To Whine or Resist?

Well, today is April 15th, though I suspect that there aren't many of you who haven't already noticed that. Both the federal extortion racket and its opponents try pretty hard to make sure that everyone is well aware of National Enslavement Day. And I'm quite pleased that there has been a lot of coverage of the protests and demonstrations, "tea parties" and others, planned across the country for this day of national shame. (Land of the free? Nice joke.)

I'm also pleased that today I finally have a web site up which has the 2007 version of my "Taxable Income" report (a free download): http://www.larkenrose.com/pdf/TaxableIncome2007.pdf

And I'm pleased that the old "861 Evidence" presentation is now alive and well on that new site: http://www.larkenrose.com/the-861-evidence.html

(But don't be surprised if lots of people try to view the presentation all at once today, and slow down the servers.)

But today I have a question--a question which the American people will answer, though we probably won't know the answer for a long time. The question is, are the American people content to merely COMPLAIN about what is being done to them, or are they about ready to finally RESIST?

For example, how many people at today's protests will be sending the message, "Please, master, stop taking so much of our money!"? And how many will be sending the message, "You won't be getting my money anymore!"? In other words, who will be BEGGING for freedom, and who will be TAKING freedom for themselves?

As I've said before, I expect a tax revolt in this country, starting today but growing as the economy continues to crumble and the socialist federal leviathan continues to grow. But it won't be the way I wished it would happen. It would be fun if a few million Americans found out that they don't even OWE federal "income taxes," based on the extortionists' own laws (see the links above).

On the other hand, it would be good if people resisted on philosophical grounds, realizing that we each own ourselves, and that no one has the moral right ("law" or no "law") to forcibly take a percentage of the fruits of our labor without our consent.

Instead, the tax revolt will most likely be the result of what usually causes such things: desperation. Rather than a legal or moral motivation, the average "taxpayer" (or "fraud victim," to be more accurate) may simply find that he doesn't have any money*. And given the choice between feeding the IRS beast and feeding his own family, he will choose the latter.

I guess if we can't have a principled revolt, a revolt out of necessity will have to do. But it remains to be seen at what point Americans will grow a spine and actually start resisting a perceived "authority." Will they wait until they're starving and living in tent cities, or will they do it a little earlier? The fact that they haven't done it already--like, in 1913, for example-- is pretty discouraging, but judging by the current grumblings across the country, there may be some spine left in the American people yet. Time will tell. Today will be a good first hint. What will the IRS "compliance" numbers look like when they've counted all the forced confessions this year? We shall see.

Sincerely,

Larken Rose
http://www.larkenrose.com

(* For the sake of brevity, at the moment I won't get into the fact that what passes for "money" these days is a giant fraud in itself.)

FLORIDA JUDGE RULES ATTORNEY REFUSING TO FILE SINCE '99 COMMITED NO CRIME!!

That's right!  After a trial of a hearing on a Florida Bar Association complaint alleging that Charles 'Chuck' Behm, a Florida attorney, had violated bar rules by committing a criminal act by refusing to file federal income tax returns since 1999 Judge Tyree Boyer ruled that Behm committed no criminal act.

The Florida Bar was obviously assisted by either DOJ, the IRS or both because its presentation, right down to including the standard name calling and the stale half truths was DOJ SOP.  From opening statement to close the DOJ's fingerprints were all over the case.  The only new twist was DOJ's latest slam against patriots, introducing a new name for what it calls anti-government groups like 'tax protesters', 'tax defiers' and, now 'Constitutionalists'!!  (Behm's defense attorney, TA's Tom Cryer, had plenty to say about that in his response.)

In his cross examination of the Bar's 'expert witness', Cryer was able to force the witness to admit that he could not cite any specific authority making Behm liable for the income tax and that the absence of such a statute is not among the official list of 'frivolous arguments'.  The witness also admitted on cross that he did not really have a clear definition of 'income', that he knew of no lawful authority for the IRS's 'zero basis' policy applied only to working Americans' gross receipts and that the zero basis for 'zero basis' is not on the IRS's list of 'frivolous arguments.'

Chuck Behm then testified that his research into the code and Supreme Court authorities forced him to conclude that he is not liable for the federal income tax and, therefore, not among those required to file returns; that he had no income within the meaning of the Constitution and the Sixteenth Amendment and that he is engaging in no activity that is within the federal government's power to tax. 

