As far as I know, US judges don't swear an oath to uphold the Constitution <http://www.vigo-examiner.com/frdmst19.htm>.
In dealing with IRS bureaucrats it's usually you as an individual against them as individuals, organized as a gang (with some armed members).
If you decide to extricate yourself from their system, not obey them, etc., and they find out about you and what you're doing (or not doing), they'll set in motion their strategies and tactics to deal with you. One of their first decisions is to decide if it's worth their time and effort to "work" (their term) you. They may decide that the potential return from you does not justify "working" you.
If they decide to "work" you, then there are strategies and tactics available to you to use in defending yourself against their attack, or even counter-attacking.
There are workable strategies and tactics -- and unworkable ones. But any individual can make technical errors that turn a formerly working approach into a failure (that may result in new case law that may make that particular approach unworkable in future).
If you have a fair grasp of the parameters according to which IRS bureaucrats operate, the strategies and tactics they typically use, and the strategies and tactics available to you to deal with them and what they do, then you may find that the probability of them defeating you in any particular year is less than 1 in 6,000 -- i.e., extricating yourself from the IRS system may be safer than driving your car!
Anyone interested in achieving greater Fiscal Freedom (and reading the above probability argument) is invited to check out <http://www.buildfreedom.com/taxmain.htm>.
Frederick Mann
At 11:43 AM 7/23/99 -0400, Alex Future Bokov <alexboko@umich.edu> wrote:
>
>On Fri, 23 Jul 1999, Mighty Xerxes wrote:
>
>> Do you have a citation to support your assertion?
>
>In a narrow technical sense, he might be correct. Oddly enough, most of
>the US Fed Gov's influence is derived from Article I, Section 8 of the
>Constitution, which has a clause that reads:
>
>"[Congress has the power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,
>and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes"
>
>The reast of that section deals with infrastructure: raising armies and
>warfighting, militias, the post office, coinage, etc. Curiously, there is
>no mention of taxing the populace.
>
>So, unless you are interacting directly with the Fed as an employee or
>beneficiary of Federal $$$, a counterfeiter, or the member of an invading
>army, the Fed has only two excuses for interacting with you in any way
>whatsoever, including taxation.
>
>1. Regulating interstate commerce.
>2. Maintaining the armed forces.
>
>Spending on military activities in FY98 was 42.9% of the Federal budget.
>Presumably the rest was needed for regulating interstate commerce. :-/
>Looking at this from the abstract, the government's claim on the author's
>cash doesn't look much better than his own (except, of course, he's the
>one who earned it).
>
>Realistically, though, this is also an argument against the very existance
>of most of the government. A government that is older, richer, more
>ruthless, and better armed than the author can ever hope to be (at least
>not until he transcends to jupiter-brainhood). The precedent of thousands
>of court rulings supports the Fed's position. Who do you think will get
>their way in the case of a legal ambiguity like this one?
>
>Anyway, even if he was right, and that alone was enough to make the Fed
>just disappear like the witch in Oz, would he really be better off because
>of it? Will whoever steps in to fill the power vacuum (be they Christian
>theocrats, corporations, mafia, or military juntas) do any better than our
>current government in terms of safeguarding our basic rights, maintaining
>our quality of life, and creating an environment where science and
>commerce can flourish?
>