ONE CENTURY WITH THE I.R.S.
By
Betty Freauf
April 8, 2013
NewsWithViews.com
Our local newspaper had headlines on March 14, 2013 that our Union Street Railroad Bridge that seven years ago was honored with a spot on the National Register of Historic Places, quietly hit a milestone that week and the century-mark celebration took place… very quietly.
This reminds me of two other “historic events” that quietly took place a century ago – The “alleged” ratification of the 16th amendment (I.R.S.) empowering Congress to impose the federal income tax. Millions are completing income tax forms required to be filed by April 15th and because the media of many stripes missed yet another teachable moment, most taxpayers have no clue how all this came about. To further the assault on the American people, on December 31, 1913 the unconstitutional Federal Reserve Banking system was created while most Congress people were at home enjoying the holidays with their families. With the creation of a de facto central bank, the federal government has been essentially freed from budgetary restraints since it can now simply print money to cover operating expenses if revenue is insufficient. Congress for many years became supine to wield its constitutional powers and since the election of Obama in 2008 has facilitated Obama’s imperial presidency.
MEDIA DROPS THE BALL AGAIN
These events are responsible for our financial crisis in America and I’d venture to guess most newspapers, radio talk shows or T.V. shows or any other media outlets with the exception of the2/18/2013 NEW AMERICAN magazine, bothered to mention these unconstitutional events that took place 100 years ago. In her article that Medicare can’t be fixed or saved, NWV contributor Devvy Kidd said our future, our pursuit of life, liberty and happiness has been destroyed by Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress for the past 100 years. Starting with the non-ratified Sixteenth and Seventeen Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and the Federal Reserve Banking Act (all three in 1913), followed by the social security taxing scheme and then LBJ’s “great society” (Medicare) to fast track America’s downfall into socialism and then full blown communism. Then there was President George W. Bush’s (Jr) Prescription Drug program.
Yours truly also has a February birthday. I’m a groundhog who grew One Day Older and Deeper in Federal Debt. I understand Pumxsutawney also became distraught when he misdiagnosed the weather this year. February is a month that Lincoln and Washington once had birthdays noted on the calendars but their birthdays were blended into “President’s Day” so that Civil Rights Leader, Martin Luther King, an individual with questionable credentials and after his assassination could be honored in January on his birthday. While our children can no longer remember the actual birth dates of Washington and Lincoln, who was also assassinated, school children by the hundreds in our area are released from school to praise the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. but nothing is taught to the students about the February 1913 I.R.S. that has put them in bondage and how their future hard-earned paychecks will have taxes off the top to support unsustainable programs about which they or their parents or grandparents had no choice. While voting for the federal income tax without any spending cut amendments as described by Kincaid in his article above, Hs. Speaker Boehner said he would seek “entitlement reform and pro-growth tax reform” sometime later this year. Yawn!
NO INCOME TAXES 100 YEARS AGO
With the exception of a short period when an income tax was used to help finance the Civil War, Americans paid no income taxes. As an example of how our much a smaller government of that day was financed, tariffs were placed on imports and excise taxes (similar to our modern sales tax) were placed on the sale of certain items such as horses and carriages, etc. the NEW AMERICAN reports. “Indirect” taxes such as these were taxes on consumption rather than income, offering the citizen the option of controlling his tax burden by limiting his purchases. According to Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution, any type of “direct” tax, i.e. on a person directly, which could arguably include a person’s income, had to be apportions among the states on a per-capita basis, so clearly any federal taxes on income would have to be applied uniformly, with each state contributing an amount proportionate to its population.
ENTER KARL MARX
In 1848, Karl Marx declared in his Communist Manifesto that a progressive tax on personal income was one of the 10 essential measures to ensure a communist revolution in an advanced country in order to bring about his fabled “classless society.” Socialists and communist ideas gained momentum in many parts of Europe, and it wasn’t long before they reached America.[1] While the federal income tax was made to appear it was to make the rich pay a higher percentage than the poor, in reality it was largely a tax on the middle class because the rich, rather than invest in new businesses, hid their wealth by using trusts and tax-exempt foundations to escape much of their tax burden yet still have great influence and power over business, banking, and government.
PROPAGANDA –VS- REALITY
Comparing it to today, it will probably sound familiar to say there was a significant difference between the propaganda and the reality; the populism championed by the progressives and populists was not the “share the wealth” program they portrayed it to be, but a control-the-wealth program. Under the guise of helping the little guy, the elites worked hard to implement an income tax. It has been proven time and time again when taxes have been raised on the rich, the poor suffered the greatest detriment, that was, until the Obama’s Administration when he produced welfare entitlement entrepreneurs – the title of my next article. In keeping with the ideology of its primary backers, the new income tax was to be a “progressive” tax – one in which the tax rate increases as the taxable base income increases[1]. This discourages free enterprise entrepreneurs and affects employment. The fewer the jobs, the smaller the revenues for government which suggests it is more about control than revenue which brings us to Obama’s Marxism called Obamacare and thousands of I.R.S. agents being put in charge making certain we are in compliance.
OMNISCIENT OBSERVERS?
