Income Taxes, The Vampire of Civilization - Prt 2

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0><script type="text/javascript" src="http://hb.lycos.com/hb.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ratings.lycos.com/ratings/lycosRating.js.php"></script> <script type="text/javascript"><![CDATA[//><!]]></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://scripts.lycos.com/catman/init.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://members.tripod.com/adm/ad/code-start.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://members.tripod.com/adm/ad/code-middle.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://members.tripod.com/adm/ad/code-end.js"></script> <noscript> <img src="http://members.tripod.com/adm/img/common/ot_noscript.gif?rand=207315" alt="" width="1" height="1" />  <iframe frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" width="728" height="90" src="http://ad.yieldmanager.com/st?ad_type=iframe&ad_size=728x90&section=209094"></iframe>  </noscript> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=165 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Income Taxes, The Vampire of Civilizatio"><U>Income Taxes, The Vampire of Civilization - Part 1</U></A></div> <div> <B>Income Taxes, The Vampire of Civilization - Prt 2</b></div> <div> <A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Income Taxes, The Vampire of Civilizatio"><U>Income Taxes, The Vampire of Civilization - Part 3</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Income Taxes, The Vampire of Civilizatio"><U>Income Taxes, The Vampire of Civilization - Part 4</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id24.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Income Taxes, The Vampire of Civilizatio"><U>Income Taxes, The Vampire of Civilization - Part 5</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id25.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Income Taxes, The Vampire of Civilizatio"><U>Income Taxes, The Vampire of Civilization - Bibliography and Footnotes</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Real Reason for Violence in America"><U>The Real Reason for Violence in America</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id29.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Random Thoughts"><U>Random Thoughts</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.hillracing.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.hillracing.com"><U><B>Back toTom Hill,</b></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="http://www.hillracing.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.hillracing.com"><U><B>E.A. Inc</b></U></A><B>.</b></div> <bR> <div> <B><IMG SRC="10983610.gif" border=0 width="131" height="97" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></b></div> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <bR> <div> <B>The Sucking of the Blood</b></div> <div> <B>The History - Ancient Empires</b></div> <bR> <div>      <I>Aching in the roots of my canines, indifferent to the sensation of furry skin against my mouth, I drank greedily from the torn veins of the little creature.  New energy, supremely welcome, flowed into my tormented body.</I><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" ><I>27</I></FONT></div> <bR> <div>      Since the beginning of time there has been some form of taxation.  The first such instance was probably when the first caveman bully made the other guys go hunting and demanded tribute.  Throughout history the taxman has promised he was only going to take little bites out of the economy and only for a short time.  In <I>every</I> case he not only didn't stop sucking on society's neck but he increased his demands until the people were sucked dry.<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >28</FONT></div> <bR> <div>      The most recent example that comes to mind happened here in California in 1989.  San Francisco had a horrible earthquake, so the State of California "temporarily" raised the sales tax rate to have money to help the disaster victims.  The raise was only supposed to last a year at most.  According to <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#0099FF" FACE="Times New Roman" ><A HREF="http://www.caltax.com/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.caltax.com/"><U>Spidell’s California Taxletter</U></A></FONT> of December 1, 1989;</div> <bR> <div>      From December 1, 1989, through December 31, 1990, California’s sales and use tax rate is increased by a quarter of a percent...  The revenue from this <U>temporary</U> tax increase is to be deposited into a newly created, continuously appropriated relief fund...  for purposes of ... recovery from earthquakes, aftershocks...  “...<B>this treatment of revenue does not constitute a precedent for future state fiscal policy</b>.”  (AB 48X and SB 33X)<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >29</FONT></div> <bR> <div> It is still in effect 10 years later!  Have we been sucked dry yet?  Probably not, but it has cost each of us $3,000 to $4,000 for this "temporary" tax raise.</div> <bR> <div>      The Egyptians experienced several different kinds of taxation throughout their history.  In fact, in the 1700's (B.C.) it was the pharaoh's deliberate heavy taxation of the Israelites that led to their enslavement.  The Israelites couldn't pay the exorbitant taxes imposed on them and so were forced into slavery as a means to pay their taxes.  This, of course, was a strong motivation for Moses to lead them out of bondage and out of Egypt to resettle in Palestine<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >30</FONT> to escape the ancient bloodsuckers in Egypt.