Talk:Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments/Archive 1

Archive 1

Attribution

Material for this article was broken out from the excessively long Tax protester constitutional arguments; edit history can be seen there. bd2412 T 20:03, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Mucho, mucho gracias, BD2412!!!! Yours, Famspear (talk) 22:33, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

This loose collection is amorphous rather than static, and not representing any set or noun for which completeness can be achieved. These arguments may be utilized in the absence of tax protest; inclusion of an item within the page is therefore arbitrary, and the title presupposes its bias. Prepending 'Frivolous', 'Rejected', or 'Unsuccessful' to the page's title, and eliminating 'Tax protester' is proposed. Related pages may have similar needs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.255.69.204 (talk • contribs)

There's no objection there at all. Of course it is amorphous, because tax protesters keep coming up with new, even more frivolous arguments. The fact that these arguments may be used in other cases does not detract from their predominant use as ways to avoid meeting obligations to one's home country, and the characterization that courts have used in describing them as "tax protester arguments". bd2412 T 16:00, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Upon further review, I will add to the above the observation that the arguments that can be made against the Sixteenth Amendment have all been made, and have been deemed incorrect. There is no colorably plausible argument remaining. That's not to say someone couldn't come up with a really wacky theory out of left field, but the basic arguments - that the Amendment was not properly ratified, and that the language of the Amendment itself means something other than what it says - are done. bd2412 T 10:30, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I suspect that over the years it has become more and more difficult for tax protesters to "top themselves" in terms of "wackiness" (or is it "wackyness"?), as so many theories have been advanced. Note: The Tax Protester FAQ by Daniel B. Evans, at [1], is now up to something like 250 pages when converted to a typical PDF file. Still, the protesters will never stop trying..... Famspear (talk) 21:24, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Benson's contentions

An anonymous editor dumped some of Benson's contentions about the Sixteenth Amendment into the article. I deleted them and re-inserted some of them, modified to be clear that it was BENSON who was claiming that this legislature did this and that legislature did that. The entire thrust of the numerous court cases involving Benson and his phony research is that Benson was wrong. Wikipedia itself cannot take a position that Benson was right, especially considering the legal history behind his claims. Therefore, I modified the verbiage to make clear that these are Benson's claims. Famspear (talk) 17:32, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Violation of state constitutions

One of the arguments made is that a number of the ratifications involved state legislatures violating state constitutions, either procedurally (eg not reading the proposal on 3 occasions) or substantively (state constitutions limiting tax authority). Perhaps someone could clarify why those arguments were rejected by the courts. Fuzzy mongoose (talk) 18:46, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Specifically, Tennessee, Mississippi, Ohio, Arkansas, Minnesota, New Mexico, West Virginia, Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Colorado, and Illinois, at the very least.

Also, "Texas and Louisiana violated provisions in their state constitutions prohibiting the legislatures from empowering the federal government with any additional taxing authority."

In addition, Kentucky rejected it once it got defined as an "income tax," but got counted as ratifying the amendment by the then Secretary of State. Oklahoma changed the wording of the amendment and only approved it with this changed wording, though it was counted as ratified in it's original format by Knox, as well.

See: http://www.givemeliberty.org/features/taxes/notratified.htm 174.107.168.152 (talk) 21:57, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

No, "givemelibertydotorg" is a tax protester web site. It's not reliable for purposes of Wikipedia. And all the states that tax protesters claim did not ratify the Amendment actually DID ratify it. Famspear (talk) 22:46, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

PS: A better question is: Why, over sixty years after the Amendment was ratified, did a few people start making the silly "Sixteenth Amendment was not really ratified" argument? The answer is that they erroneously thought that without that Amendment, the federal income tax on salaries, wages, other compensation for services, etc., would be unconstitutional. That's an understandable misconception if you read the text of the Amendment without knowing the history of the federal income tax. The federal income tax is certainly "authorized" by the Amendment, but the tax is constitutional even without it. To understand why this is so, you have to have some knowledge of principles of constitutional law and you have to have some knowledge of the history of the income tax. All this has been covered in Wikipedia over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

