From the January 2002 Idaho Observer:

Constitutional Income: Do You Have Any?

A book review by Don Harkins

It could be said that a person intimately involved with the production of a book is not properly disposed to write an unbiased review of it. It could also be said that a person who has read a book four times, critiqued its editorial content and grammatical quality, formatted the pages and produced the index is the perfect person to review the work -- so long as he has no financial interest in its success or failure.

Over the last eight years I have reviewed dozens of books after one (often cursory) reading. While other reviews I have written capture the value or lacking thereof in a book, my observations and recommendations are unavoidably prima facie. My review of a once-read book simply does not provide the depth of authority under which I am qualified to review "Constitutional Income: Do You Have Any?" by Phil Hart. It has been an honor to read, edit, format pages and produce the index for the second edition of this groundbreaking work.

In conducting the research for this book Hart made several trips to Washington, D.C. where he spent hundreds of hours unearthing books, court cases and newspaper articles kept in the archives at the Library of Congress. Hart located documents critical to understanding the income tax -- some of which had never been checked out of the Library of Congress before.

Hart, an engineer who lives in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, has been on the front lines of the Truth in Taxation movement for several years. His passion to understand the true history and intent of the income tax led to developing relationships with the nation's most notorious income tax dissidents. His conversations with Bill Benson, Larry Becraft, Irwin Schiff, Bob Schulz, Richard Standring, Red Beckman and others illuminated a gaping hole in the arguments being made by income tax contrarians: No one had yet done an exhaustive analysis as to the intent of the American People when the People lobbied Congress and their state legislators to add an income tax amendment to the Constitution. What was the intent of We the People?

So Hart put his life and his career on hold for three years to focus on accumulating and analyzing the historical evidence related to the debate and purported passage of the 16th Amendment. And what did Hart's discovery process reveal: "...that the purpose of the Sixteenth Amendment was to bring tax relief to wage earners."

Based upon Congressional Record entries and debates, Congressional documents, newspaper articles of the time, state, federal and U.S. Supreme Court decisions, books and papers from historically pertinent authors, politicians, lawyers and economists, and early income tax statutes, Hart proves that there is no foundation to the claim that wages are income within the meaning of the 16th Amendment. "There is not, and never has been, any delegation of authority from We the People to the government for the collection of an unapportioned direct tax on the wages and salaries of the American People. We are being Taxed without Our Consent!"

Constitutional Income, Do You Have Any, is a fascinating 428-page read that illuminates in detail the path of the income tax when it was first proposed in the 1880s, through its questionable passage in 1913 to the controversial manner in which it is enforced today. By the time you read the book and its hundreds of revealing excerpts from critical documents and court cases, utilize the index to cross reference items of interest and compare it to your own experiences with the IRS, you will understand the following: Why the income tax was proposed; why it took nearly 40 years of congressional debate to pass the income tax; what concessions were made to pass the income tax and; how the tax has been incrementally and unlawfully expanded (apparently by design) to include the wages of working Americans.

Constitutional Income, Do You Have Any? is the cornerstone of our understanding the income tax. It could also become the roadmap whereby a person may prove to Congress, the courts and the American people that wages are property -- not income -- and that to tax a person's wages without apportionment is to steal his property and trample upon the Constitution.

The book is available through Alpine Press for $25 at: www.constitutionalincome.com. Quantity discounts are also available.