The
Constitutional Federal Foreign Jurisdiction
The Constitution,
of course, gives the federal government a limited, lawful jurisdiction. Under Article 1, Section 8, Clauses 3 and 4,
the federal government is given complete authority over all foreign affairs and
foreign persons in America. These
sections grant powers to the federal government over all foreign affairs,
including international foreign agreements with other nations, and over foreign
persons in the
However, under the Constitution, each of
the governments of the fifty states retains the sovereign power and lawful
jurisdiction over its own lands, and its legislature alone enacts law for the
people of that State regarding internal affairs.
Additionally, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the Constitution gives the federal
government jurisdiction and authority over foreign commerce and over all
interstate commerce between the states, thus establishing the complete
jurisdictional authority of the federal government, which is an authority around the states and between the states, but not over the land of the fifty
states. This is why the Supreme
Court has rejected the federal government’s attempts to exercise police powers
in the fifty states, that could not be reasonably related to interstate
commerce, as recently as 1998 in the U.S. v Lopez
decision.
The federal government does not possess the
territorial jurisdiction necessary to tax sales in the fifty states. That authority and jurisdiction belong
exclusively to the governments of the States themselves. Under the Interstate Commerce clause the
federal government may only tax the first sale at the wholesale level. The State alone may tax the retail level. All these politicians talking about a
national sales tax or a flat tax to replace the income tax only demonstrate
that they are unfit for office because they don’t understand the constitutional
limitations imposed on the authority of the federal government to tax, or write
legislation.
To see that the income tax actually created
by the tariff act is only imposed by
law within this lawful foreign jurisdiction
that the federal government actually does possess under the constitution
over all foreign matters, and is not actually
imposed domestically beyond that foreign jurisdiction on citizens and residents
within America, one only need examine the difference in the treatment under the
law between non-resident aliens and resident aliens in regards to the
withholding of tax at the source.
From the legal definition of the Withholding Agent we
clearly see that non-resident aliens are subject to the withholding of income
tax under Section 1441. However, as soon as a non-resident alien
becomes a resident alien, then he/she
is no longer subject to the withholding of income tax at the source by the Withholding Agent because he/she is no
longer part of the definition of the Withholding
Agent’s authority over subject persons.
The statutory definition of the Withholding
Agent, from Title 26
U.S.C. Section 7701(a)(16), only specified that withholding was required
under Sections 1441, 1442, 1443 and 1461. However, once the non-resident alien becomes a resident
alien he/she is no longer the subject of the tax, and it is no longer
authorized to be withheld from them because they are no longer within its
jurisdictional reach because as a resident of one of the fifty states the
aliens’ activity is now recognized by the law as being domestic and not foreign
(even though it is conducted by a foreign person), and therefore outside the
federal territorial and subject matter jurisdictions over foreign affairs..
The resident alien’s economic activity is
no longer within the foreign jurisdictional authority of the federal government
because they are now under the territorial jurisdictional authority of the State
government that they are resident within.
Tariffs are imposed on foreign activity, not domestic. As soon as the non-resident alien becomes a
resident (“resident” is defined in the law) his activity is recognized by the
law as being removed from the
“foreign” category that is subject to a tariff, and is placed into the “domestic” category, which is
outside the subjectivity to any tariff, and the withholding of tax from their
payments terminates. Domestic activity
is not subject to any tariff because a tariff is a foreign tax. Even when the activity is conducted by a
foreign person who has become a resident in the U.S. (but who is still foreign)
the tax is not withheld at the source because the resident is not subject to
the payment of a tariff, because a resident’s activity is not considered
foreign, but domestic, and is therefore not lawfully subject to payment of a
tariff on foreign activity. If resident
aliens aren’t even subject to the income tax it is of course absurd to even
suggest that American citizens are, or ever were the proper subjects of this
income tax in the form of a foreign tariff – that is all government mythical
fiction and propaganda, as we will expose.
The indirect collection scheme of the
income tax, which is collected at the source by withholding from subject persons,
and which is paid by the third
party Withholding Agent who is made
liable, and is not paid by the
actual subject of the tax (the foreigner), has never changed in 94 years. The rate of tax to be ultimately owed under Section 1, and the percentage of earnings to be withheld
under Sections 1441 and 1442 have all been adjusted
both up and down at different times through the years, and the language of the
statutes establishing the amounts of the allowable deductions, credits and
expenses has been continuously altered as well, but the fundamental scheme of
the income tax laws under Subtitle A has never changed in 94 years. It is now, and has always been, a tax that is
collected at the source from subject persons by a third party, by withholding
at the source from payments to persons subject by statute to withholding.
The subject persons are all foreign, of course, because the tax is clearly, from a simple
and straight forward reading of the law, nothing more than an indirect tariff
on the income derived from the economic activity of foreigners under the
federal jurisdiction, it is not a direct tax on the domestic activity or income
of any American citizens under the territorial jurisdiction of the fifty
states. Liability has nothing to do
with the collection of the tax from the taxpayer – it is just taken from
foreign persons by the Withholding
Agents, who are then made liable for turning over the collected tax to the
Treasury. Note that Section 1461 indemnifies the Withholding Agent from any claims made
by the foreign taxpayer regarding the taking (withholding) of the tax. If no tax is collected by withholding when it
should have been, then Sections 1461
and 1463 clearly and
simply state that it is the Withholding
Agent who is liable for the uncollected tax, penalties and interest, not
the (foreign) taxpayer receiving payments.
Under the actual laws the IRS should never approach a citizen directly
to collect any uncollected tax because that would constitute direct taxation,
only the Withholding Agents or the
payors may be approached according to the law – that keeps it all indirect and
constitutional.
And that is the entire extent of the proper
legal domestic application of the income tax (in America) under the law. There are no other provisions anywhere in all
of Subtitle A - Income Taxes, authorizing the withholding of this tax from any
other persons, foreign or otherwise, or stating that any other person other
than the Withholding Agent is liable,
or is made liable, for either the payment of the income tax, or for the payment
of any penalties or interest incurred as a result of a failure to pay.
The income tax is an indirect foreign tax in the form of a tariff that is collected at the source by withholding from subject
persons - who are all foreign and
properly subjected to the payment of a tariff. But, tariffs
do not apply to domestic economic activity, and the scheme of the income
tax - withholding at the source from subject persons, has never changed in 94
years. The same provisions exist in the
law now as did in 1913, when the Supreme Court ruled (of course) that the whole
thing is certainly Constitutional under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1
authorizing the government to lay taxes: imposts, duties and excises.
This understanding, based on these legal
facts presented here regarding the withholding of income tax from subject
persons under Subtitle A, represents what is still in the law today in subtitle
A – the Income Tax. The income tax does not apply to domestic economic activity, because
domestic activity cannot be lawfully made the subject of any tariff act or
tariff tax.