for or against? share your thoughts!

for those of you that doesn't know what it is,

Q.What does "flat" mean?
A. "Flat" simply means "no graduation", or everybody pays the same rate. If you graph income levels with tax rates, there is no rise -- it is "flat."

Q.What is "graduation?"
A. Graduation comes from the idea that another dollar added to a rich person's income means less than another dollar to a poor person. In other words, when poor people get another dollar, they might use it to eat better. When rich people get another dollar, they will only increase their level of luxury slightly, probably unnoticeably. So graduation makes a rich person pay more per additional dollar than a poor person. Graduation is part of the current US income tax system. Most other countries use graduation as well.

The income tax in general is a very bad way of raising money, and extremely detrimental to our civil liberties. An indirect or consumption based tax would be a lot better.

There's a reason the Supreme Court ruled the income tax illegal in the 1890s and they had to amend the Constitution to install one.

I don't agree with tax brackets and graduation. I think we should have flat income tax (as long as it's pretty low). The burden is placed too highly on the rich, taking away some motivation to earn more than a certain amount.

Now imagine if the tax was graduated the other way (as in poor people paying a higher rate and rich people paying less). This is also unfair (and rather bad idea), but it would motivate people to make money. Nevermind, just a thought.

Graduation isn't the problem. Everyone could pay a lower rate if they simplified teh code. In addition, everyone would be better off if we used an alternative to the income tax, which, since 1913, has destroyed the liberty treasured by Americans since 1776.

no. the supreme court ruled the income tax illegal becuase it was a tax by person, and that was prohibited in the consitution.





please support your claim that income tax destorys civil liberties.


personally, i believe income tax should be abolished an a luxury tax introduced, where 'extra' stuff ( like cars over 50K, houses over 1 Mill, etc. ) are taxed.

It is very well-documented. The income tax gives teh government an unprecedented right to violate people's privacy and the use of "civil law" to steal people's property. While oen cannot be imprisoned for owing money, one CAN be imprisoned for owing taxes--which is, after all, the same as owing money.

In addition, vocal opponents of the income tax are routinely terrorized and killed by federal agents. Look up the murder of Gordon Kahl in 1984 for one example. Next to the War on Drugs, the enforcmeent of the income tax is teh single most damaging thing to American liberty.

The reason the income tax was illegal in the first place was that, until 1913, there was a general fear that the income tax would, to quote former House Speaker Robert E. Byrd, "a hand from Washington will be stretched out and placed upon every man's business. . . . Heavy fines imposed by distant and unfamiliar tribunals will constantly menace the taxpayer. An army of Federal officials, spies and detectives will descend upon the state. . ."

The amount of leeway that the IRS has in "investigating" tax returns is nothing short of violations of privacy that damage civil liberties tremendously, but since they are "civil" and not "criminal" laws (although you can be kicked out of your house, thrown on the street, and then slapped with a jail indictment for something else), normal constitutional procedures do not apply.

The growth of the American police state since the beginning of the century can be traced to two things: the income tax, and prohibition. Of the two, the income tax is the more harmful.

You forgot to mention that Kahl was an active member of a White Supremacist group, and that he killed two police officers and a sherrif while they attempted to arrest him for violating the terms of his parole. I hardly call that murder.

As for the rest of your post, it's pretty much garbage. American police state? Give me a break.



How could Americans treasure something that was destroyed in 1913?

Next time, think before you post.

edit: deleted quadruple post.

-kryo



He killed two sheriffs who were under orders to kill him and opened fire on his car in North Dakota. Read the TIME article "Dakota Dragnet" from 1984. Or read the Constitution Society articles. In fact, searching for Gordon Kahl on Google, there is only one article in the top ten that even remotely is against him, and that is from a radical Zionist organization that claims the Palestinians should be murdered and their land taken.

When the Federal marshals came to arrest Kahl in North Dakota, they brought with them an ambulence and a firetruck. The marshal in charge did not even carry the warrant for Kahl's arrest. Their intent, clearly, was to murder, not to arrest.

The eyewitness testimony of police officers in the Medina, North Dakota Police Department, available as a book (http://www.mpdpower.com/) clearly proves that the FBI acted out of bounds, and with the intention to kill Gordon Kahl as a propaganda victory, as various lawsuits were being filed against tax evaders at about the same time.

