RE: Barter

From: Billy Brown (bbrown@transcient.com)
Date: Wed Mar 08 2000 - 14:27:36 MST


Michael S. Lorrey wrote:
> Actually, they don't. Taxing a barter exchange would be classified as a
> direct tax, which the Supreme Court has continually said is
> unconstitutional for the federal government to tax. The states can
> impose direct taxes. The feds can only impose indirect taxes, like
> tariffs, excises, and duties. The Income Tax is actually an income duty,
> but legally it is only required to be paid by residents of federal
> property and resident aliens, everyone else who resides in the 50 states
> pays the income tax voluntarily. Those who point to the 16th Amendment
> don't know or understand what that Amendment actually did. What it did
> was establish that an income tax is an indirect tax, and that it can
> only be mandated for certain types of income and on certain types of
> people.

Mike, I'm sorry, but this is nonsense. The IRS can and does tax
barter-based income, it has does so for decades, and it has sent thousands
of people to prison for failure to pay. The IRS also can and does tax
*everyone* who earns money in the U.S. *or* holds U.S. citizenship, and
again they've put thousands of people in jail for non-compliance (not to
mention the vast amounts of personal property the regularly confiscate to
cover unpaid taxes). Your arguments have long since been discarded by the
mainstream legal community, and unless that changes they aren't going to do
you a bit of good in court.

Billy Brown
bbrown@transcient.com



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