Constitutional Amendment Claims – Killer Tax Relief
Frivolous Tax Arguments – Constitutional Amendment Claims That Have Been Argued
In their attempts to avoid paying income taxes, taxpayers use constitutional arguments. Many times taxpayers invoke the First Amendment. They assert that they can refuse to pay taxes on religious or moral grounds. The IRS rejects this contention and explains the content of the First Amendment.
The false argument that some taxpayers bring into court refers to the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. For this reason, they assert that they can refuse to provide any financial information or file federal income tax returns. The U.S. Supreme Court stated in Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R., 240 U.S. 1, 24 (1916), that
“it is . . . well settled that [the Fifth Amendment] is not a limitation upon the taxing power conferred upon Congress by the Constitution; in other words, that the Constitution does not conflict with itself by conferring upon the one hand a taxing power, and taking the same power away on the other by limitations of the due process clause.” The U.S. Supreme Court stated in Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R., 240 U.S. 1, 24 (1916), that “it is . . . well settled that [the Fifth Amendment] is not a limitation upon the taxing power conferred upon Congress by the Constitution; in other words, that the Constitution does not conflict with itself by conferring upon the one hand a taxing power, and taking the same power away on the other by limitations of the due process clause.”
Another frivolous argument rejected by the IRS concludes that the collection of income taxes that a taxpayer may owe is unconstitutional. The argument states that there is no due process for the taxpayer. This has been argued and argued over and over again. The general public doesn’t know that with the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, congress instituted new laws to help protect us as tax payers from the IRS. These new laws have been in place now since January of 1999.
Another frivolous argument implies the violation of the Thirteen Amendment. The claim taxpayers usually make is that the compelled compliance with the federal tax law is a form of servitude. One of my favorite quotes from a ruling in one of the relevant case laws, the jury stated that the plaintiff’s claim was “clearly unsubstantial and without merit.”