The phony "Sixteenth Amendment was not ratified" argument was created out of thin air, apparently in the early or mid-1970s. Look, I've been studying tax law for over 30 years, and I've been specifically studying the goofy "Sixteenth Amendment" argument and other tax protester arguments for the past 14 years. Again, ask yourself the question: If all those states named above really didn't ratify the Amendment, and if the Amendment was constitutionally required in order for the federal income tax to be valid, why has no applicable state legislature ever claimed that the Amendment was not ratified? Did they just not notice? And why did all the high income people who were paying the federal income tax for sixty years (from 1913 to 1975, when the first court case popped up) -- the very people who could afford the top notch tax lawyers to figure it all out -- why did those people never object? Did they just not notice? This doofus argument was promulgated by people with no training, no experience, and no expertise in tax law -- people who ended up in federal prison (like Bill Benson, the convicted fraudster who supposedly did all his "research" on this).

The "Sixteenth Amemdment was not ratified" argument is a tax scam, folks. People who make this kind of argument don't know what they're talking about. Famspear (talk) 23:09, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

That isn't helpful. Various arguments were made, and some that were made are convincingly argued against in the article. The argument about state constitutions is neither mentioned nor argued against, but I'm sure it must have been covered by the legal cases, and so it should be in the article. Fuzzy mongoose (talk) 00:04, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, I respectfully disagree. As you can understand, the article does not need to cover every single variation of the argument that was ever made. The variations on tax protester arguments are almost limitless.

However, let me check on it and, if I can find a case where that was specifically argued, we can certainly add it -- not because it has to be in the article, but because it would be informative. Thanks! Famspear (talk) 00:14, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

By the way, even if there is no specific case where this argument was made regarding the Sixteenth Amendment, the legal doctrine of Leser v. Garnett applies. The ratification of a U.S. Constitutional amendment is not subject to the restrictions in a state constitution. Ratification is a matter of federal law:

".....the function of a state Legislature in ratifying a proposed amendment to the federal Constitution, like the function of Congress in proposing the amendment, is a federal function derived from the federal Constitution; and it transcends any limitations sought to be imposed by the people of a state."

--from Leser v. Garnett, 258 U.S. 130 (1922).

Leser v. Garnett involved an argument that the Nineteenth Amendment was not properly ratified. But the legal principle is the same for all constitutional amendments. Famspear (talk) 00:23, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

By the way, Leser v. Garnett is already mentioned in the article, in the citation made by the Court of Appeals in the Thomas case. But, I'm still going to check the text of Thomas and other cases and see if I can find something more. Famspear (talk) 00:37, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Leser sounds promising - that probably takes care of that, but it needs explaining (the current mention in the article doesn't explain that). I think part of the problem is the structure of the article, which doesn't make all of Benson's arguments (and their rebuttals) as clear as they could be. The "Ohio statehood" argument has its own section and as a result that is much clearer. Fuzzy mongoose (talk) 01:16, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Translate into Russian

На русский переведите, блеать! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.34.119.2 (talk) 15:07, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Comment(s)

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The article "Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments" is heavily biased to say the least. The very TITLE of the article is meant to be an insult to anyone who disagrees with the IRS. It is very well known that calling people "tax protesters" is seen as an insult in virtually every part of our culture, and I believe the main "contributor" to this article, (BD2412) KNOWS this. The phrase "tax protester" has a meaning in our culture that is the equivalent of calling someone a "kook" or "nutjob." The article also contains a major falsehood about one of the arguments of people insultingly referred to as "tax protesters" i.e. the article says in the very FIST SENTENCE that "tax protesters" claim that the 16th amendment provides no power to tax income. This is a completely false perversion of the arguments of people who disagree with the IRS' interpretation of the law. I have seen dozens of different arguments against the IRS' interpretations and I've never heard one that SIMULTANEOUSLY acknowledged the legality of the 16th amendment AND claimed that it "gave no power to tax income." Misstating the arguments of one's opponents is a classic tactic in people who have an agenda to tarnish the reputations of others. It appears that BD2412 only helped create this page so he could push the IRS' point of view and insult people he calls "tax protesters." Not everyone, in fact MOST people who disagree with the IRS' interpretation of the law are not "tax protesters." Even if they are, most people do not want to be called "tax protesters" because it is a very derogatory phrase. Thus, this article is not in keeping with the informational mission of wikipedia. The title of the article should be something UNbiased such as "Sixteenth Amendment disagreements." Bunching a very large group of people, who have many different opinions into a group and giving them ALL the same label is also not in keeping with the mission of wikipedia. The people the author labels as all being "tax protesters" are from VERY different groups, points of view and backgrounds. I attempted to rectify some of the glaring bias and LACK of information in this article but BD2412 just undoes it. Clearly being unbiased does not fit into his agenda because he didn't keep ANY of the fair changes that I made. He merely reverts the page back as if no one else but him has any knowledge of the subject. This article seems to avoid and almost bury the main argument that millions of people have against the IRS' interpretation of the sixteenth amendment, and when I attempted to add it, again, BD2412 just removed it without any discussion or reasoning whatsoever. What is this main argument I speak of? The main argument is that wages are NOT income, and the supreme court has actually ruled this. I even attempted (to no avail) to not only add this simple argument to the article, but to add the fact that the supreme court has NEVER reversed key provisions of the Brushaber or Stanton decisions that define "income" DIFFERENTLY than the IRS does. One of the most disgusting biases in the article was the undisputed statement at the end of the 2nd paragraph that "These kinds of arguments have been ruled without merit" which the writer put at the end of the 2nd paragraph. The writer of this article first misstates key arguments of people who disagree with the IRS, and then he passes 100% judgment on those arguments as supposedly "having no merit." That is the very definition of pure bias. While it is true that many arguments the author bothered to mention HAVE been declared by many courts as having no merit, the arguments relating to the legal definition of income most definitely DO have merit, especially since they seem to agree with the Brushaber and Stanton decisions of the U.S. supreme court which called the income tax an indirect tax. Another issue I attempted to add to the article was the fact that there appears to be a contradiction between the supreme court and lower courts. Lower courts agree with the IRS' "rule" that wages are "income" but the past supreme court decisions do not. In fact, NO SUPREME COURT DESCISIONS AGREE WITH THE IRS THAT WAGES ARE INCOME. People who agree with the IRS love to pretend the issue is settled just because lower courts usually side with the IRS, but they ignore the Brushaber and Stanton rulings. This anomaly is definitely worth mentioning in the article since it is an integral part of the disagreements that millions have with the IRS' use of the 16th amendment. I feel I was very fair in the changes I attempted to make to an extremely biased article, but was slapped down by someone with a very pro IRS agenda.

Last edited at 07:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 15:55, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

The main section of this article seems to violate Wikipedia’s current NPOV policy

The main sections of this article are sections 1 and 2. Section 2 ("Sixteenth Amendment effectiveness"), which is very long, is actually off topic. (Benson, who was important enough of a protester to have been hit with an injunction to stop selling protesting materials didn't apparently use the argument of section 2. See paragraph #1, page 1, document 116 of USA vs. Benson, case #1:04-cv-07403, 2008.) Section 1 is entitled, “Sixteenth Amendment ratification.” I submit that this section seems to violate Wikipedia’s current NPOV policy and for the following reasons. The NPOV policy requires that articles here are neutral, and do not favor one side or another. In the instant situation, it is important to recognize what the exact titles currently are. The overall article title is not “Court Decisions Regarding the US 16th Amendment.” Rather, it is “Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments.” However, none of the three quoted sections of section 1 present tax protester arguments. Rather, they only present opinions from courts. [A court's perspective in United States v. Thomas is first quoted. Then, a court of appeals' perspective is quoted. Lastly, in Baker v. Commissioner, that court is quoted.] This is a general reflection of the bias of the article. The lack of disclosure of arguments from the protesters goes against the title and also violates NPOV for two reasons. First, the protesters arguments are not being presented except through the bias of the rulings of the courts against them. Second, normally one might get away with viewing courts as NPOV, but not when they are, as here, essentially, defendants. The protesters are implicitly asserting that the government is corrupt and dishonest. From a theoretical perspective, the base assertion of a ratification issue would not seem ridiculous. (That a politician might be fearful of not getting reelected if they were "caught" voting in favor of taxing their voters.) The US court system is a branch of government. Therefore, for section 1 of this article to only be showing the government’s side of the argument against them (which asserts they are dishonest) is clearly biased, since only the defendant’s counterargument to the arguments are outlined. It is also relatively worthless, since it uses circular reasoning. (If the plaintiff's argument is correct, then the defendant's words cannot be trusted in the first place.) In short, section 1 currently just says, "We, accused of lying about ratification, did not lie, and actually told the truth, and, therefore, are totally innocent."

