Tax protester statutory arguments

Tax protesters in the United States have advanced a number of arguments asserting that the assessment and collection of the federal income tax violates statutes enacted by the United States Congress and signed into law by the President. Such arguments generally claim that certain statutes fail to create a duty to pay taxes, that such statutes do not impose the income tax on wages or other types of income claimed by the tax protesters, or that provisions within a given statute exempt the tax protesters from a duty to pay.

These statutory arguments are distinguished from, although related to, constitutional, administrative and general conspiracy arguments. Statutory arguments presuppose that Congress has a constitutional power to tax income (and typically accept the validity of the 16th Amendment, unlike some other theories) but has not passed a statute doing so, or has done so in a way that renders certain types of income not liable to taxation.

Definition of the terms "state" and "includes"

In connection with various arguments that the Federal income tax should not apply to citizens or residents within the fifty states, some tax protesters have argued about the meanings of the terms "state" and "includes".

Tax protester arguments

One argument is that the definitions of "state" and "United States" in most subparts and the general definition in the Internal Revenue Code are what other amending code sections refer to as "a special definition of 'state'", where the statutory definitions include the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and some other territories, without mentioning the 50 states. Under this argument, the definition of "state" within the Code in general, or within those certain subparts of the Code, refers only to territories, or the possessions of the federal government, or the District of Columbia. Alaska and Hawaii were formerly included in the "special" definition of a "state" until each was removed from that general definition by the Alaska Omnibus Act and the Hawaii Omnibus Act when they were respectively admitted to the Union.

The Internal Revenue Code general definition of the term "state" in section 7701 is as follows:

The term "State" shall be construed to include the District of Columbia, where such construction is necessary to carry out provisions of this title.

Other subparts of the Internal Revenue Code list the District of Columbia and territories of the United States in response to the definition of "State," or geographically, the "United States" (26 C.F.R § 31.3132 (e)-1)

The Internal Revenue Code general definition of the terms "includes" and "including" is as follows:

The terms "includes" and "including" when used in a definition contained in this title shall not be deemed to exclude other things otherwise within the meaning of the term defined.