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The power of the government to tax was set forth in Article I of the Constitution: “Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes.” Then, the 16th Amendment in 1913 gave the government the specific power to collect income taxes. Nevertheless, citizens such as Wesley Snipes still try to dream up theories which will enable them to evade paying tax. Adherents of the “861 position” argue that Section 861 of the Internal Revenue Code does not list “wages” as taxable. The IRS responds that “compensation for services,” which is listed, is the definition of “wages.” Another theory is that the payment of taxes is “voluntary,” as the word was used in the Supreme Court case Flora. The IRS explains, however, that the word “voluntary” means that the taxpayer has the right to pay her own taxes (and thus take an aggressive interpretation of tax law), instead of the government imposing their own tax calculations on citizens. Another theory asserts that wages, tips, and other compensation received for personal services is not “income,” because there is no taxable gain when a person exchanges labor for money. The IRS responds that the Internal Revenue Code Section 61 and famous cases such as Glenshaw Glass emphasize the broad range of “gross income.” Then there’s the argument that filling out a tax return violates the 5th Amendment self-incrimination clause. However, while the self-incrimination privilege protects the taxpayer from revealing an illegal source of income, it does not protect her from disclosing the amount of that income. Some argue that it is a form of slavery for the government to force citizens to fill out tax forms every year, or that the IRS is not an agency of the United States. The IRS dismisses these arguments out of hand as frivolous. |