Section 1 is basically doing a bait and switch, claiming to present tax protesters’ arguments but only presenting counterarguments of tax protesters’ arguments. If either side should be presented, it would be the side not shown; there's not really any need to present the government's rebuttals, since the article title does not encompass their disclosure here.

It is important to realize that the title does not require restricting things to legal cases. Indeed, some arguments never end up in any court of law, and that would almost certainly include some arguments from tax protesters. Articles on Higgs boson arguments do not only consider what courts think, and the same should be true of this article allegedly about tax protesters. This makes the article's focus on Benson seem only to intentionally sandbag and obfuscate whatever the more legitimate arguments might be, and dilute the Wikipedia brand, for this obvious and blatant bias would only be here for bad reasons.

I propose any of the following solutions to the situation:

1. Deleting the entire article. 2. Including the best actual arguments of the tax protesters, such as a listing of which states ratified what Congress actually voted on, which did not, and exactly why. 3. Changing the title to be congruent with the existing pro-government POV, like “US Court Decisions Regarding the 16th Amendment.” — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jasontaylor7 (talk • contribs) 17:15, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Per WP:FRINGE, Wikipedia does not give equal weight to theories which fall far outside of mainstream thought on a topic. The vast majority of people who work in the field of taxation in the United States, including those whose interest is in reducing taxes payable, consider the Sixteenth Amendment to be valid and effective. Furthermore, like the rest of the constitution and laws of the United States, the Sixteenth Amendment is a legal construct. Therefore, the determinations of courts, whose function is to parse legal constructs, is dispositive regarding the meaning of the text or the validity of arguments against it. The courts, including the Supreme Court, have not been hesitant to strike down unconstitutional laws, or incorrect agency interpretations of the constitution, so there is no basis to question the determinations of courts with respect to the Sixteenth Amendment specifically. As for arguments that have not been brought before the courts, given the wide array of arguments about the Sixteenth Amendment that have been brought before the courts, and the ease with which such arguments can be brought, it is implausible that there is a decent argument that has not yet been litigated. bd2412 T 16:11, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

BD2412, if WP:FRINGE indeed prevents the title-teased subject from being addressed accurately in an unbiased fashion in the body of the instant article, then indeed delete the article or change the title of it so it is not incongruent with the title-teased content. (You're basically saying Wikipedia does not discuss arguments about X even though there's an article, "Arguments about X.")

Your argument that US courts supply good answers to articles similar this one is generally contradicted because many court cases are disposed of for reasons of legality unrelated to the real issue a reader of an article about a group's argument would probably be interested in. For instance, if an otherwise winning legal case/brief is presented to the wrong court, the plaintiff will likely lose on jurisdictional arguments not of actual interest the readers here. Similarly, the first-quoted case basically was disposed of on the basis that that court does not need to review what they deem beyond review; the underlying arguments were not really addressed.

But, for the sake of argument here, let's just give you the benefit of the doubt. Even in that case, the title still implies that only the opening plaintiff briefs, reply briefs, and appeal or request for rehearing briefs of related lawsuits should be quoted. Instead, as already pointed out, we only see quotes of what is effectively the defendant's briefs. Your argument does not alter this problem. Rather, it suggests the article be deleted, if anything. Indeed, my fears wikipedia could be biased against anti-government ideologies and for pro-establishment ones is bolstered both by the clear bias of the existing article and your comment, which essentially defends the existing clash of the title and the article body, and in no way admits anything I wrote is reasonable. Jasontaylor7 (talk) 18:39, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Documents filed directly by the plaintiffs in these cases would be primary sources, which are disfavored because they can say literally anything. A litigant can file a suit with a pleading alleging that the Earth is flat, Santa Claus is real, and cats secretly rule the world through mind control rays. It is the role of the court to weigh those claims and determine if they are factually evidenced and legally sound. As for jurisdictional arguments, those are irrelevant here. Courts have ruled upon the actual arguments that have been raised, and those rulings are reflected in the article. If you feel that the article should be deleted, instructions are at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. If you feel that the article should be renamed, instructions for that are at Wikipedia:Requested moves. None of those efforts will change the reality that arguments about taxation being unconstitutional or illegal are fringe arguments, not taken seriously by experts in the field. bd2412 T 19:04, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