Chuck was very thorough and precise in describing his research and the authorities, making a very clear and convincing account of his command of the subject.

In her closing, the Bar Counsel argued that people depend upon attorneys to set an example by following and supporting the government and its laws.  Cryer rebutted that argument by contending that people do not depend on attorneys to support the government, but to support the Constitution, to protect their rights and to stand up to the government when it abuses either.

Judge Boyer ruled that Behm had committed no criminal act by refusing to file federal income taxes, but the case is far from over.  He also ruled that the failure to file was unlawful although he could give no specific basis for that finding. 

Now the case goes to the Florida Supreme Court for its ruling and in that process the Court will be challenged to show what law subjects Behm to liability and, hence, a lawful duty to file returns and pay income taxes.

http://www.truthattack.org/

A.I.G. Sues U.S. for Return of $306 Million in Tax Payments

Katie Orlinsky for The New York Times

Demonstrators marched in New York’s financial district Thursday to protest corporate excesses.

 

By LYNNLEY BROWNING

Published: March 19, 2009

While the American International Group comes under fire from Congress over executive bonuses, it is quietly fighting the federal government for the return of $306 million in tax payments, some related to deals that were conducted through offshore tax havens.

A.I.G. sued the government last month in a bid to force it to return the payments, which stemmed in large part from its use of aggressive tax deals, some involving entities controlled by the company’s financial products unit in the Cayman Islands, Ireland, the Dutch Antilles and other offshore havens.

A.I.G. is effectively suing its majority owner, the government, which has an 80 percent stake and has poured nearly $200 billion into the insurer in a bid to avert its collapse and avoid troubling the global financial markets. The company is in effect asking for even more money, in the form of tax refunds. The suit also suggests that A.I.G. is spending taxpayer money to pursue its case, something it is legally entitled to do. Its initial claim was denied by the Internal Revenue Service last year.

The lawsuit, filed on Feb. 27 in Federal District Court in Manhattan, details, among other things, certain tax-related dealings of the financial products unit, the once high-flying division that has been singled out for its role in A.I.G.’s financial crisis last fall. Other deals involved A.I.G. offshore entities whose function centers on executive compensation and include C. V. Starr & Company, a closely held concern controlled by Maurice R. Greenberg, A.I.G.’s former chairman, and the Starr International Company, a privately held enterprise incorporated in Panama, and commonly known as SICO.

The lawsuit contends in part that the federal government owes A.I.G. nearly $62 million in foreign tax credits related to eight foreign entities, with names like Lumagrove, Laperouse and Foppingadreef, that were set up or controlled by financial products, often through a unit known as Pinestead Holdings.

United States tax law allows American companies to claim a credit for any taxes paid to a foreign government. But the I.R.S. denied A.I.G.’s refund claims in 2008, saying that it had improperly calculated the credits. The I.R.S. has identified so-called foreign tax-credit generators as an area of abuse that it is increasingly monitoring.

The remainder of A.I.G.’s claim, for $244 million, concerns net operating loss carry-backs, capital loss carry-backs, a general refund claim and claims for refunds of other tax-related payments that A.I.G. says it made to the I.R.S. but are now owed back. The claim also covers $119 million in penalties and interest that A.I.G. says it is due back from the government.

In part, A.I.G. says it overpaid its federal income taxes after a 2004 accounting scandal that caused it to restate its financial records. A.I.G. says in part that it is entitled to a refund of $33 million that SICO paid in 1997 as compensation to employees, which it now says should be characterized as a deductible expense.

A.I.G.’s lawyers in the case, at Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, referred calls to the company. Asked about the lawsuit, Mark Herr, an A.I.G. spokesman, said Thursday that “A.I.G. is taking this action to ensure that it is not required to pay more than its fair share of taxes.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/business/20aig.html?_r=3

Also read:

Spitzer on AIG: I told you so

AIG — There are Many Criminals Here

Central banks don't want their leased gold back

Have you wondered how the scam to suppress gold prices really works? Then, this is a must read...

Submitted by cpowell on Sat, 2009-02-28 04:25.

Section: Daily Dispatches

11:12p ET Friday, February 27, 2009

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Tonight your secretary/treasurer had an exchange about gold leasing with a participant in the wonderful USAGold.com forum sponsored by Centennial Precious Metals in Denver (http://www.usagold.com/cpmforum/). Since gold leasing is at the center of the gold suppression scheme and is a bit complicated, the exchange might be worth sharing, so it's appended.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

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Gold Leasing by Government -- A Question

"How long can the U.S. government protect the dollar's value by leasing its gold to bullion dealers who sell it, thereby holding down the gold price?"

