Those who are practicing Christians are accustomed to giving
10 percent of their incomes to the Lord for the support of His church.
It’s called "the tithe."
We are urged from the pulpit on a regular basis to be
faithful in our giving. We are also told to be subservient to the government
and to pray for those in authority over us.
Still, it strikes me as more than strange that ten percent
is good enough for God and His work but the dark lords in Washington D.C.
demand 15 percent, 28 percent or more depending on how we’ve been blessed
materially in the prior year.
There’s probably no better time to discuss the morality
and legality of the income tax like today, April 16th. Normally,
our Federal tax deadline is April 15th. With that date falling on
a Sunday, this year, the gracious overseers back east have given us an extra
24 hours to bother our accountants and dig our charge card debts that much
deeper.
Those who’ve taken the time to study such things say the
36 state legislatures needed to authorize the passage of the 16th
Amendment instituting the federal tax code and the creation of the Internal
Revenue Service never approved the measure.
Historian and author Bill Benson, an outspoken critic of the
income tax, claims outright fraud was used to put the law on the books. He
claims Kentucky voted the amendment down but Washington claimed exactly the
opposite. He says Oklahoma changed the wording of the measure it approved,
going on record opposing an income tax. Votes authorizing a federal tax
violated the state constitutions of two states, Texas and Louisiana. And
Tennessee voted on the measure prematurely.
If you take those five states out of the yes column, you’re
down to just 33 states.
Interestingly, attempts to get Congress and the court system
to look at the historical record have proven fruitless. The evidence keeps
being thrown from one branch of government to the other because no one
apparently knows how to confront a lie that’s spent 88 years masquerading
as fiscal truth.
Earlier this month, hundreds of tax protestors from every
state in the union gathered to announce their public opposition to the
illegal tax code in a peaceful demonstration outside the IRS building. The
IRS commissioner refused to come out and address the group. He asked for
members of the group to submit their written requests for clarifications of
tax problems, which is hard to do when your complaint regards the very
existence of the tax organization and hierarchy.
It would be easy for me to throw in my two cents merely on
the basis of enlightened self-interest. The IRS claims I still owe more than
four thousand dollars through no fault of my own and they are demanding a
monthly payment check of principal and interest until I get caught up.
I would like to say I had the guts or chutzpah to resist
such misplaced and abused authority but, sadly, I do not. I have a family to
look after and could not do so from a jail cell. Besides, I look terrible in
stripes.
But it does strike me that the well-intentioned tax cuts
proposed by our new president do not go nearly far enough to correct the
inequalities in the current tax system.
I realize that if only for the sake of national defense, we
should have some method of raising common funds to benefit us all.
But if we are a nation of law, let’s not build our society
on a flawed foundation. Rather, let’s have the courage to admit our
mistakes and correct them.
That is truly the American way.