Tax protester statutory arguments

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Tax protest in the United States
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Arthur Porth Robert Clarkson Vivien Kellems Irwin Schiff William J. Benson Wayne C. Bentson Tom Cryer Richard Michael Simkanin Eddie Ray Kahn
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Tax protesters in the United States have advanced a number of arguments asserting that the assessment and collection of the federal income tax violates statutes enacted by the United States Congress and signed into law by the President. Such arguments generally claim that certain statutes fail to create a duty to pay taxes, that such statutes do not impose the income tax on wages or other types of income claimed by the tax protesters, or that provisions within a given statute exempt the tax protesters from a duty to pay.

These statutory arguments are distinguished from, although related to, constitutional, administrative and general conspiracy arguments. Statutory arguments presuppose that Congress has a constitutional power to tax income (and typically accept the validity of the 16th Amendment, unlike some other theories) but has not passed a statute doing so, or has done so in a way that renders certain types of income not liable to taxation.