Stop Paying Income Tax! Now!

According to Aaron Russo's the income tax is unconstitutional!! Russo owned the Kinetic Playground nightclub in Chicago, brought Zep to America, managed Bette Midler, and ran for Nevada's governorship ... and now he produced a documentary, "America: from Freedom to Fascism" that ran on PBS last night. I started watching because I thought it was a crock and I was going to pick it apart - but it actually made some good arguments.

Here's the pitch: there is absolutely no law you can point to that says the IRS can tax Joe Citizen's income. The income tax is not a "direct" or "indirect" tax (the only 2 provided for in the Constitution), and the 16th Amendment - which straight up says Congress can tax income - has been interpreted by the Supreme Court as confering no new taxing power to Congress. Essentially, they couldn't tax income before the 16th - and they can't afterwards. And in any event, the original understanding of income is actually "gains", so tax on your total income is illegal. The only way the IRS gets away with this is (1) intimidation and picking on poor ignorant people, and (2) the trial courts don't follow the Supreme Court and just assume if someone doesn't file a 1040 they're guilty of something.

Now - I'm still super skeptical because I know lawyers - and if there was a chance to win a lawsuit, they'd have tried it. I doubt they'd let the constitutionality of the income tax to go unquestioned. So, I haven't done the research, but I'm pretty sure we still need to pay them. Here are some FAQs.