-- Former Assistant U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts in a recent essay (http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02242009.html)

I am hoping someone can provide me with an explanation of how this machination works. The government leases gold to a dealer. This means, I presume, that the dealer gets to take physical possession of the gold for a period of time and pays a fee for the privilege. What happens when that time expires? The gold must be returned to the government, and unless the price of gold has fallen, the dealer takes a bath. What am I missing?

-- Tahoma.

*

Tahoma, to reply to your question about gold leasing. ...

It works this way.

While central banks traditionally have said they lease gold to earn a little money on a supposedly dead asset, in 1998 Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress that this was not true. Central banks lease gold, Greenspan admitted, to suppress its price:

http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/testimony/1998/19980724.htm

For years prior to 2000, gold leasing fueled what was called the gold carry trade. Investment houses leased gold from central banks, paying the central banks a tiny annual interest rate, usually well below 1 percent of the value of the gold leased, and then sold the gold into the market and invested the proceeds in government bonds, earning perhaps 5 percent annually. The huge difference in interest rates meant a virtually free stream of income for the investment houses, income paid by central banks as interest on the government bonds purchased by the investment houses, secure as long as the investment houses could be protected against sudden rises in the price of gold.

Gold-leasing governments liked this scheme because it supported government bond prices and government currencies and kept interest rates down — below where a free market would have set them. The results were the worldwide, credit-fueled boom, a vast misallocation of capital into unprofitable, unsustainable enterprises, and the worldwide bust now under way.

When the price of gold reached bottom in 1999 and turned up, threatening the investment houses that had sold leased gold even as Western central bank gold reserves began to decline markedly, the Western European central banks, under the supervision of the U.S. government, announced the Central Bank Gold Agreement:

http://www.reserveasset.gold.org/central_bank_agreements/cbga1/

The U.S. government was not formally a signatory to the agreement, but it was announced in Washington and has been called the Washington Agreement. So it is fairly surmised that the U.S. government helped organize the agreement and had a big interest in it -- the continuing support of the U.S. dollar and U.S. government bonds through gold price suppression. Gold price suppression was the essence of the "strong dollar policy." The Washington Agreement was a plan of dishoarding and sale of the gold reserves of the Western European central banks.

While the agreement's participants said they meant to support the gold price by limiting and co-ordinating their gold dishoarding, in fact they were arranging cash settlement of their gold loans, allowing the investment houses that were short gold to close their positions in cash rather than in gold itself. The investment houses were allowed to settle in cash because if they had been required to settle in gold, they would have had to go into the open market to get it and the gold price would have shot up very high, bankrupting the investment houses and greatly diminishing the value of all government currencies and bonds.

That is, central banks do not want their leased gold back. That is what you are missing.

Ever since the Washington Agreement in 1999 the Western central banks have been managing their controlled retreat with the gold price, letting gold rise a fairly steady 15-20 percent per year on average, stretching out their dishoarding as far as they can while trying to maintain some gold on hand for emergency intervention in the currency markets.

Barrick Gold, the biggest hedger (short) among the gold miners, confirmed all this when it announced some years ago that most of its gold loans had 15-year terms and were what the company called "evergreen" -- always allowed to be rolled over year after year so that the gold never had to be repaid as long as Barrick paid the tiny amount of cash interest due on it every year.

Barrick is short more than 9 million ounces of gold and until a few years ago was short much more than that. Who would lend so much gold indefinitely and for a mere pittance in interest? Only a central bank that meant to suppress gold as part of a scheme to keep government currencies and government bonds up and interest rates down.

Defending against Blanchard & Co.'s gold price-fixing lawsuit in U.S. District Court in New Orleans in 2003, Barrick went so far as to claim to be the agent of the central banks when it leased and sold gold and to share their sovereign immunity against lawsuit:

http://www.gata.org/files/BarrickConfessionMotionToDismiss.pdf

That is, gold is only the tail on the dog here. But it's a very strong tail.

