Do You Have To Pay Income Taxes?

Reagan's theory was that if taxes were reduced then spending would have to be reduced. Well, it wasn't.
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Actually, the theory was that if taxes were reduced, "allowing" people to retain their own money for purposes of investment, savings or spending would create a net increase in revenues by having their overall income and those of the businesses they owned/supported grow. It worked.

Nowadays you might get the idea that the rich don't pay taxes. That may or may not be true but at one time, in some places, only the rich paid taxes.
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37% of taxes are paid by 1% of the "rich." I'd say they are paying their fair share . . . and then some.
 
Let's look at the Constitution.

Amendment XVI -

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.


This Amendment was proposed 7/12/1909 and ratified 2/3/1913.


John
 
This Amendment was proposed 7/12/1909 and ratified 2/3/1913.
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You beat me to it, John. Income tax is a relatively recent concept since it didn't appear for 133 years after the Constitution was written and the US was created.

I think it's written somewhere that it was in late 1909 that politicians finally realized that politics was no longer about running a nation, but rather, making a buck.

And here we are.

Carter
 
Aussiefrodetulcih:

Skeeter: Gary's advice is erroneous. Get better advice
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First, I suggest you see post number 22 on this thread.

Then (if I am in error as you declare) and the information I posted for him (which was directly from the mouth of an aquaintance who was at the time of his statement) an IRS agent assigned to the CID office in Houston, then don't file your return this coming year and see what happens if the computerized probability factor they have built into their system either selects you, or doesn't select you.

People do hit the jackpot in Vegas, despite the odds. So you or he might get by with it.
 
Your life is only so many years long. If you want to waste it fighting a fight that cannot be won, go ahead. Someone I know very well spent about 10 years telling them to f-off, he didnt file or pay anything. He wasn't tossed in jail or anything but there were liens, constant harrasement, bad credit and a worried wife who stood by him. Then a literal million dollar once in a lifetime opportunity came along. To take advantage of it he needed good credit, no liens and proveable income, none of which he had. It took this unfortunate guy 3 years and lots of money to get things in order. He is now older and wiser.
 
So if the IRS owes you $1.00 in refunds for each of the past six years and you didnt file what can they do to you?
 
I'm surprised it only took him three years to recover. Usually they manage to ruin someone's life till they are looking at the wrong end of a boquet of flowers.
 
Eghad:
What they can do is file a "failure to file a tax return" charge against you, and have the court costs eat the return money. Depends on the mood of the agent who has the file.
 
So they are going to spend thousands of dollars prosecuting a guy they owe $3.00? Thats managing the taxpayers dollars well.
 
No Eghand, it isn't, however, there has never been (in the history of any Federal Agency I know of) a tendancy for handling taxpayers money in any fashion a sane person would consider "efficient."

The need for an agent or employee of the IRS to display both their authority and their power, far outweighs any need for a common sense approach to anything.
 
The need for an agent or employee of the IRS to display both their authority and their power, far outweighs any need for a common sense approach to anything.
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My theory (call it a conspiracy theory if you like :D ) is that the IRS intentionally makes examples out of people once in a while just to get a lot of publicity in order to discourage others from evading paying taxes.

Let's watch this Wesley Snipes thing and see how far it goes where he faces a few years in prison as one of the possible outcomes.

Carter
 
I'm sorry. I know that we're all supposed to be sitting 'round the campfire polishing our firearms and griping about the oppression of the gub'mint, but I just can't take this thread. The original post stated that the IRS was "having trouble proving" that income taxes were "legal." This is crazy, FALSE garbage, and it really cheapens the meaning of what we're doing here on this forum. :(

Would somebody PLEASE read the first sentence of Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution? It goes like this: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."

Notice, only "Duties, Imposts and Excises" have to be "uniform throughout the United States." "Taxes" were specifically left off of this list. What that means is that Congress can tax you in any bloody way they see fit, provided that they do so in the name of "Debts", "Defence", and "general Welfare of the United States."

Now, I don't believe that Congress should actually have that much power over taxation in this country. However, just because it's wrong, doesn't mean it's illegal. In fact, it's specifically enumerated in the document that WE ALL USE to JUSTIFY our ownership of firearms!!!

Please, read the Constitution before making wild claims like this. We need to know what's really in that document and what's not. We've got some real battles to fight here in the next few years, and misinformation on this forum will not help us.
 
For those of you who are buying into the fallacious information that everybody has to file an income tax return, do yourselves a favor and read the simple, easy-to-understand instructions that come with your 1040, 1040ez, etc., entitled, "Who has to file?"
 
Thank you, Ausserordeutlich, if everyone will read the instuctions for the 1040 ,AND watch the video, everything will be much clearer.

badbob
 
Wow...long on rhetoric, very short on facts.
And the combination of the two boogie men of the Federal Reserve System and the IRS.

Go right ahead and refuse to file or pay.
They have nice orange jumpsuits waiting.
 
No law against not paying; just concealing income or not filing, if you're one of those qualified to file. There's no requirement to file if no taxes are owed.

As long as you file properly and don't conceal any income, there are no criminal penalties for not paying.
 
Given the title of the thread was "Do You Have To Pay Income Tax" - there is a simple solution to not paying. Stop making so much money. You won't have to pay. Have an adjusted gross income of less than $37,263 (married, filing jointly and have more than one dependent child) and they'll send you money. They call it an "earned income credit". You do still have to file taxes, but if you don't earn much you won't owe anything. The amounts of AGI differ depending on your maritial status, etc.
There is lots of info here about this http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p596.pdf
 
"the fallacious information that everybody has to file an income tax return"

Everybody who has more than two extra nickels to rub together and a fixed mailing address does. Everybody I know does, but then we all work a job or two. Even dead people get to file. Most of them anyway. At least the ones in my family who died with assets had to have forms filed for them. The trust company in Wilmington Delaware that managed my aunt and uncle's estate had to pay the IRS over $800k. (Okay, on second thought some of that was income tax for the last year and some was estate tax.) Good thing he'd saved enough from his 40 years of blue collar work at DuPont to pay the bill. Buy low, seldom sell, and give a bunch to the IRS. :mad:

I guess we've moved on from the discussion about unlawful the income tax is. It isn't, as much as I dislike it.

John
 
Oh brother

We've been over this and over this and over....

Bottom line, YES you MUST file a return, or else you're guilty of EVASION. And you must file a reasonably accurate, non-fraudulent return, or else you're guilty of EVASION.

If you simply file a return owing money and don't pay it, then you are NOT guilty of a crime (no evasion). However, the IRS then in that event has the RIGHT to undertake collection activities for at least 10 yeards, including placing liens on property, enforcing such liens at their discretion, levying bank accounts and wages, harassment, etc. So no you are not technically OBLIGATED to pay. Problem is, if you are an employee of another, rather than self-employed, the employer IS obligated to withhold and pay the government the taxes, before you ever get them - so unless you're self-employed, the fact that you don't technically have to pay does you little good.

As far as the whole challenging the legality of the income tax based on improper ratification by the states. While the argument seems sound, it has failed time and time again in the courts - so do NOT try it. The code says explicitly that you must file a return if you have any income and are not exempt from filing. And it must not be fraudulent. Once you file it, if you don't pay and if your employer screwed up and didn't withhold and pay, then voila, you don't have to *voluntarily* pay. You MAY or may NOT have to INvoluntarily pay, if there is something to levy in the next 10 years, AND if the IRS decides to so levy.
 
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