bd2412, thanks but I'm not going to delete anything. I mean, I was just wanting to point out a potential violation of a Wikipedia policy, that's all. I don't have any dog in this fight; just wanting to bring the issue to the attention of the powers that be (i.e., you). I came here to learn what the deal was with an odd comment someone had sent me, and was disappointed to learn that the article here was a bait and switch. It failed to teach me what the title promised to teach, and largely kept me in the dark about whatever their arguments were.

You wrote,

"Courts have ruled upon the actual arguments that have been raised, and those rulings are reflected in the article."

Feel free to think this, but I'm not so sure, and your missing the point of the jurisdictional example does not help your case. Setting aside the dicta, as the last sentence of the first quoted passage explained, that court disposed of that case on the basis of precedent allowing it to not address the actual allegations at hand. That might seem as a ruling upon the actual arguments, but it is the opposite to me (i.e., it is a ruling based on a different argument that allows disposition without touching upon plaintiff's arguments). Moreover, because some of the protester cases are stamped "cert denied", this means that the protesters challenged this precedent, and scotus (which in a broader context is the defendant), basically said that even though they are totally free the precedent that was used, it is and was still best to not be addressing (or ruling upon) those protester arguments. In other words, scotus essentially has the power and discretion to not address the main protester argument, so it was not addressed, and they did not give any reason, just that the cert was denied because they felt like it. Jasontaylor7 (talk) 21:16, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Regarding this language:

The overall article title is not “Court Decisions Regarding the US 16th Amendment.” Rather, it is “Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments.” However, none of the three quoted sections of section 1 present tax protester arguments. Rather, they only present opinions from courts.

That is not precisely correct. These are Federal court cases in the United States. In the United States, a Federal court decides only actual cases or controversies. In each of the cases cited, the opinion of the court embodies the tax protester argument that was presented to the Court, and decided by the Court, or represents dicta related to some other tax protester argument.

The article as written complies with the Wikipedia guidelines on Neutral Point of View. The article does not say that "the courts are right" or that "the tax protesters are right". The article described tax protester arguments that have actually been addressed by the courts. To date, there is no record of any tax protester argument having ever been accepted by any Federal court in the United States. The title of the article, and its substance, complies with Wikipedia rules. Famspear (talk) 22:34, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Regarding these statements:

Moreover, because some of the protester cases are stamped "cert denied", this means that the protesters challenged this precedent, and scotus (which in a broader context is the defendant), basically said that even though they are totally free the precedent that was used, it is and was still best to not be addressing (or ruling upon) those protester arguments. In other words, scotus essentially has the power and discretion to not address the main protester argument, so it was not addressed, and they did not give any reason, just that the cert was denied because they felt like it [ . . ] ]

What is important in terms of the Wikipedia article (and compliance with Wikipedia rules) is not why the Supreme Court declined to hear a particular case. What is important is the holding of the Court of Appeals that the Supreme Court declined to review. The proper way to cite a Federal court case is to include the subsequent history of the case, including (where applicable) the denial of a petition for writ of certiorari. The reason some of the cases are "stamped" as "cert denied" is that this is the proper citation form -- for any Federal court case where cert. has been denied, not just for tax cases. Famspear (talk) 22:45, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Regarding this language:

Section 1 is basically doing a bait and switch, claiming to present tax protesters’ arguments but only presenting counterarguments of tax protesters’ arguments. If either side should be presented, it would be the side not shown; there's not really any need to present the government's rebuttals, since the article title does not encompass their disclosure here.

That is incorrect. The article correctly describes what the tax protester argument was in each case.

Regarding this language:

It is important to realize that the title does not require restricting things to legal cases. Indeed, some arguments never end up in any court of law, and that would almost certainly include some arguments from tax protesters. Articles on Higgs boson arguments do not only consider what courts think, and the same should be true of this article allegedly about tax protesters. This makes the article's focus on Benson seem only to intentionally sandbag and obfuscate whatever the more legitimate arguments might be, and dilute the Wikipedia brand, for this obvious and blatant bias would only be here for bad reasons.

