Can America be tax-free again?

Americans are so used to paying taxes that they are conditioned to believe that taxes are needed for the country to survive, so Commerce's Howard Lutnick compares it to the form of Group Stockholm syndrome.

Lutnick recently told the CBS reporter that President Donald Trump's goal is to eliminate taxes for people under $150,000 a year. He argued that Americans are the economic engine of the world and therefore deserve best to not pay taxes. He said:

The way I think about it, we are all used to paying taxes. We're used to it and it looks like Stockholm syndrome. “Don't stop the Internal Revenue Service, God forbids it!” How is this done?

The rest of the world leans against our economy and brings life to our economy. Our economy is not only 29 trillion GDP, but also consumes 20 trillion dollars a year. We are the buyers of everyone's things – we buy everyone's things! …It all comes from us. Please make me pay the membership fee. We all understand the model. …We, me, me, and everyone we know – are paying less? What about taxes on tips? How about no tax on overtime? What about Social Security (no tax)? …These are ideas that change America. I know what (Trump's) goal is: people under $150,000 a year have no tax. …And that's what I work for.

Why not do customs duties?

The fees mentioned by Lutnick were customs duties and taxes on imported products. Trump's ping pong fee game caused teeth screeching and gnashing among mainstream media peanut gallery. But for much of US history, tariffs have been a major source of revenue for the federal government. Federal income taxes did not exist. The main argument for important tariffs as the main source of national revenue today is that it is not enough to pay for the programmes and institutional laundry lists created over time by the government. Accurately.

Many of today's federal agencies did not exist until after 1913, so they didn't need to be funded. At least 20 agencies were created after ratification of the 16th Amendment, and Congress allowed income taxes to be imposed and collected from American citizens. You can start by eliminating the most damaging people, including Education, Energy, Environmental Protection, Drug Enforcement, Department of Health and Human Services, Emergency Management (FEMA), National Security (NSA), and Central Information (CIA). After that, the remaining institutions that do not have constitutional permission can be eliminated.

Although Lutonic's comments in that excerpt did not explicitly mention abolishing income tax, he previously proposed the idea. He also focuses on Trump's plans to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and establish external revenue services for tariffs.

Unconstitutional income tax

Most people today may not know that, but amendments that allow the government to plunder at least 20% of their citizens' hard-earned income were once considered destructive and unconstitutional by the highest courts on the land. In 1819, Chief Justice John Marshall of the Supreme Court was McCullochv. In the Maryland case, he wrote, “Tax power includes the power of destruction.” And in 1895, more than a century after the founding of the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Pollock v. Farmers' Loans and Trust Company that directly taxing American incomes was unconstitutional.

Before 1913, customs duties were imposed on imports. Excise taxes, such as modern sales tax, have been added to certain items such as horses and carriages. As Jack Kenny pointed out in his 100 year annual article on income tax, these were taxes on consumption, not income, giving citizens the freedom to manage their tax burden. This also prevents the government from claiming individual wealth first, “effectively determining the income people are allowed to maintain.”

In 1848, Karl Marx published his Communist manifesto. This advocated graduate income tax as a way to build a classless society. Marx's idea got caught up in Europe and ultimately in America. The United States temporarily used federal income tax to fund the Civil War, but ended it in 1866. Still, as the 20th century approached, the gradual income tax movement gained momentum. As Kenny pointed out, “The Socialist Labour Party advocated an income tax that it graduated in 1887, and the Populist Party demanded the same on its 1892 platform.”

Immerse the rich – or middle class?

The key to passing such taxes was to persuade Americans. They did so by pointing out the wealth that was actually accumulated by the Industrial Titans of the day, including the Rockefeller, the Carnegies, and Vanderbilt. Americans were told that federal income taxes “immerse the rich” would not affect the average Joe. By the 1912 presidential election, all three candidates – progressive candidate Teddy Roosevelt, Republican William Howard Tuft and Democrat Woodrow Wilson, supported the tax.

Note the interesting fact that even the rich themselves support taxes that should only affect them. Why? This is Kenny:

For example, Sen. Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island, a man widely known as John D. Rockefeller's “Inside Man” in the Senate, was a leading advocate for the federal progressive income tax that was made legal by amendments to the constitution. This isn't surprising, but the “progressive” who supported income tax claimed it was taxing the rich and that it helped the little guy, but in fact it was primarily taxing the middle class. This is mainly because wealthy people can escape much of their tax burden through the use of trusts and tax-free foundations, but have great influence and power in businesses, banks and government. There was a huge difference between propaganda and reality. Defended by progressives and populists, populism was not the “wealth-sharing” program they portrayed, but the Western control program.

Opposition

Congress ultimately passed the tax, with 42 of the 48 states ratifying the 16th Amendment, not before those who opposed it spoke about their work. During the ratification debate on March 3, 1910, Virginia Rep. Richard E. Byrd said the tax would be paid to the federal government by earning income from the state. He warned that it would expand the power of the federal government into ordinary citizens' lives.

A hand from Washington is stretched out and placed in all human business. The eyes of the federal inspector are in the counthouse of every man. …Under that, the man is taken to a courthouse away from home. Heavy fines imposed by distant and unfamiliar courts will always threaten taxpayers. An army of federal inspectors, spies and detectives descends into the state.

He also warned that taxes would direct the form of bookkeeping and “to disclose the secrets of their matters.” Nonetheless, Byrd's prophetic warnings were ignored.

Once ratified, federal income taxes slowly but certainly fell into the lives of American citizens, becoming the burden they have today. Of course, the wealthy people continue to find less payment methods. After the passage of the 16th Amendment, annual incomes of less than $20,000 (or about $460,000 in 2012) were taxed at 1%. The exemption was $3,000, and most Americans paid nothing.

However, by 1920, 12% of the adult population was paying income tax. By 1940, that percentage had doubled. In 1942, a “temporary measure” of automatic withholding was implemented, but it became permanent. Less than 20 years later, more than two-thirds of American adults had to pay income tax. By the 1980s, that number had reached a maximum of 75-80%. Taxes on income then amounted to about 25% of all profits. Taxes from all federal, state and local sources have moved beyond the one-third mark.

Why do Americans defend income tax?

Lutnick's statement at the beginning of this article is tragically true. Just as victims of Stockholm syndrome develop bonds with prisoners of war on the basis of positive feelings of misleading, Americans view the mechanisms of economic power and freedom.

Given the latest findings from Government Efficiency (DOGE), it is particularly surprising that some people remain in America still defending this non-American looting tool.

While regular citizens struggle to pay $5 for 12 eggs, the federal government is dedicated to valuable resources in the pay of degenerated National Security Agency employees who have discussed all the troubling details of all forms of transgenderism during their watches. Many federal departments have brought racial industries and paid a pile of cash to teach other government officials that people who pay salaries to other government officials are grossly racist. Just recently, a senior advisor at Lake Carri, a US global media agency, revealed that the federal government has signed a $250 million lease for a gorgeous skyscraper, a federally funded propaganda device that has become anti-American. But that gets worse. The agency already had the building – and it all paid off.

We also learned that a large amount of cash was kicked out due to benefits for illegal aliens and hotel stays. We learned an intelligence agent that dug into social media companies to silence Americans who held unauthorized views on the origins of Covid, the safety and efficacy of COVID's “vaccines.”

In short, Americans are paying for their destruction.

Restore the founder's vision

Eliminating federal income taxes is one of the most important ways in which Americans begin to restore the founder's original vision of being the freest and most prosperous country in world history.