The
Constitutional Federal Foreign Jurisdiction
The Constitution, of course, gives the federal
government a limited, lawful jurisdiction.
Under Article 1, Section 8, Clauses 3 and 4, the federal government is
given complete authority over all foreign affairs and foreign persons in
However,
under the Constitution, each of the governments of the fifty states retains the
sovereign power and lawful jurisdiction over its own lands, and its legislature
alone enacts law for the people of that State regarding internal affairs.
Additionally,
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the
Constitution gives the federal government jurisdiction and authority over
foreign commerce and over all interstate commerce between the states, thus
establishing the complete jurisdictional authority of the federal government,
which is an authority around the
states and between the states, but not over the land of the fifty
states. This is why the Supreme
Court has rejected the federal government’s attempts to exercise police powers
in the fifty states, that could not be reasonably related to interstate
commerce, as recently as 1998 in the U.S. v Lopez
decision.
The federal
government does not possess the territorial jurisdiction necessary to tax sales
in the fifty states. That authority and
jurisdiction belong exclusively to the governments of the States themselves. Under the Interstate Commerce clause the
federal government may only tax the first sale at the wholesale level after interstate
transport has occurred. The State alone may tax the retail level of
sales within a particular State. All
these politicians talking about a national sales tax or a flat tax to replace
the income tax only demonstrate that they are unfit for office because they
don’t understand the constitutional limitations imposed on the authority of the
federal government, to tax, and to write legislation for the fifty states, only
of limited scope and operation as specifically granted authority to do so in the
Constitution.
To see that
the 1913 Subtitle A income tax actually created by the tariff act is only imposed by law within this lawful foreign jurisdiction that the
federal government actually does possess over all foreign matters, and is not actually imposed domestically
beyond that foreign jurisdiction on citizens and residents within America, one
only need examine the difference in the treatment under the law between non-resident aliens and resident aliens in regards to the
withholding of tax at the source.
From the
legal definition of the Withholding Agent provided
in Title 26 USC Section 7701(a)(16) we clearly see
that non-resident aliens are subject to the withholding of income tax under Section 1441. However, as soon as a non-resident alien
becomes a resident alien, then
he/she is no longer subject to the withholding of income tax at the source by
the Withholding Agent because he/she
is no longer part of the definition of the Withholding
Agent’s authority over subject persons.
The statutory definition of the Withholding
Agent, from Title 26
U.S.C. Section 7701(a)(16), only specified that withholding was required
under Sections 1441, 1442, 1443 and 1461. However, once the non-resident alien becomes a resident
alien he/she is no longer the subject of the tax, and it is no longer
authorized to be withheld from them because they are no longer within its
jurisdictional reach because as a resident of one of the fifty states the
aliens’ activity is now recognized by the law as being domestic and not foreign
(even though it is conducted by a foreign person), and therefore outside the
federal territorial and subject matter jurisdictions over foreign
affairs..
The resident
alien’s economic activity is no longer within the foreign jurisdictional
authority of the federal government because they are now under the territorial
jurisdictional authority of the State government that they are resident
within. Tariffs are imposed on foreign
activity, not domestic. As soon as the
non-resident alien becomes a resident (“resident” is defined in the law) his
activity is recognized by the law as being removed from the “foreign” category that is subject to a tariff, and is
placed into the “domestic” category,
which is outside the subjectivity to any tariff, and the withholding of tax
from their payments terminates. Domestic
activity is not subject to any tariff because a tariff is a foreign tax. Even when the activity is conducted by a
foreign person who has become a resident in the U.S. (but who is still foreign)
the tax is not withheld at the source because the resident is not subject to
the payment of a tariff, because a resident’s activity is not considered
foreign, but domestic, and is therefore not lawfully subject to payment of a
tariff on foreign activity. If resident
aliens aren’t even subject to the income tax it is of course absurd to even
suggest that American citizens are, or ever were the proper subjects of this
income tax in the form of a foreign tariff – that is all government mythical
fiction and propaganda, as we will expose.
The indirect
collection scheme of the income tax, which is collected at the source by withholding from subject persons,
and which is paid by the third
party Withholding Agent who is made
liable, and is not paid by the
actual subject of the tax (the foreigner), has never changed in 94 years. The rate of tax to be ultimately owed under Section 1, and the percentage of earnings to be withheld
under Sections 1441 and 1442 have all been adjusted
both up and down at different times through the years, and the language of the
statutes establishing the amounts of the allowable deductions, credits and
expenses has been continuously altered as well, but the fundamental scheme of
the income tax laws under Subtitle A has never changed in 94 years. It is now, and has always been, a tax that is
collected at the source from subject persons by a third party, by withholding
at the source from payments to persons subject by statute to withholding.
The subject
persons are all foreign, of course,
because the tax is clearly, from a simple and straight forward reading of the
law, nothing more than an indirect tariff on the income derived from the
economic activity of foreigners under the federal jurisdiction, it is not a
direct tax on the domestic activity or income of any American citizens under
the territorial jurisdiction of the fifty states. Liability has nothing to do with the
collection of the tax from the taxpayer – it is just taken from foreign persons
by the Withholding Agents, who are
then made liable for turning over the collected tax to the Treasury. Note that Section 1461 indemnifies the Withholding Agent from any claims made
by the foreign taxpayer regarding the taking (withholding) of the tax. If no tax is collected by withholding when it
should have been, then Sections 1461
and 1463 clearly and simply
state that it is the Withholding Agent
who is liable for the uncollected tax, penalties and interest, not the
(foreign) taxpayer receiving payments.
Under the actual laws the IRS should never approach a citizen directly
to collect any uncollected tax because that would constitute direct taxation,
only the Withholding Agents or the
payors may be approached according to the law – that keeps it all indirect and
constitutional.
And that is
the entire extent of the proper legal domestic application of the income tax
(in America) under the law. There are no
other provisions anywhere in all of Subtitle A - Income Taxes, authorizing the
withholding of this tax from any other persons, foreign or otherwise, or
stating that any other person other than the Withholding Agent is liable, or is made liable, for either the
payment of the income tax, or for the payment of any penalties or interest
incurred as a result of a failure to pay.
The income
tax is an indirect foreign tax in
the form of a tariff that is collected
at the source by withholding from subject persons - who are all foreign and properly subjected to the payment of a tariff. But, tariffs
do not apply to domestic economic activity, and the scheme of the income
tax - withholding at the source from subject persons, has never changed in 94
years. The same provisions exist in the
law now as did in 1913, when the Supreme Court ruled (of course) that the whole
thing is certainly Constitutional under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1
authorizing the government to lay taxes: imposts, duties and excises.
This
understanding, based on these legal facts presented here regarding the
withholding of income tax from subject persons under Subtitle A, represents
what is still in the law today in subtitle A – the Income Tax. The
income tax does not apply to domestic economic activity, because domestic
activity cannot be lawfully made the subject of any tariff act or tariff
tax.
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