You can find more detail about the gold price suppression scheme here:

http://www.gata.org/node/6519

* * *

Help keep GATA going

GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at http://www.gata.org/.

http://www.gata.org/node/7208

Worried investors want gold on hand

Submitted by cpowell on Wed, 2009-02-25 19:36. Section: Daily Dispatches

By Carolyn Cui and Allen Sykora
The Wall Street Journal
Wednesday, February 25, 2009

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123552294962865061.html

Some investors are so worried about the prospect of economic collapse that they are buying gold and having it delivered to them, rather than holding the precious metal in the form of futures contracts or other securities.

The global recession and worries about the stability of the financial system have sent the price of gold to $1,000 an ounce. But more surprising is that buyers are taking the unusual and expensive step of taking possession of it.

"We're having some of our strongest months ever," said Scott Thomas, president and chief executive of American Precious Metals Exchange, a precious-metals dealer in Edmond, Okla. "The bottom line is our numbers are probably double what they were last year, and last year was very busy."

Bob Coleman, who runs a bullion fund out of Nampa, Idaho, has taken multiple deliveries of gold and silver since last fall for his clients. The fund, Dollars and Sense Growth Fund, primarily invests in precious metals for high-net-worth individuals.

"It's more of a trust issue," says Mr. Coleman. "Given all the turmoil in the market, people prefer to have access to the metal."

Sales of American Eagle gold bullion coins at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia more than doubled in the first two months of this year.

Investors are also flocking to gold coins. At the U.S. Mint, a total of 147,500 ounces of American Eagle gold bullion coins were sold in the first two months this year, a surge of 176% from the same period last year.

Demand is rising at the Comex, the metals division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, where investors increasingly are choosing to take physical delivery of gold, rather than cash, once their futures contacts expire.

Rising delivery orders have kept Brink's Inc., a major carrier for the Comex, busy. The Richmond, Va., company said it saw a large spike in clients shipping gold and silver from the exchange over the past few months.

Tony Klancic, an account executive at Lind-Waldock, a Chicago commodities brokerage, says he has been taking calls since September from individual investors wanting to buy physical gold.

These are "real people in rural America with money under the mattress, and wealthy individuals coming to the futures market strictly intending to take delivery," Mr. Klancic said.

In December, 4.5% of gold contracts ended in delivery, compared with 3.4% a year earlier, according to the exchange. Investors also are taking delivery of silver, with contracts ending in delivery rising to 7.3% from 4.7%. December is typically a big month for deliveries, and in January, deliveries remained higher than the year before.

Jewelers and other users of metals are among the buyers who take possession of gold and silver. But with sales of jewelry down and other industrial users cutting back, it appears that investors are causing the increase.

Gold deliveries peaked at more than 8% in the early 1980s, when Mexico defaulted on its foreign debt and the world economy was in recession. Deliveries dropped and have gradually fallen back to the range of 2% in recent years.

Gold pierced the $1,000 level last Friday, the first time since March 2008. On Tuesday, the February contract closed at $969.10 per troy ounce. So far this year, the precious metal is up 9.7%.

Taking physical delivery of gold can be costly and complicated. Investors typically buy gold on exchanges using futures contracts. Since each contract represents 100 ounces of gold, an investor would have to pay $96,910 per contract, based on Tuesday's close, in order to take delivery. By contrast, investors need to put down only $3,999 up front to trade such a futures contract.

"It is an expensive proposition," says Jeff Christian, managing director at CPM Group, a New York precious-metal research firm.

Also, the logistics of buying a big lump of metal might be daunting for smaller players. Investors who decide to take delivery of gold contracts face high storage and insurance costs. And if buyers actually want the gold or other precious metals in their possession, they must arrange for delivery by armored truck. In a recent delivery of 100,000 ounces of silver, Mr. Coleman paid $3,000 to transport the metal from New York to Idaho.

Gold coin shortage as demand soars

Submitted by cpowell on Wed, 2009-02-25 20:22. Section: Daily Dispatches

By Javier Blas
Financial Times, London
Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Source

NEW YORK -- The rush by retail investors into bullion coins is creating shortages as mints across the world struggle to meet the surge in demand, dealers and mint officials say...Cont.

Ex-Treasury official confirms gold suppression scheme

Submitted by cpowell on Tue, 2009-02-24 22:13. Section: Daily Dispatches

5p ET Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

In an essay published today at Counterpunch.org, former Assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts confirms that the U.S. government has been leasing gold to suppress its price and support the dollar. The admission is made in the last paragraph of the essay, which is appended.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer

read more

* * *

Help keep GATA going

GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at http://www.gata.org/ .

http://www.gata.org/node/7201