Before you read the actual letter, here is a copy of the cover letter which was sent to the individuals listed at the end, along with a copy of the IRS letter.
Dear _________________,
Enclosed, please find a copy of a letter I have submitted to the IRS. It was mailed on the same day I mailed your letter. The IRS copy was sent “certified mail” and bears my signature on page four.
I am providing you with a copy of the letter in the hopes that you will familiarize yourself with its contents. I trust that you will find my correspondence with the IRS to be in good faith, and hope you will recognize my concerns as being legitimate.
I have requested that the IRS suspend our current proceedings until my concerns have been addressed and resolved in a just and reasonable manner. Should the IRS proceed heedless of my request and my concerns, I will be informing you of same and counting on you to speak to the powers that be in reversing the actions of the Internal Revenue Service until a true resolution has been reached.
With sincere thanks,
(signed)
__________________________________
January 27, 2009
Kurt Henning
(address)
SSN: (provided in IRS copy only)
Department of the Treasury
Internal Revenue Service
ACS Support – STOP 813G
PO Box 145566
Cincinnati, OH 45250-5566
Dear IRS,
Please forward this letter to your legal department. It is for someone in that department to consider the contents of this letter and to make a reply.
Before we proceed any further with our current business (i.e., notices of Intent to Levy, the setting up of a repayment program for arrearages, the request for a 1040 2007), I have some questions that I need answered so that I can be sure our proceedings are on a firm foundation. Please do me the honor of reading this letter in its entirety and responding in a considerate manner.
From the outset, I wish to make a few things very clear:
1. I am not to be perceived nor labeled as a “tax protester.” I have been paying taxes to the government since the day I spent my first nickel in a commercial transaction, and I will continue to pay them even after I retire. I understand the need for taxes as a means of supporting government.
2. I believe in the United States Constitution, have taken an oath to support and defend it, and believe in the rule of law.
3. This letter is not a stalling tactic, nor is it to be considered as frivolous. I am in earnest, as any man would be who is being held over a barrel.
I will make this letter as brief as possible, but I must be allowed to explain myself so that you truly understand my questions. There may not be much that is new to you in this letter, but having my concerns addressed as stated herein would be new, and very much appreciated.
Man has a basic need, and therefore a natural or fundamental right, to labor in order to provide for himself and his loved ones. This need and right is separate from any form of government past, present, or future.
Our federal government, as well as some of our state governments, currently lay a direct tax on the fruits of a man’s labor, or what is commonly known as income (and the tax is known as the income tax). In the event that a man fails to pay this tax on his income on a regular basis, the government has claimed the right to take possession of the man’s property, his rights to property, to fine him, and to imprison him for failing to fill out the required paperwork on those taxes.
If the government truly has this right, then for a man to come of age and decide to work so that he can provide for himself is tantamount to making the decision to waive his rights to his property, his privacy, and his very liberty, because these rights become conditional as soon as he begins earning an income – the condition being the payment of fees to the government and the automatic surrender of basic privacy. Yet, when a man decides to work, he is only making the decision to provide for his needs, and the needs of his loved ones – it is not a decision to exercise one fundamental right at the expense of several others.
“You are free to work, free to keep your property, and free to remain outside of our prisons, but only if you give up your privacy and pay the required fees.” If a man works, receives income for his work, and doesn’t file his tax returns, he can go to prison. In prison, he can no longer work freely and for his own benefit. The courts have ruled that “a right which cannot be exercised is a right denied.” Truly, we pay the income tax and file tax returns so that we can keep working. We are paying for a privilege, not freely exercising a natural right.
I have read James Madison’s Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787; I have read The Federalist; and I have read the Constitution itself. A tax such as the one I have just described was never considered in any of those sources – such a tax is completely contrary to what the Founders were taking pains to establish. To fight for independence from Great Britain; to risk their lives, the lives of their families and friends, their property, their liberty and happiness; to see their newborn country falling apart so quickly after the Revolution; to take the time, toil, and sweat to establish a Constitution that would keep this country strong and united; and then to burden the people with a tax that directly impinges on their very liberty, privacy, and property – this would have been to invite another revolt right then and there. Such a tax defeats all of their labor and is in utter contempt of all the men and women who have sacrificed their lives to defend our freedoms. This form of taxation is a blatant form of tyranny, yet this country was founded to escape tyranny.
Every year in this country, men and women who must labor to provide for themselves are faced with the threat of imprisonment, fines, and confiscation of their property – every year of their working lives. And we call this a free country? “Freedom Is Not Free” is not a reference to our requirement to pay the government in order to stay out of jail and keep the property we have worked for. It is a reference to the blood that has been spilled on our behalf over the last 230 years. Has the blood been spilled in vain? Yes, if we do not do our part to protect the freedoms they died for.
