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The amended petitions all contain the same arguments:
(1) The petitioners have no tax liability “due to a lack of
consideration”, (2) "[i]t does not appear that the United States
and the State of California (each a body politic with their
respective governments) are under any legal obligation to protect
our property and ourselves", (3) although petitioners may have
accepted some commercial benefits, “it does not appear that the
tax in question bears a fiscal relation to those benefits”, and
(4) “regardless of the fact that some commercial benefits may
have been accepted, it does not appear that any obligation to pay
any particular tax in return was ever disclosed”.
Those are all frivolous arguments. On numerous occasions,
courts have rejected similar arguments. See, e.g., McLaughlin v.
Commissioner, 832 F.2d 986, 987 (7th Cir. 1987) ("The notion that
the federal income tax is contractual or otherwise consensual in
nature is not only utterly without foundation but * * * has been
repeatedly rejected by the courts."); United States v. Drefke,
707 F.2d 978, 981 (8th Cir. 1983) (taxpayer unsuccessfully argued
that taxes are debts only incurred when individuals contract with
the Government for services). The cases cited in the amended
petitions are not relevant to the adjustments made in the notices
of deficiency. None of those cases relates to the validity of
the trusts involved or to the substantiation of expenses, which
are the issues set forth in the notices. Furthermore, the
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