WHO YA GONNA BELIEVE? "HONEST JOHN" OF THE INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE ("Servicing you is our business-- and our pleasure!"), "White Hat Willard of the DOJ ("If we go after 'em, they must be wrong and bad, cuz we work for the government!") and "Sincere Sid" of the 'Underbridge Society of Independent Tax Experts' ("We just post because WE care about YOU!") are asking. These guys are hoping that your lifelong conditioning to take the words of government officials at face value without question is holding, and will override even what you see with your own eyes.

"Honest John" and company hope that you will resist the instinct to put up your antennae and look closer each time you see hard proof that even "Honest John" actually knows and agrees that the income tax does not apply to non-federally-privileged-based earnings, in contradiction to what you think he and his friends have said about it. They hope you'll just put in some Visine and walk away, figuring you must be misunderstanding something.

"Honest John" and his friends hope that you're well-enough programmed that you'll never catch on to the fact that what they SAY about the tax always involves the careful use of special-meaning terms like "income". They hope you'll never catch on to the fact that when they sternly describe the tax as falling on "all income", and dismiss all protest to the contrary as "frivolous", what they're saying is completely true-- but they actually AREN'T saying the tax falls on "all that comes in". Honest John and company hope you don't understand about "words of art", and so let what they appear to be saying override the messages of your own eyes.

"Honest John" and company really hope you haven't been paying attention to the revelations of the NSA's spying programs, in which we have all seen great examples of this same kind of professional-liars' shell-game recently.  For instance they hope you won't read passages like this from a 2012 'Wired' article by James Bamford:

For example, NSA can intercept millions of domestic communications and store them in a data center like Bluffdale and still be able to say it has not “intercepted” any domestic communications. This is because of its definition of the word. “Intercept,” in NSA’s lexicon, only takes place when the communications are “processed” “into an intelligible form intended for human inspection,” not as they pass through NSA listening posts and transferred to data warehouses.

 ...or like this from an article by Kurt Opsahl and Trevor Timm at the Electronic Freedom Foundation last June:

On Sunday’s Meet the Press, Clapper was grilled about his statement to Congress [that the NSA doesn't "wittingly" collect data on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans].  He claimed it was the “least untruthful manner by saying no.”

How does he defend that?  This may sound strange, but the Administration actually uses very particular definitions of words that are vastly different from how ordinary people interpret them and how they're normally defined. As we explained in this dedicated page to the NSA’s word games, “collect” has a very different meaning to them than it does the rest of us.

Under Department of Defense regulations, information is considered to be “collected” only after it has been “received for use by an employee of a DoD intelligence component,” and “data acquired by electronic means is ‘collected’ only when it has been processed into intelligible form.”

In other words, the NSA can intercept and store communications in its database, then have an algorithm search them for key words and analyze the metadata without ever considering the communications “collected.”

...and then catch on to the fact that the same exploitation of craft and ignorance has been used against you all your life where the truth about the income tax is concerned.

"Honest John" and "White Hat Willard" and "Sincere Sid"-- and their colleagues "The Honorable Oliver" and "Alt-Media Al", for that matter-- hope you won't realize that despite the apparent meaning of their words, what you've seen with your own eyes of the results of an educated American rebutting false allegations that his or her earnings were federal-privilege-based IS the reality of the law, and that you won't awaken to the fact that they and their predecessors have been exploiting these word-games and your ignorance to screw you soundly for your whole life.

"Honest John" et al really hope you won't trust your own eyes and look closely at veteran CtC Warrior Mark Lovely's latest victory story, for instance. Mark's newly-shared hard evidence of the truth about the tax and of his high and grown-up regard for the rule of law is a classic episode of the liberating truth about the tax turning the ignorance-exploiting community of "Honest John" and his friends every which way but loose.

In 2011, Mark made claim to the return of everything withheld from him during 2010 and diverted to federal hands as pre-payments of "income taxes-- including all Social Security and Medicare taxes. Here is Mark's rebuttal of allegations that the roughly $50,000 he had earned as a mechanic that year involved the exercise of any federal privilege, and claim to the return of everything withheld from him.

The first reaction of the IRS is to ask Mark for more information to support his claim. See that March 22, 2011 IRS inquiry by Donna M. Stevenson here.

Mark promptly replies with a letter affirming the veracity of his $0 "income", $9K+ withheld, send-it-all-home return.

In response, a month later (and just about exactly a year after Mark received his complete federal refund for 2009) the IRS returns everything Mark claims in his filing (albeit by crediting it to old alleged outstanding balances owed to the government-- Mark had been a bit of a tax protestor before finding CtC...).

So, an educated claim is made, unmistakable in its character. It is specifically noted by live IRS personnel, who challenge it, who receive and consider its re-affirmation, and who then respond by processing and honoring the claim. You've just seen it with your own eyes-- but it gets better.