For purposes of the Wikipedia rules, there is no reason to change the name of the article merely because some tax protester arguments don't end up being litigated.

No, Benson was the most famous promulgator of the Sixteenth Amendment-related tax protester arguments (although the article does list the others as well). No, the article's focus on Benson does not "seem only to intentionally sandbag and obfuscate" anything.

We need to understand that from a legal standpoint, an argument that the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified is the legal equivalent of arguing, in the field of astronomy, that The Moon is made of green cheese. That's how preposterous this argument is. There could be no such "legitimate argument". The Wikipedia article cannot possibly "seem" to obfuscate any possible "more legitimate arguments" than those promulgated by Benson or others -- for the simple reason that any such argument is legally frivolous.

What the article does is accurately describe the arguments and the courts' rulings on those arguments -- without Wikipedia itself taking sides. Famspear (talk) 22:58, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Regarding this language:

From a theoretical perspective, the base assertion of a ratification issue would not seem ridiculous. (That a politician might be fearful of not getting reelected if they were "caught" voting in favor of taxing their voters.) The US court system is a branch of government. Therefore, for section 1 of this article to only be showing the government’s side of the argument against them (which asserts they are dishonest) is clearly biased, since only the defendant’s counterargument to the arguments are outlined. It is also relatively worthless, since it uses circular reasoning. (If the plaintiff's argument is correct, then the defendant's words cannot be trusted in the first place.) In short, section 1 currently just says, "We, accused of lying about ratification, did not lie, and actually told the truth, and, therefore, are totally innocent."

That's not a credible argument. The base assertion that there can be any non-frivolous ratification "issue" is ridiculous.

A total of forty-two states ratified the amendment. This was done by state legislatures. Assuming for the sake of argument that a typical state legislature has 50 to 100 or more members, we are talking about literally thousands individuals who participated in this procedure over the period of years in which the amendment ratification process occurred.

I have been studying this topic for nineteen years. There is absolutely no record anywhere of anyone -- in any of the 42 state legislatures or anywhere else -- ever having stated that "hey, wait a minute, we in the State of XXXXXX did not ratify the Amendment, and the U.S. Secretary of State has fraudulently certified that we did!". In early 1913, the Amendment was published as having been ratified. We are talking about a period of sixty-two years from the time the Amendment was officially announced to have been ratified to the very first record of anyone ever having questioned the ratification -- in the year 1975.

And who do you think questioned it in 1975? A member of a state legislature? No. A state government official? No.

It was a tax protester.

A person who was born on the day in 1913 on which the Amendment was officially announced as having become part of the United States Constitution would have been sixty-two years old at the time the first goofy "non-ratification" argument appeared in 1975.

The idea that a politician's concern about re-election if "caught" voting in favor of taxing the voters would have any bearing on this matter is not credible. Famspear (talk) 00:17, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Changing the title to "US Court Decisions Regarding the 16th Amendment” also is not needed. First, the article also uses secondary sources such as law review articles, etc. Second, any article about a legal topic on the laws of the United States of America or its political subdivisions (and that's what this article is, by definition) is going to tend to refer directly or indirectly to court decisions, because that's how American law works. In the United States, official interpretation of what the law is in an actual case or controversy is a function of the judicial branch of government (the courts) -- not of a legislative branch of government, and not of an executive branch of government. We don't need to re-name a legal article to refer to the "courts"; the rulings of the courts are a "given" in terms of relevance to a Wikipedia article about American law. Famspear (talk) 00:32, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

• As a side note, we have an article at The Moon is made of green cheese. Sadly, the issue has never been litigated. bd2412 T 00:53, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

