Comment on IRS Makes Direct File Software Open Source After Trump Tried to Kill It

• brandon@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  They are referring to some fringe "tax protester" conspiracy theories which dispute that the 16th amendment was properly ratified. You can read about them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_protester_Sixteenth_Amendment_arguments#Sixteenth_Amendment_ratification

  Suffice it to say, these 'theories' have been largely rejected, including by the states themselves, and by the SCOTUS.

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  • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Sorry, saw your response just after I had posted the same in response to his comment.

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• Powderhorn@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  There is no historical agreement that states ratifying the income tax itself actually happened.

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  • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    There is no historical agreement that the earth is round, but guess what?

    When the second argument that is listed in Wikipedia is that Ohio doesn’t count when it had been a state for over a century before the amendment was proposed, I start to think these arguments are specious at best. It seems every judge the case had gone before agreed with that stance, which also sounds like historical agreement to me. Given the amendment was proposed due to the Supreme Court overturning income tax as unconstitutional, it also appears the courts were more than willing to rule against income tax prior to this supposedly dubious amendment.

    Do you have any evidence that is stronger than the Obama birther conspiracies?

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    • Powderhorn@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      If you sole-source Wikipedia, I don’t know what to tell you. But I’m not going off on a research excursion to prove myself right from things I’ve read over decades. It’s of no import to me whether you believe me; if you’re truly curious, look into it yourself. The origins of the income tax are more complex than one article can assert.

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      • AdmiralWhiskersIV@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        I tend not to comment, but this is peak nutter commentary so I feel compelled. You’re following the standard format of…

        Nutter: Let me tell you about my unproven conspiracy theory!
        Anyone else: that’s wild, can you prove it?
        Nutter: Do your own research, I don’t care if you believe me (i.e., I can’t prove it because it’s insane).

        100% unrefined Facebook gran behaviour.

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      • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        You’re right, Wikipedia is a terrible primary source, because it isn’t a primary source. So, while you should never reference it in a paper or dissertation, the sources it references are perfectly valid. The good news is, I’m not writing an essay or dissertation, and I don’t have to follow the correct rules for those. I did you the favor of clicking two links deeper (it took about a minute) and finding the information where they talk about all those cases that the judges totally threw so they could force you to pay illegal taxes. Now, I can’t make you turn that link purple, but if you do you might get the other side of that argument that you apparently haven’t stumbled across in your decades of examination. Good luck.

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