Since its “alleged” ratification in February 1913, more amendments took place and on July 12, 1909, the resolution proposing the 16th Amendment was passed by the 61st Congress and was submitted to the state legislatures but not all states were initially in favor of an amendment which was:
Article XVI: The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on income, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Many states knew the imposition of the income tax would mean the rise of a federal revenue bureaucracy that extended from Washington, D.C. throughout the country and into the personal and business transactions of every American and every business.[1] In addition, I have information from another source that showed there was a problem with the state Ohio so perhaps not enough of the required states ratified it after all.[2]
Richard E. Byrd, speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, voiced his concerns on March 3, 1910, during the debate on whether to ratify the 16th Amendment:
It means that the state must give up a legitimate and long established source of revenue and yield it to the Federal government. It means that the state actually invited the Federal government to invade its territory, to oust its jurisdiction and to establish Federal dominion within the innermost citadel of reserved rights of the Commonwealth.
This amendment will do what even the 14th and 15th Amendments did not do – it will extend the Federal power so as to reach the citizens in the ordinary business of life. A hand from Washington will be stretched out and placed upon every man’s business; the eye of a Federal inspector will be in every man’s counting house.
The law will of necessity have inquisitorial features, it will provide penalties. It will create a complicated machinery.
Under it, businessmen will be hauled into courts distant from their homes. Heavy fines, imposed by distant and unfamiliar tribunals, will constantly menace the taxpayer. An army of Federal inspectors, spies and detectives will descent upon the state. They will compel men of business to show their books and disclose the secrets of their affairs. They will dictate forms of bookkeeping. They will require statements and affidavits. On the one hand the inspector can blackmail the taxpayer and on the other, he can profit by selling his secret to his competitor.
When the Federal government gets a strangle hold on the individual businessman, state lines will exist nowhere but on the maps. Its agents will everywhere supervise the commercial life of the states….I am not willing by any voluntary act to give up revenue which the State of Virginia herself needs, nor to surrender the measure of state’s rights which was, and the construction of the Federal courts have permitted to remain.[1]
WITHHOLD TAXES
In 1910, New York Governor Charles Evans Hughes opposed the income-tax amendment. While he supported the idea of a federal income tax, Hughes believed the words “from whatever source derived” in the proposed amendment implied that the federal government would have the power to tax state and municipal bonds. He believed this would excessively centralize governmental power and “would make it impossible for the state to keep any property.” Support for the amendment did not relent, however. All three candidates in the 1912 presidential election – Progressive, or “Bull Moose candidate” Teddy Roosevelt, Republican William Howard Taft, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson – supported the tax.
The
”alleged” ratification was complete on February 3, 1913.
The Revenue Act of 1913 was enacted shortly thereafter to impose a new
progressive tax, but it was a far cry from the tax burden Americans
face today.[1]
Progressive estate
tax, gift taxes and to add insult to injury, in 1942, the “temporary
measure” of automatic withholding was instituted but never ended.
Withholding gives the 
federal
government the first crack of everyone’s income. The government
now takes what it wants and needs for its many projects, most of them
unconstitutional, and leaves the income earner the rest and excusing
some who the government does not feel earn enough which keeps them having
to look to the government entitlements and voting Democrat. A
1934 Chicago Tribune cartoon “Plan of Action- Spend, Spend, Spend.”
This new federal income tax represented a radical departure from the type of government Americans had lived under prior to the income tax. It gave the federal government access to potentially huge amounts of revenue that the government could then tap to finance various programs, very much including unconstitutional programs. This transfer of revenue and power to Washington not only strengthened Washington but also weakened the states, which themselves are republics (not provinces) in our federal system of government and possess powers not transferred to the national government by the U.S. constitution. Many Americans live in fear of a tax audit, and the tyranny and terror of the I.R.S. in some instances approaches that of the former soviet KGB.[1] Governments should live in fear of the people, not the other way around and this will help you better understand why there is such an ongoing attack on the Second Amendment and why our elected lickspittles want to disarm us.
WHY FEDS DON’T BALANCE BUDGETS
The very fact that the income tax now imposed on the American people is a progressive tax means the tax serves the purpose not only of providing the U.S. government with a powerful means of obtaining revenue, but also enables the government to redistribute the wealth. And with the creation of a de facto central bank (The Federal Reserve) also in 1913, the federal government has been essentially freed from budget restraints, since it can now simply print money to cover operating expenses if revenue is insufficient.
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By the end of World War II, many Americans thought we could live in peace thereafter but the master planners had created not only the United Nations, NATO and other entangling alliances, but the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, all useful for placing the people’s money at the disposal of the master class that would use it to further their rule in the political, social and economic life of the world. They have strong allies in the institutions that are supposed to buttress and expand the liberty and the welfare of the American people, from schools and other government institutions, to the news media and institution of higher learning, both public and private.
OUR ONLY ALTERNATIVE
Americans must educate themselves and elect constitutionally -minded legislators. The strongest defense against institutionalized tyranny remains an educated and aroused American people unwilling to believe the propaganda in the controlled media and from the government certifiable nincompoops.
Footnotes:
1.
2/4/2018 and 2/18/2013 New American, Phone 920-749-3784
2.
Who’s Afraid of the IRS by Miss Lynn Johnston © 1983
� 2013 Betty Freauf - All Rights Reserved
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