“The income tax is the biggest single intrusion suffered by the American people. It forces every worker to be a bookkeeper, to open his records to the government, to explain his expenses, to fear conviction for a harmless accounting error. Compliance wastes billions of dollars. It penalizes savings and creates an enormous drag on the U.S. economy. It is incompatible with a free society, and we aren’t libertarians if we tolerate it.”

The enormous cost to comply could be better spent elsewhere, but also the freedoms and privacy lost to the 16th ammendent is abhoring.

I can't imagine the thought process that ever allowed that amendment to pass.

so propose a viable alternative... oh, that's right, as a libertarian you'd have no government to fund and we'd each run our own little castle with its own little security force and medical facilities (etc).

Reston, assuming you can read, you may get some insight into the horrors of the income tax from a book titled," The Income Tax, Root of all Evil." Amazon will be happy to send you one.This book was written when the IRS was known as The Internal Revenue Bureau.

Reston you have no clue what Libertarianism is let alone what the American Republic is supposed to be. But that's because you are a communist and don't want to know.

Income tax is a fraud. The money taken from peoples pay checks goes NOT to pay for infrastructure, but to service the "interest" and only the interest on the huge debt created when the government freely borrows money created out of thin aire from the privately owned Federal Reserve, which is not Federal and has no Reserves. It's the greatest fraud in history.

J Carlton, you are exactly right.

The quote deserves thumbs down not because of what is said but because he mixes issues and that is not acceptable in an intelligent argument.

RBESRQ, where you separated at birth from Reston? Sure sounds like it.

The quote only begins to touch the on story. As I've mentioned, I was privy to a group (I did some research) that could prove the 16th Amendment was never lawfully ratified (the suit was never allowed to go forward in court - the malefactors are paid well to make ignorant and otherwise suppress the once sovereign). A founding principle of the States united was that "Governments are the servants, not the masters of the people." (Thomas Jefferson) ("In free governments the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns. "(Benjamin Franklin)). Thus, the Sovereigns, We The People defined a limited area of service for our servants through the Constitution. The de jure Constitution is a limitation on servants, it does not, it CAN NOT address enslavement of the masters. Once the tyrannical servants violated their oath to become the slave masters, We The People lost our government. I could go on and on and on but enough said here. AND, to the lying and ignorant Anonymous from Reston, Libertarians recognize a need for and support servants (government) to keep order, administer law, and execute justice in society - a viable alternative would be to return to law and the original principles upheld in the original constitutional. Prior to 1913 the US became the most prosperous, giving, powerful, educated, and free people on earth (WOW, what an alternative, already history proven)

Just what are the mixed up issues, RBE? Reston, how did the country ever get by without income tax before? The income tax was introduced once the Federal Reserve was introduced and interest-bearing IOUs replaced real money. The IRS was established to guarantee the interest payments to the Fed. The IRS is incorporated in Puerto Rico -- why was that necessary? As the debt grows and grows, the interest owed has grown exponentially. The interest had to be paid in gold at first, but after the Fed acquired all the gold in the nation (!!), the rule was changed to accept Federal Reserve Notes. These taxes have not paid for anything! The only thing it does do is guarantee the monopolists their monopolies. Ignorance of this fact has made it easier for the con artists issuing this debt to load us up with more and keep the rivers of interest flowing into their private bank accounts. Reston and RBE think they are standing up for the poor and down trodden, but in fact, the system makes the poor poorer and the classes of down-trodden growing -- hell, look how many people are out of work and the rest in so much debt they can never pay it off. You guys are delusional and yet you keep harping about 'compassion' all the while tightening the noose upon us all. Ungrateful wretches, the lot of you.

No more of an intrusion than those he feel compelled to total up your grocery items and present you with a total bill for payment. Why don;t they let you total your own grocery bill and simply reserve the right to check your addition if they so desire. That is what the government does, it lets you do your own math and reserves the right to check it. Name any financial dealing other than the income tax that allows you to do your own figuring first. Our government is fantastic in its basic trust of the American people, and the American people generally return that trust with fair and accurate reporting. Sadly the grocery stores do not repose a similar trust in us!

You know Waffler, somebody has to love you ! ? You also know, you make me shake my head in unbelief while smiling great big and thinking, 'hmm, only Waffler'.

sigh....