From the May 2004 Idaho Observer:

IRS commissioner ends all doubt as to what law requires people to file income taxes

satire(?) by Robert Raymond

IRS commissioner Mark Everson, in an attempt to quell the growing Income tax resistance, answered claims that the IRS refuses to be candid about what law makes an American man or woman liable for the Income tax. With millions of Americans asking questions regarding who is liable for the Individual Income Tax, Commissioner Everson answered specific questions, to end once and for all, any doubt that the law requires people to pay the income tax. With the skill of a Harvard-trained lawyer he answered questions with pinpoint accuracy. With today's answers there can be no doubt about what laws the IRS is enforcing.

Date: Thursday, April 1, 2004 6:30 p.m.

Reporter: “Commissioner Everson. There's a group of people outside that assert that no law requires them to pay taxes, and that you will not answer their petition to the government as to whether they're required to pay taxes.”

Commissioner Everson: (snicker). “Well, I've been paying my taxes ever since I was, ah, well I...I've been paying my taxes ever since I had my first job, and I think it...it's a...it's a fundamental ...ah...construct of our nation that...that those of us who, um, expect and demand the services from our government...that the government provides, be they the protection of our country through the military, or be they, um, the education of our children, or be they the protection of our environment. That...That...we must pay for those services. So yes, I think there is a fundamental obligation, and...um...that...that it's an understood and well accepted one...um...ummm...”

Reporter: “Let me modify my question then. The fundamental assertion being made here is that there is no law that requires us to pay taxes; that people are tricked into paying taxes. So the question they keep asking is “What law requires them to pay taxes?”

Dale Hart steps in: “Let me help here. As you know there are any number of court cases that, uh,uh, that have been, uh, that have asserted our right to levy taxes, and I would, uh, um, recommend that anybody who has any questions about whether or not they should be paying taxes go to IRS.GOV, and take a look at the um, uh...the issues we have there that respond to phony tax schemes advising people that they don't have an obligation to...to...pay taxes. So there's a lot of information out there, and a lot of information on our website that should assist anybody that has any questions about the legality of taxes. And there's plenty of court cases that support our right to assert and levy taxes under title 26.”

So there you have it. Ah, uh, and um. That's their answer. Given the opportunity to clear up doubts about our income tax system, Commissioner Everson stumbles and bumbles and still can't find the answer. The government wants to put people in jail for not finding the law the IRS Commissioner himself can't find. What's there to hide? Is Commissioner Everson running one of those awful phony tax “schemes?” How can the government restore the faith of its citizenry in the tax system without Everson's candor admissions about the tax laws? Aren't citizens entitled to have the IRS be honest with the public who employs them? The IRS has become like the Gulag system in Russia. “The Gulag system is not run by men who have some notion of justice and propriety, however autocratic and misguided, but by gangsters. The state and its apparatus have been taken over by those who have responsibility to no one, and least of all to the system they profess to believe, and which is supposedly leading society on to the 'gleaming heights' of Republican government.” Where is that law that makes a citizen liable for a tax on his wages? Somewhere behind Everson's snicker perhaps.

© 2004 -Robert R. Raymond. All Rights Reserved

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Robert R. Raymond is the past Independent candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives for Wisconsin's 5th District in the 2002 elections. A political activist for the past 10 years he represents the People for Truth in Taxation organization. He can be reached through his web site www.rraymond.org or by email at rr@rraymond.org.

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“Silence can be equated with fraud where there is a legal or moral duty to speak, or where an inquiry left unanswered would be intentionally misleading. . . We cannot condone this shocking behavior by the IRS. Our revenue system is based on the good faith of the taxpayer and the taxpayers should be able to expect the same from the government in its enforcement and collection activities.”

~U.S. v. Tweel, 550 F.2d 297, 299. See also U.S. v. Prudden, 424 F.2d 1021, 1032;

Carmine v. Bowen, 64 A. 932.