Contention: Taxpayers who did not purchase and use fuel for an off-highway business can claim the fuels tax credit.Contention: A “corporation sole” can be established and used for the purpose of avoiding federal income taxes.Contention: An “untaxing” package or trust provides a way of legally and permanently avoiding the obligation to file federal income tax returns and pay federal income taxes.Contention: Taxpayers are entitled to a refund of the Social Security taxes paid over their lifetime.Contention: African Americans can claim a special tax credit as reparations for slavery and other oppressive treatment.Contention: Taxpayers are not required to file a federal income tax return, because the instructions and regulations associated with the Form 1040 do not display an OMB control number as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act.Contention: The Internal Revenue Service is not an agency of the United States.Contention: The Sixteenth Amendment does not authorize a direct non-apportioned federal income tax on United States citizens.Contention: The federal income tax laws are unconstitutional because the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was not properly ratified.Contention: Compelled compliance with the federal income tax laws is a form of servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.Contention: Taxpayers do not have to file returns or provide financial information because of the protection against self-incrimination found in the Fifth Amendment.Contention: Federal income taxes constitute a “taking” of property without due process of law, violating the Fifth Amendment.Contention: IRS summonses violate the Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure.Contention: Taxpayers can refuse to pay income taxes on religious or moral grounds by invoking the First Amendment.
More on Prohibition and tax policy can be found in reporter Daniel Okrent’s book, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.Introduction | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Print PDF PDF Frivolous Tax Arguments in General D. Burns himself talks about that around the 10 minute mark in this video put out by Reason TV: On the other side, as the Great Depression deepened in the 1930s, income tax revenues plummeted and there was a question about why we were foregoing all that tax revenue and jobs from alcohol sales and production. Since most brewers were of German decent, the Anti-Saloon League used this to equate migrants and drinking with being anti-American. When the United States entered the war in 1917, anyone of German heritage was suspect. The 16th Amendment of 1913, allowing Congress to levy a federal income tax, helped pave the way for Prohibition, but World War I helped stir up the pot. So Prohibitionists realized that the only way they’re going to have a ban was through income tax, which was a progressive cause and was really supposed to distribute wealth and to make things equitable during the robber baron era, where the wealth was being accumulated in a very small segment of the population.” Some 30 percent to 40 percent of the government’s income came from the tax on alcohol. “It started in the Civil War with the levy on beer and whiskey to help fund the war, and it never really went away. “I had no idea how important liquor was to the federal government,” says Novick. The passage of the income tax constitutional amendment that year allowed government the luxury of banning alcohol without reducing tax revenue.įrom The Los Angeles Daily Newsinterview with Lynn Novick, Burns’s co-documentarian:
One of the stumbling blocks advocates of Prohibition faced before 1913 was that the federal government was heavily dependent on taxes on alcohol.
Full of historical details, one key point it raised that is generally not known widely is the impact of tax policy on alcohol prohibition.
Something like 4 million Americans watched documentarian Ken Burns’s three-part series on Prohibition that aired this week on PBS.