The Founders were well aware of the government’s need for funding to do its work, and they came up with the most equitable and least intrusive ways they could find to raise that revenue. They avoided using tactics which required the surrender of basic, fundamental rights; they certainly avoided tactics which resorted to compulsory self-incrimination. We do the Founding Fathers little honor – we do them no honor at all – by resorting to methods of taxation which are less equitable and more intrusive. Surely, after 230 years, if we haven’t come up with anything better, the least we can do is avoid something worse.
Here are my questions which need answering, and then a few parting thoughts:
1. 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?
2. How does the requirement that we submit information to the government which can be used against us in court NOT infringe on our rights as enumerated in the 5th Amendment? And if, in fact, this requirement does infringe on our 5th Amendment rights, how is this NOT unconstitutional?
I ask a few things to consider in preparing your response:
a. Please answer the questions. Current laws, regulations, court decisions, and the 16th Amendment can be cited without actually answering the questions as stated. I am aware of this fact, and I am not interested in anything but your answers to my questions as I have stated them.
b. Please provide answers that are reasonable (easily understood by a layman) and grounded in common sense.
c. My questions are not frivolous in any way, shape, or form, so please do not label them as such and be dismissive.
d. Please do not proceed with any of our business until this is resolved, and do not accelerate our business to “teach me a lesson.” Please give me at least three weeks to weigh and respond to your answers.
e. Please have a real person who can be held accountable sign your response.
The whole point of this letter, as stated before, is to make certain that our business is on a firm foundation. If, by sound reason and common sense, the income tax is found to be constitutional (violating none of our fundamental rights to liberty, privacy, and property), then our business will proceed from where we left off (I will submit the proper forms to set up a payment plan, etc.). If it is found that the income tax is unconstitutional, then we are obviously on a very slippery slope and we have no further business on this matter.
I want it understood that I fear nothing: death, jail (been there, done that), confiscation of property. I am not shaking in my boots, I am not panicking, I am not intimidated, I am not running, I am not afraid. As I said, I believe in the Constitution and I believe in the rule of law. However, I do not believe in obedience to law which flies in the face of our Constitution. I understand that many have suffered injustice at the hands of the very government that has been set up to protect them. If I will be one of those who suffer, so be it. I am not looking for a fight – I am looking for reason, common sense, and justice. And I am looking after the Constitution I vowed to protect. Any attack on my liberty, or any attack on the liberties of the people of the United States, is an attack on the Constitution. I perceive the income tax to be a direct attack on the liberty, privacy, and property rights of every man or woman who is exercising their natural right to labor for their own sustenance. Your task is to convince me otherwise if you can.
Final thoughts:
I paraphrase a quote from Ben Franklin: “Those who would sacrifice their liberty for a little security deserve neither.”
I borrow that principle and apply it to the present case: Government that sacrifices my liberty for its security is despotism.
And this from Thomas Paine: “While men could be persuaded they had no rights, or that rights appertained only to a certain class of men, or that government was a thing existing in right of itself, it was not difficult to govern them authoritatively. The ignorance in which they were held, and the superstition in which they were instructed, furnished the means of doing it.
“But when the ignorance is gone, and the superstition with it; when they perceive the imposition that has been acted upon them; when they reflect that the cultivator and the manufacturer are the primary means of all the wealth that exists in the world, beyond what nature spontaneously produces; when they begin to feel their consequence by their usefulness, and their right as members of society, it is then no longer possible to govern them as before. The fraud once detected cannot be re-acted. To attempt it is to provoke derision, or invite destruction.”
You can know from what I have stated before that it is not the government’s destruction that I seek. I seek to destroy tyrannical, unconstitutional governance. It does not belong here; it is un-American; it is not what our fallen patriots have died for.
As you have been kindly doing with me, I will allow 30 days from the date of this letter for a response. In the meantime, kindly take no action against myself or my property until I have had a chance to review and respond to your answers. If, after 30 days, I have not received responsible, thoughtful, and sincere answers to my questions, I will take that to mean that our business has been founded on unconstitutional premises, and that our business as it relates to the income tax has come to an end. I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
(signed)
Kurt Henning
Cc.
President Barack Obama
US Senator Richard Durbin
US Senator Roland Burris
US Representative Judy Biggert
State Senator Kirk Dillard
State Representative James Meyer
Lt. Governor Pat Quinn
Attorney General Lisa Madigan
Illinois Department of Revenue
Neil Steinberg, Chicago Sun-Times
John Kass, Chicago Tribune
Other private citizens
