From CGI member oldmaninthedesert:

**********************************************

The Fascinating Truth About The 16th Amendment

TO PUT IN A NUTSHELL what you are about to learn, the "income" tax is and always has been an excise on gains from certain federally-connected activities in which most Americans do not engage in meaningful (taxable) amounts, if at all. The law says this plainly, if only in places not commonly seen by most people.

Unfortunately, most Americans have been successfully conditioned over the last 75 years to believe the tax applies to all economic activity. Concurrently, most Americans have been induced to report payments of all kinds to government tax agencies using forms such as W-2s and 1099s which are actually prescribed-- again, in places most people don't know to look-- exclusively for the reporting of federally-connected tax-relevant payments.

These reporting-form allegations are taken as true if unrebutted, and it is on that basis that the income tax is ultimately applied, both to those who have engaged in taxable activities and those who have not, but aren't aware of the need to rebut the erroneous reporting-form allegations to the contrary. Because of the way this has all been designed, put in place and maintained, for most folks the "income tax" could be better called the "ignorance tax".

I realize that what I've just described sounds as unlikely as the proposition that everyone's emails and phone calls were being systematically vacuumed-up by the government without warrants would have sounded a few years ago. Please suppress your skepticism for the moment and indulge your curiosity (and don't forget that thousand-plus-high stack of complete refunds, Social security taxes and all, that you looked at a few moments ago, which you also would have found very unlikely indeed).

Just read what follows. You'll end up recognizing the truth.

https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-fascinating-truth-about-16th.html