Income Taxes & the Destruction of Liberty

Today at the 2008 FreedomFest in Las Vegas, my friend and longtime associate Vernon Jacobs, CPA, presented a fascinating lecture on the American income tax and the U.S. Constitution. The title of his talk was "Income Taxes and the Destruction of Liberty".

I have read Vern's 49-page paper and it is a clear, concise and arresting exposition of the income tax and what it (and the IRS) have done to diminish American freedoms and liberties.

Mr. Jacobs is not one of those "tax protesters" who believes the income tax is illegal, (the 16th Amendment answers that question), or that it applies only to esoteric small groups defined by arcane Internal Revenue Code provisions as interpreted by self-serving fraudsters, many of whom charitably can be called "tax nuts."

Rather his presentation carefully establishes the history of American taxation, the ideological demand for an income tax from socialist and Communist theorists, the role financing American wars has played in expanding the tax, and lastly, the brutal polices of the IRS that view all citizens as tax evaders to be treated to the lash.

He also touches on illegal tax evasion vs. legal tax avoidance and the use of offshore tax havens and government attempts at blocking such use.

Jacobs makes the historic point that while the British Crown's restrictions on religious and other freedoms certainly were reasons for the American Revolution, the principal cause was excessive taxation and its brutal enforcement by King George's agents, as witness the Boston Tea Party.

For those who are interested in what Vern calls "a semi-academic history lesson on the income tax and the related portions of the Constitution" a copy in PDF format is available at http://www.offshorepress.com/liberty/constitution.pdf

I recommend it heartily.