/taxes/F2F.htm
It is written by Jonathan R. Siegel, Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School, whom I would assume most people would accept as a reliable source.  I found it most interesting.  My apologies if this is already covered in the many tax protester articles,  I did not have time to read them all, and after reading Professor Siegels articles, that was basically enough to convince me that the vast majority of the arguments people are using are false.  Champion sound remix 01:01, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, Professor Siegel is an excellent source. And 100% of tax protester arguments have been ruled incorrect in court, which is an astonishing record when you consider that tax protester arguments began in earnest in reported court decisions in the mid-1970s (only a handful before 1975), and the batting average for tax protester arguments is exactly 0.0000, at least as of Monday, August 20. Yours, Famspear 01:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link I found useful