Then I Said...

This will go out in today's mail.

March 4, 2010

Kurt Henning
(address)

Paul S. Caselton
Deputy General Counsel – Income Tax
Illinois Department of Revenue
101 West Jefferson
Springfield, IL 62794

Dear Mr. Caselton:

Your letter of February 18, 2010, was most welcome. I appreciate the time you took to address some of my concerns regarding the constitutionality of the income tax. I hope you did not feel that addressing such concerns was a waste of your time. I have found your letter to be most valuable.

First, it turns out that we agree on the question regarding the 5th Amendment and the right against self-incrimination. I took another look at the amendment over the summer and saw how it specifically applies to a “criminal case,” but I decided to keep the question in my letter to see what others might have to say about it. We both see the “criminal case” application, so, although it is true that the Constitution provides for broader protections of privacy than what we see in this instance, we will leave this issue for now and focus on my first question, which remains unanswered.

The question is this:

How does the laying of a direct tax on our income (where the failure to pay or file the paperwork means fines, confiscation of private property, and/or imprisonment) NOT reduce our fundamental right to work to that of a privilege? And if, in fact, our right to work has been reduced to a privilege by the income tax, how is this NOT unconstitutional?

It is the first part of the question that everyone seems reluctant to address. And without first addressing the issue of a fundamental right being reduced to a privilege by the government (by whatever means), the second part of the question cannot properly be considered.

Here is how you responded to the above question:

“In your letter, you ask whether taxation of ‘our fundamental right to work’ can be constitutional. The simple answer to this first question is that [in] Article 9, Section 3, the Illinois Constitution expressly allows taxes to be imposed on the incomes of individuals.”

I will be the last to dispute whether anything contained within the Constitution is constitutional. Nothing could be simpler. “Milk bottles” would be constitutional if the words appeared in the Constitution. Taxing our incomes is clearly constitutional because Article 9, Section 3 specifically makes the provision. By the same token, anything contained within our body of law is, by definition, legal. This is where the value of your letter comes in: it forces me to clarify my position so that the true essence of my question can be considered more accurately. A mere glance at my question and your response to it shows that you have answered neither the first nor the second part of it.

It needs to be noted that the first part of my question does not even touch upon constitutionality or legality. It asks how a certain government action has or has not changed a fundamental right to something less than a fundamental right. The history of our systems of law and justice are filled with example after example of laws being rewritten, repealed, or otherwise stricken; court decisions being appealed or overturned; constitutions being amended – and all this not in an effort to arrive at what is constitutional or legal, but to arrive at what is legitimate; to arrive at what is consistent with the principles of liberty and the governing of a free people. I’m sure no one as educated as yourself would argue that we have “arrived.”

If my right to work is fundamental, then it is inalienable: it “cannot be bartered away, or given away, or taken away,” in the words of Justice Bradley. It has been wisely said that “the power to tax is the power to destroy.” If one has the power to destroy something, it follows that one has the power to control it. Our state and federal governments were instituted to secure our rights, not to grant them or control them. To take control of a right is to take the right away. This is where levying a tax on a fundamental right – any fundamental right – breaks with the principles upon which this country was founded. It reduces a right to something we are forced to rent or lease from the government, the alternatives being to cease the exercise of the right, or exercise it without paying the tax and face punishment. How does this square with “inalienable”? Answer: it doesn’t.

This is why there is no tax levied on me when I speak my mind (I will not receive a bill from the government for writing this letter or any others like it). The government demands no fee from me based upon the number of times I choose to worship God in a given year. I do not pay the government while I exercise my right to raise my children as I see fit. A tax could be levied on all these activities. Every citizen could be required to add up each time these or any other fundamental rights were exercised in the course of a year, refer to the proper tax tables, fill out the proper forms, and mail them in with their checks and supporting documents. The 15th of every single month could be designated for the collection of a tax on twelve different fundamental rights. Such taxes could be written into our constitutions and statutes and be declared constitutional and legal, but they would never be legitimate, because they are and always will be in conflict with the most basic principles of liberty.

These are the issues at stake when I ask: How does the laying of a direct tax on our income (where the failure to pay or file the paperwork means fines, confiscation of private property, and/or imprisonment) NOT reduce our fundamental right to work to that of a privilege?

This is the question that needs answering, Mr. Caselton.

There is one thing I know of that might assist in arriving at a sensible answer, and that is to dismiss outright the argument that so often comes up when I pose this question to people I know: “But how will the government pay for roads, schools, police, the military, etc.?” This is no argument at all; this is surrender, because it already sacrifices the liberty of all concerned.

We do neither ourselves nor our posterity any favors by being so ready and willing to barter away our liberty for roads and schools. Surely a free people can figure out how to build a road or school without giving up their sacred liberty. If not, what then is the point of a police force or a military? If we have sacrificed our liberty (without so much as a fight), what is left for the police and the military to protect? What are we paying them for? So, although my question involves a specific form of taxation, it is not a question of revenue, government budgets, or government spending. This is a liberty issue.

Let us first secure our liberty so we can educate our children in a truly free land. Let us first secure our liberty so our roads can carry the commerce of a free society. Let us first secure our liberty so our police and military have something to fight for. Let not our governments, federal or state, bind us in chains and then tell us we may “act like freemen.”

As is evidenced throughout the history of our justice and legal systems, mistakes have been made. Why should we remain blind to what is just one more in a series? The income tax is not the first mistake our governments have made, and it won’t be the last.

I ask you to take a little more of your time to think about what I am saying, and please answer the first part of my question.

Sincerely,

(signed)

Kurt Henning

Comments

[Gregg Schaeffer]

Awesome, Kurt! Keep fighting the good fight, and please continue to keep us posted on your progress.