CLAIM: There are no laws requiring people to pay their taxes.
THE FACTS: Title 26 of the U.S. Code requires individuals to pay income taxes. Faulty legal arguments claiming there’s no such law have been around for decades but have not been successful in court.
With April’s federal income tax deadline approaching, social media users are sharing a short video compiling interviews from a number of purported experts, including a tax lawyer, a tax advisor and a former IRS agent — all of whom claim they discovered through their own research that Americans aren’t obligated to pay income taxes because it isn’t spelled out in law.
But federal officials and tax experts dismiss the arguments as frivolous and say the law is clear. Raphael Tulino, a spokesperson for the IRS, directed the AP to a website it maintains to address many of the common claims made by those opposed to following tax laws.
“The requirement to pay taxes is not voluntary,” the IRS’ response on the website reads. “Section 1 of the Internal Revenue Code clearly imposes a tax on the taxable income of individuals, estates, and trusts, as determined by the tables set forth in that section."
The IRS also notes that the obligation to pay income taxes is described in section 6151, which requires taxpayers to submit payment with their tax returns. Jonathan Siegel, a professor at George Washington University’s law school agreed with the agency’s assessment.
“No, there isn’t even a grain of truth to the theories in the video, nor does it contain any new or surprising arguments,” he wrote in an email, directing the AP to his personal website breaking down income tax myths.
Federal tax laws are contained in the Internal Revenue Code, also known as Title 26 of the United States Code, Siegel explains on his website. The U.S. Code is the compilation of all the laws passed by Congress. Garrett Watson, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax policy research group in Washington, said tax protesters continue to misinterpret the IRS’ use of the phrase “voluntary compliance” as meaning paying taxes and filing tax returns isn’t legally required.
But the term refers to the notion that individuals are responsible for determining and paying the correct amount of tax and filling out the necessary forms, rather than the government determining the tax for them. Watson also noted that legal arguments against paying taxes have been around for decades but have seen little success in courts. In fact, one of the people featured in a widely circulating version of the social media video is Sherry Jackson, a former IRS employee and tax preparer who was convicted of willfully and intentionally failing to file tax returns.
— Associated Press writer Philip Marcelo in New York contributed this report.