</div> <bR> <div>      Some 1500 years later (after Moses) Egypt was plagued by civil war as a result of a successful military campaign in the east.  The Egyptian soldiers returned to find Egyptian citizens (and consequently themselves) being taxed very heavily by the Pharaoh (to pay for the war).  They revolted and so Ptolemy V issued a "Proclamation of Peace" which allowed for a general amnesty for the rebels.  Tax debtors and rebels were released from prison, tax debts were forgiven and there would be tax immunity for temples and their income sources.  This stopped the war and made the temple leaders so happy that they had the proclamation set in stone in three languages or modes (hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek) and displayed at each of their temples.  One of these stones turned up centuries later as the Rosetta Stone, the document that enabled scholars to decipher the hieroglyphics found at other Egyptian sites, temples, pyramids, etc.<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >31</FONT></div> <bR> <div>      This tax document (the "Proclamation of Peace") helped stop the war in Egypt but it may have led to the downfall of Egypt.  The tax collector still needed to collect taxes.  Diogenes (the IRS writer) claims, "tax collectors, representing the king or the priesthood, simply roamed about the country demanding goods or services."<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >32</FONT>  They hit heavily on the still taxable farmers, workers and businessmen and so these producers lost their desire to work. The Russian scholar Rostovtzeff believed "that the decay in Egyptian society was the result of lawlessness in the bureaucracy, especially the tax bureau... that the continual and unabated tyranny of Egyptian tax collectors produced a nationwide decline in incentive.  Egyptian workers and farmers lost their desire to work - agricultural lands fell into disuse, businessmen moved away, and workers fled."<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >33</FONT>  In other words, they moved away, took their money with them, inflation skyrocketed, and Egypt became a land of high crime.  This, of course, caused more flight from the land and so eventually Egypt became an <U>ancient</U> empire<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >34</FONT> due to the vampire draining the incentive from the people of Egypt.</div> <bR> <div>      In the meantime, the Greeks and the Romans were having their heyday.</div> <bR> <div>      "To the Greeks, the badge of liberty was indirect taxation.  The individual is not taxed directly; what is taxed is some commercial activity such as a sale, import, or use of a public facility...  To him, direct taxation and tyranny were one," Adams tells us.<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >35</FONT>  They paid taxes on what service was delivered to them and so there was direct exchange for their taxes.  L. Ron Hubbard avers, "The key to... prosperity is <I>exchange</I>.  One exchanges something valuable for something valuable."<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >36</FONT>  The ancient Greeks understood this and applied this to their tax systems.  However, there were tyrants to contend with and so eventually Greece civilization fell.  As Adams states:</div> <bR> <div>      Sparta started a preventive war to check the growing imperialism of Athens and encroachments on Sparta's sphere of influence...  The war raged on for decades; it became the terrible Peloponnesian War.  Sparta eventually won but had neither the will nor the ability to unify Greece.  Civil wars continued among the city-states, and Greece went into decline...<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >37</FONT></div> <bR> <div>      The Athenian politicians had begun to get greedy.  They doubled tax rates and doubled them again.  Corruption, aided by easy tax money, became the norm and so the tax collectors tried to expand their influence to Sparta and other city-states.  Sparta didn't like the idea of giving up their "blood" to the Athenian vampires and fought back.  As Adams said, Sparta won but they didn't have the ability to keep Greece united and so Greece became another <U>ancient</U> empire.</div> <bR> <div>      Meanwhile, over in Rome the Romans were having everyone do as the Romans do.  According to Adams, Julius Caesar believed that "the road to provincial peace was modest taxation, not plunder."<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >38</FONT><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >  </FONT>He expanded the Roman Republic not only by military means but kept the provinces in line by a fair tax policy of tax refunds, and negotiations with the local rulers.  Again, Adams says:</div> <bR> <div>      The Jews were jubilant over Caesar's new system...  For the first time in over 150 years Rome's relations with her eastern provinces were peaceful—but then came the Ides of March, 44 B.C.</div> <bR> <div>      The murder of Caesar darkened the tax story of the east once again.  Brutus went from city to city seizing everything he could lay his hands on.<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >39</FONT></div> <bR> <div>      Marc Anthony defeated Brutus and then demanded a double tax from every city that supported Brutus.  Octavian then defeated the combined fleets of Anthony and Cleopatra in the battle of Actium, marking the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire.<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >40</FONT>  Pax Romana lasted for 500 years under one Caesar or another.  