More than a year later, someone at the IRS-- who might be tasked with trying to shore up the "read our lips" ignorance-tax scam that had been working so well for generations before CtC came along-- decided to take a shot at chivvying Mark back into the copper-top livestock barn. On June 25, 2012 (14 days after receiving his complete refund for 2011), Mark received a "Notice CP2000" proposing changes to his tax for 2010.

The IRS "proposal" was based on a specific assertion that contrary to what he had reported on his return, everything Mark had earned in 2010 was subject to the tax, and that he owed nearly $6,000 in taxes on those earnings. The proposal asserted that Mark owed back what had been returned to him as FICA withholdings, and also accuracy-related penalties and interest totaling almost $2,500, for a total allegedly owed of more than $12,000. Here is the "proposal", with Mark's prompt "No way, Jose!" response included.

A bit more than a month after Mark's detailed response to the IRS "proposal" (and just about exactly 3 years after Mark received his complete refund for 2008), he received a "Thank you for your correspondence-- we need time to figure out what to do..." reply. The service said it would get back to Mark within 60 days telling him "what action we are taking."

Well, it was actually more like 280+ days before the flummoxed push-'em-back-into-the-ignorant-and-subservient-barn specialist figured out his next move... which proved to be, more bluster. This time, nearly a year later on May 22, 2013 (and just a few weeks before receiving his federal refund for 1999, which is not yet posted), Mark received a petulant notice declaring that unless he rescinds the inconvenient return the IRS had said was all wrong and bad and which it now declares it has determined to be "frivolous", and replaces it with one more to the government's liking within 30 days, he will be assessed a $5,000 penalty.

Here is the "frivolous" notice Mark received, and his immediate response (which he in part just wrote right on the copy of the notice he included in his reply, having gotten thoroughly tired of the bs and no longer having the patience for courtesies). The IRS promptly acknowledged receipt of Mark's reply, and told him that someone was still researching his case and would contact him by July 26, 2013 to let him know "what action we're taking."

Like last time, JK... Before we get to where this all has gotten to to date, let's review:

• Mark Lovely files his rebuttals and claim on February 11, 2011.

• On March 22, 2011, Donna Stevenson of the IRS asks Mark to verify things on his return, which Mark does on March 26.

• On April 25, 2011, the IRS issues Mark's complete refund in light of its close study of his return and the competing W-2s issued by those who paid him-- which Mark had, by the way, clearly acknowledged in his response to Ms. Stevenson's challenge to be in disagreement with his filing.

• More than a year later, Mark receives a "proposed change to his tax", claiming a total of $12,144 balance owed for 2010, including a $5,888 tax on Mark's earnings (which Mark is invited to agree are "wages" as defined in tax law and would therefore qualify as "income" subject to the tax), a claim that $3,807 of what was credited to him shouldn't have been (FICA tax amounts which apply when "wages" have been received) and $2,449 in penalties and interest.

• After another year, Mark receives notice that unless he rescinds his filing by June 22, 2013 (which he does not), he will be assessed an additional $5,000 "frivolous return" penalty.

• All told, we have an alleged outstanding amount of $17,144 plus the interest that would have been accumulating on all of this over the years-- were any bit of it legit.

• Throughout the entire period the IRS issues several lame "We'll get back to you shortly..." notices, and two other of Mark's so far five complete federal refunds.

This takes us up to March 10, 2014, when Mark gets... A "notice of tax due" form alleging a total amount due for 2010 of $3,807.46 in alleged tax, plus $365.40 in interest.

Gone is the $5,000 "frivolous" nonsense. Gone is the $5,888 "normal tax" alleged in the June 2012 "proposed tax due". Gone is the $2,449 in penalties and interest also alleged in the same "proposal".

Gone is everything but what is purported to be the amount Mark claimed and received as an overpayment of "FICA taxes" and a little bit of allegedly-related interest. However, even that purported FICA-related amount is inaccurate, and revealingly so.

ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION TO YOUR OWN EYES NOW? Do you recognize that the words of "Honest John" and his rule-of-law-wrecking-crew are just corrupt exploitations of a clever, very mature semantics-based scam, and the reality is what CtC shows you?

Are you getting a glimmer of the fact that whether you live with the inestimable benefits of the rule of law versus the horror of a rule of men (and plainly men with no respect for even the principles of the law, much less its letter)depends on whether you have the brains to catch on and the balls to stand up? Are you at least intellectually honest enough to be saying "WTF?" to yourself at this point?

I like to post my "Flailing Robot" animation along with episodes like Mark Lovely's 2010 adventure in bizarro-land. It is my hope that the proper take-away from this story will be helped by this image: A big, clunky machine well-accustomed to having things go the way its subterfuge intends, but now suddenly struggling to cope with the fact that its secrets have been exposed and its victims are waking up and saying "Not me, not anymore!"

Can't you just hear it calling out in its mechanical bass, "LOOK OUT, HONEST JOHN! LOOK OUT, WHITE-HAT WILLARD! DANGER! DANGER!?

I sure can.

All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed."

-I. F. Stone