Thus, unless you choose to take the word of Zionists who support genocide, and federal marshals who try to "arrest" people with no warrant and an ambulence waiting by, over that of trained and uncorrupt police officers, as well as the greater part of the American public, then it is clear that the extralegal murder of Gordon Kahl was just that--murder.



Notice that it said former.

The American police state certainly does exist. While America is by no means totalitarian, the due process standards that protect the citizenry from judicial corruption are clearly gone.

In 1977, the United States Senate published a report, Senate Report 93-549 (http://www.barefootsworld.net/war_ep1.html) which effectively admitted that the United States, was, in fact, in a state of semi-permanent national emergency with few to none of the standard due process protections normally given.

The introduction to Report 93-549 bluntly states that:

Since March 9, 1933, the United States has been in a state of declared national emergency. In fact, there are now in effect four presidentially-proclaimed states of national emergency: In addition to the national emergency declared by President Roosevelt in 1933, there are also the national emergency proclaimed by President Truman on December 16, 1950, during the Korean conflict, and the states of national emergency declared by President Nixon on March 23, 1970, and August 15, 1971.

These proclamations give force to 470 provisions of Federal law. These hundreds of statutes delegate to the President extraordinary powers, ordinarily exercised by the Congress, which affect the lives of American citizens in a host of all-encompassing manners. This vast range of powers, taken together, confer enough authority to rule the country without reference to normal Constitutional processes.

Under the powers delegated by these statutes, the President may: seize property; organize and control the means of production; seize commodities; assign military forces abroad; institute martial law; seize and control all transportation and communication; regulate the operation of private enterprise; restrict travel; and, in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all American citizens.

It goes on to say:

A majority of the people of the United States have lived all of their lives under emergency rule. For 40 years, freedoms and governmental procedures guaranteed by the Constitution have, in varying degrees, been abridged by laws brought into force by states of national emergency. The problem of how a constitutional democracy reacts to great crises, however, far antedates the Great Depression. As a philosophical issue, its origins reach back to the Greek city-states and the Roman Republic. And, in the United States, actions taken by the Government in times of great crises have-from, at least, the Civil War-in important ways, shaped the present phenomenon of a permanent state of national emergency.

Thus, the Senate itself admits that unconstitutional and semi-constitutional powers have been granted to the government, and that they still remain in force today. Clearly, the government does exersize arbitrary power, and its ability to do so stems from the judicial precedents set by the income tax.

Kahl was killed in a shootout four months after he killed the two officers. A sherrif died in that conflict.



Link?



Actually, I don't see any site against him in the top 10. Of course, with supporters called "freerepublic.com" or "outpost-of-freedom.com", who needs detractors. Plus, almost all of the top 10 are simply re-posts of the same e-mail forward, which is hardly a reliable source.



Source? In any case, the arrest warrant was not for tax reasons, but because he had violated the terms of his parole. Thus your argument that Kahl was killed for protesting income tax is ridiculous at best.



Notice that it didn't.

It wasn't a shootout. The FBI fired without Kahl even knowing they were coming. No evidence indicates that shots were fired back. The FBI found Kahl cowering in the kitchen. The sheriff died due to collateral fire from government troops.



The repost began in the Medina Police Department, pretty reliable to me. And having one is certainly better than having none, like you.

Not to mention the Constitution Society is in support of Kahl, which is widely considered one of the leading independent resources on Constitutional theory and practice, and actually has a team of litigators working for it. In addition, the Institute for Justice, a leading non-profit property rights law firm, has a similar stance.

Moreover, when independent investigators, including one from the New York Times, asked that Gordon Kahl's case be investigated, the government refused to convene a grand jury. The FBI conveniently "lost" the crime scene photos, although one local Arkansas policeman did have a shot of Kahl's severed foot, which had been cut off with an axe by the FBI. This was published in the New York Times.



His parole was for speaking out against taxes. The IRS began investigating him after he went on a radio show and spoke out against taxes. His original arrest was for a technicality in his filing, which only proves that the compleixty of the income tax can be manipulated very easily by the government.

Source?



Source?



You mean nutjob supporters? I'd rather have none, thanks.



His jail time was for failing to prepare tax returns. Considering he belonged to a white supremacist group who disagreed with the income tax and government in general, I highly doubt this was a simple technicality.

In any case, you have still failed to provide any evidence that Kahl was "terrorized and killed" simply for opposing the income tax, which is what you implied here: