| Subject: Re: [EL] Taxing donations to 501(c)(4) organizations as gifts |
| From: "Volokh, Eugene" <VOLOKH@law.ucla.edu> |
| Date: 5/11/2011, 10:01 AM |
| To: "election-law@mailman.lls.edu" <election-law@mailman.lls.edu> |
Mr. Roland: I wonder whether some of your own posts might profit from the advice you gave to Mr. White. I’ve noticed that you often make assertions about what is supposedly the law – for instance, in the post below – but without actually giving any specific authority supporting your points.
There’s also the separate question of how helpful your assertions about the supposed unconstitutionality of the income tax are to dealing with specific legal questions about the current legal environment, in which the income tax seems here to stay for the foreseeable future. But in any event, might I ask that if you make assertions about what the law is, you give supporting evidence? I might not ask the same of, say, Prof. Hasen when he makes an assertion about a subject in which he is an acknowledged expert; but in the absence of such widely recognized expertise, bare assertions about what is or is not unconstitutional aren’t terribly helpful.
Eugene Volokh
From: election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu [mailto:election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu] On Behalf Of Jon Roland
Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2011 8:34 AM
To: election-law@mailman.lls.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Taxing donations to 501(c)(4) organizations as gifts
It is not the donors who are most likely to challenge such an application, but the 501(c)(4) lobbying organizations that are the recipients. Whatever their usual issues might be, they will unite in opposing application of the gift tax to their donors, and thus threaten most of the donations to the campaigns of election candidates. One of the surest ways to get a statutory exemption for individual and corporate gifts to other than 501(c)(3) and 5019c)(19) nonprofits is to apply gift tax to their donors.
Missing from this article is the point that gift and estate taxes, as well as taxes on compensation for labor, are unconstitutional. There is no unbroken chain of authority leading from the Constitution, through statutes, through regulations, to instructions in tax manuals or actions of the IRS. Further, they are not "income" as that term was originally understood, which only includes earnings on land or capital or profits on sales. The only authority of IRS agents is that they are better organized and armed than most taxpayers. They have no more lawful authority than members of a street gang extorting "protection" from merchants. It is time to replace the so-called "income" tax with a purchase tax.
From: election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu [mailto:election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu] On Behalf Of Jon Roland
Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2011 9:11 AM
To: John White
Cc: election-law@mailman.lls.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Taxing donations to 501(c)(4) organizations as gifts
Cite the case and quote the finding. You may discover it doesn't cover the issue the way you claim.
On 05/11/2011 10:44 AM, John White wrote:
The constitutionality of the estate and gift taxes has been resolved by the Supreme Court, at least as far as challenges asserting that the taxes are unconstitutional direct taxes.
-- Jon