"There is absolutely no record anywhere of anyone -- in any of the 42 state legislatures or anywhere else -- ever having stated that "hey, wait a minute, we in the State of XXXXXX did not ratify the Amendment, and the U.S. Secretary of State has fraudulently certified that we did!" Really? What about the 1913 United States Solicitor, who not only apparently stated that the states passed altered versions of the amendment, but, also, justified why he would personally be ok with considering them as ratified in writing, "Furthermore, under the provisions of the Constitution a legislature is not authorized to alter in any way the amendment proposed by Congress, the function of the legislature consisting merely in the right to approve or disapprove the proposed amendment. It, therefore, seems a necessary presumption, in the absence of an express stipulation to the contrary, that a legislature did not intend to do something that it had not the power to do, but rather that it intended to do something that it had the power to do, namely, where its action has been affirmative, to ratify the amendment proposed by Congress. Moreover, it could not be presumed that by a mere change of wording, probably inadvertent, the legislature had intended to reject the amendment as proposed by Congress where all parts of the resolution other than those merely reciting the proposed amendment had set forth an affirmative action by the legislature." (From "Memo from the Office of the United States Solicitor to Secretary of State Knox", February 15, 1913, pp. 9-10.)

"We need to understand that from a legal standpoint, an argument that the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified is the legal equivalent of arguing, in the field of astronomy, that The Moon is made of green cheese." I think this is not too NPOV. I think it is more likely that some state senators corrected the grammatical errors in the 16th amendment prior to voting on it than that the moon is made of green cheese. Spellchecking and correcting what they are voting for was probably a good idea for 99.999999% of their laws, and they probably had no experience with ratifications. The 16th Amendment indeed has myriad grammatical errors, starting with the first word. ("The Congress shall ..." verses the corrected "Congress shall..."). That would be why South Dakota, Arkansas, California would have passed edited versions without that first word. You parrot bd2412's view that the courts determined that the protesters' arguments were wrong, even though the courts actually said the opposite, that they chose not to decide upon the issue because they can chose to not decide. It is just circular reasoning. Yes, it is legal because there's no constraint upon scotus aside from impeachments, which aren't used. That doesn't make everything they say correct any more than whatever Kim Jong-il says is correct. This is why one of the cert petitions was apparently filed on the basis that their circular logic violated the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, things I'd have liked to have been able to learn from this article but didn't until I was trying to make some sense of your response. Jasontaylor7 (talk) 03:37, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

The ratification of the Amendment, including the language of the Amendment, was well-reported at the time, as one would expect for a change to the Constitution. There is not a single account of any member of any of the state legislatures involved asserting that any aspect of the language of the Amendment as enrolled in the Constitution was incorrect, or deviated from the intent of the ratifying legislatures. No objection of this nature was raised even by those who voted against ratification of the Amendment, or those who opposed the Amendment, or those who opposed income taxation generally, even as the Amendment was being used to justify legislation taxing their own income. No assertion that the Amendment was ineffective is consistent with the reality of how it was approached for the first six decades following its ratification, even by the staunchest opponents who were engaged in contesting the ratification process as it went on. bd2412 T 04:09, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

As the courts noted in deciding these cases, the U.S. Secretary of State considered all that -- back in 1913. In at least one case, the court noted that the Secretary considered the differences in punctuation, etc., among various versions of the texts. The court noted that the Secretary of State analyzed all that, and concluded that the Amendment was properly ratified. Under American law, that determination by the Secretary of State (today, that job is done by the National Archivist, if I recall correctly) is legally conclusive -- and the courts have ruled that the determination is legally conclusive.

There is no record that the Solicitor General, or the Secretary of State, or any member of any state legislature ever concluded that a given state that was reported as ratifying the Amendment did not ratify it. Your argument actually weakens your case.

Jason wrote:

Yes, it is legal because there's no constraint upon scotus aside from impeachments, which aren't used. That doesn't make everything they say correct any more than whatever Kim Jong-il says is correct.

Wrong. Completely wrong. First, these cases were not even decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Second, the conclusion that the Sixteenth Amendment is a valid part of the Constitution is correct because the Federal courts who have decided the issue have ruled that way. That's the American legal system. The job of issuing official, binding interpretations of what the law is in actual cases or controversies is the job of the courts. It's not your job, or my job, or the job of the Congress, or the job of the President, or the job of the tax protesters, or the job of the guy who works on my car.

And yes, that DOES make everything the courts rule to be the legally correct answer, until that ruling is overturned through a ruling by a higher court or (in the case of statutory construction) by a change in the statute, etc., etc.

You are quite wrong, Jason.

You wrote:

You parrot bd2412's view that the courts determined that the protesters' arguments were wrong, even though the courts actually said the opposite, that they chose not to decide upon the issue because they can chose to not decide. It is just circular reasoning.