Diocletian and his successors shackled Rome and its provinces with such tax bondage - a vicious circle of high taxes causing deterioration of the land, requiring manpower that the military needed, and so the military demanded more tax money, <I>ad nauseum</I> - that when the Vandals sacked Rome in 476 A.D. no one cared to put it back together again.  Another <U>ancient</U> empire bit the dust and the vampire moved on to redder pastures.</div> <bR> <div>      Other countries and civilizations throughout history had tax problems.</div> <bR> <div>      Medieval England begat the Magna Carta, a tax document restricting the taxing powers of the king.<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >41</FONT></div> <bR> <div>      Genghiz Khan was not only a conqueror but also a heavy-handed tax collector.  He and later khans taxed Russia for 300 years until Ivan the Terrible came along and took over the taxing system and established the Tsars.   Peter the Great tried to reform the tax system many times (usually in his favor), but after his death peasant uprisings caused Catherine the Great to make any talk of reform very dangerous.  Eventually the communists put the tsars out of business and taxes became secondary in the Russian people's minds.<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >42</FONT></div> <bR> <div>      Interestingly enough, according to Diogenes (IRS writer), "Karl Marx once suggested that a steeply graduated income tax could be used as a bloodless, nonrevolutionary way to redistribute wealth in a capitalist country."<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >43</FONT>  It would seem that by "bloodless" he meant no wars.  Or did he mean that the country would eventually become lacking of blood?</div> <bR> <div>      Switzerland, Spain and France all had their tax problems, but let us return to England.  As Adams puts it:</div> <bR> <div>      ...the British rose to become a superpower because they learned how to master their tax system...  Britain's rise from a mediocre European state in the seventeenth century to a super power in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries was a triumph of good tax management.<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >44</FONT></div> <bR> <div>      In the mid-twentieth century Britain became a socialist welfare state with 95 percent income tax rates.  She has been in trouble ever since.</div> <bR> <div>      England lost one of its biggest colonies in 1776 because of taxation.  The Boston Tea Party highlighted a chain of events that led to the Revolutionary War and the beginnings of the United States of America.  However, this was not the end of the British Empire.</div> <bR> <div>      In 1799 England adopted a graduated income tax (such as we have now in the United States).  It was begun in wartime (the Napoleonic Wars) and was promised as a temporary, emergency tax to the people.<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >45</FONT>  It appeared that this may have been the case for a while when the tax was repealed in 1815, but it was re-enacted in the 1870's and the British Empire started to become one of the <U>ancient</U> empires.  This 55-60 year period was called the Industrial Revolution and the growth of that period is largely responsible for the United States' own advance as a civilization.</div> <bR> <div>      In the United States, taxes were not unheard of just because of an earlier rebellion against a king.  Adams claims:</div> <bR> <div>      One of the most popular myths in American history is that the Civil War was started over slavery...  This popular childhood history story is fable.<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >46</FONT></div> <bR> <div>      Lincoln did not want a war with the South and stated time and again that he would not interfere with slavery in the South.  The real upshot of the matter was that the North had forced through Congress import taxes that made Northern manufacturers rich, and heavily taxed the Southern plantation owners; the South exported most of its goods and spent most of the earnings to buy European goods, which carried the high import tax.  Agreement could not be reached and so war ensued.</div> <bR> <div>      The French gave the United States the Statue of Liberty to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of American independence.  This was to mean independence from unjust taxation.  However, almost 40 years later in 1913, Congress committed a most grievous act and ratified the <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#0099FF" FACE="Times New Roman" ><A HREF="http://bmstahoe.com/IncomeTax/ica_ltnw.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://bmstahoe.com/IncomeTax/ica_ltnw.h"><U>16th Amendment</U></A></FONT> allowing the federal government to tax "all income, from whatever source derived."<FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >47</FONT>  It has taken over 80 years but the United States is well on its way to becoming an <U>ancient</U> empire unless something is done about the tax that is sucking dry the lifeblood of the nation.  How does this income tax achieve such a disastrous result?  How is it draining our nation to the marrow?  Where is Van Helsing when you need him?</div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="05e87c10.jpg" border=0 width="647" height="193" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> <IMG SRC="06088bf0.jpg" border=0 width="648" height="191" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <bR> <div> Copyright © 1995, 2000 by Tom Hill - All rights reserved.</div> </td> </tr></table></body>