Wrong. No U.S. Federal court has never ruled "the opposite". In every single case where a tax protester has argued that the Amendment is not a valid part of the Constitution (which is the essence of the "non-ratification" or "the thing was not properly ratified argument" is), the courts have rejected that argument. No exceptions.

The purpose of this talk page is not to re-argue these tax protester arguments, and the purpose of this talk page is not to re-argue what the courts have decided. In Wikipedia articles, we report what reliable sources say. Famspear (talk) 04:33, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Jason's argument -- that the rulings on the Sixteenth Amendment are legal "because there's no constraint upon scotus aside from impeachments" and that this "doesn't make everything they [the courts] say correct any more than whatever Kim Jong-il says is correct" illustrates a basic misconception about the American legal system and how law works. Attorney Daniel Evans, who has written extensively about tax protester cases, has summed up the problem:

I am often asked, “Why do you always assume that the courts are right and the tax protesters are wrong?” Or, “Couldn’t the courts be wrong about what the Constitution means?” Those questions demonstrate that the questioner doesn’t really understand what is meant by “law” or the “rule of law.”

Law is not some kind of abstraction that floats in the air, free from any connection to people or events. “The law” is what legislatures, courts, and governments do, and the real test of what the law “is” shows in how the law is applied in actual cases.

So when lawyers talk about what “the law” is, they are talking about how a judge will rule. Not how the judge should rule, or might rule, but will rule. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once explained, “the only definition of law for a lawyer’s purposes is something which the Court will enforce.” Letter to Sir Frederick Pollock, 7/3/1874. Or, more famously: “The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact and nothing more pretentious are what I mean by the law.” The Paths of the Law (1897).

[ . . . ] when the courts, the legislatures, and the voters all agree on what the law is, then that is what the law is. The fact that some people believe that the law should be different that [sic] what courts have said it is doesn’t mean that the law is different from what the courts have said, but only that they should argue their positions within the political system and attempt to change the results.

--Daniel B. Evans, The Tax Protester FAQ (2011) (emphasis added).

Yours, Famspear (talk) 04:46, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Ohio not a State argument doesn't belong here

Someone seems to have added the "Ohio wasn't a state is used as argument" just to dismiss claims, while ignoring and replacing "and texts ratified by various states were not the same" - which isn't in the article any place.

The amendment purportedly passed by more then the needed amount,so Ohio not being a state would not have made any difference. The argument tax resisters are probably using is "the text the states ratified weren't the same, and Ohio may not even have been a state (based on an error Ohio later ratified - a historical quirk not as well known), and xxx.

I doubt this has been used as a sole or significant argument by any tax doubter, as one state would make no difference, so harping on it in the article seems disingenuous. In any case, the entire section should be removed from this article and replaced, where appropriate, by a sentence like the above,simply noting it for whoever, if any, used it as >part< of their argument. Also, this article is extremely worded, and should be cut back in any case. The reader just wants overviews and the sources - he does not need lengthy commentating on the sources when he can go read them himself.

The contention that the argument has been made is properly sourced. The fact that an argument is made in combination with other arguments doesn't mean that the argument wasn't made. Clearly, the court in the quoted case had to address the issue. bd2412 T 20:57, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree with BD4212.

I also disagree with the apparent contention that the article includes "harping," etc. And, the assertion -- that because the amendment was passed by more than the need number of states so Ohio would not have "made any difference" -- misses the purpose of the article: to explain the various Sixteenth Amendment tax protester arguments. None of the tax protester arguments have legal validity. They're legally frivolous. It's not our job (as Wikipedia editors) to sift through the various arguments and "delete" reference to one argument merely because the argument didn't "make any difference." There are basically two categories of relevant arguments: the frivolous argument that Ohio was not a state, and the frivolous argument that the requisite number of states did not ratify. There is no valid reason to assume that "the reader just wants overviews and the sources". And, the article is not "commentating" on the sources; the article is summarizing the sources. Famspear (talk) 12:39, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

At the end of the first section, could we add instances of these judgements?

"Such arguments have been ruled without merit under contemporary jurisprudence." 23.93.5.209 (talk) 02:25, 27 November 2023 (UTC)