He’s been saying it for more than twenty-five years. Nobody cares . . .

By Jenna McCarthy - March 30, 2026

There are certain uncomfortable truths we repeat like gospel and then promptly proceed to do absolutely nothing about. “Chemtrails are real.” “Social media is addictive.” “Our phones are spying on us.” “Glyphosate causes cancer.” “Income tax is illegal.”

That last one has been floating around for so long it’s basically a decorative pillow at this point. We don’t even react to it anymore. We’ve heard it. We suspect it’s probably true. But it just sits there, nestled between “you don’t actually need shampoo” and “giants once roamed the earth.” What should I make for dinner? Did I remember to schedule the pest control guy? Who took my—oh wait, never mind. Found it.

And yet. Every once in a while, someone comes along who isn’t a comment-section crusader with a Punisher skull avatar and his own Telegram channel. He’s not a professional tax protester hawking a $399 “Free Yourself from Debt Slavery” online course. He’s not even a TDS-riddled liberal who refuses to pay taxes as a middle finger to Trump. (Why didn’t I know that was a thing when Obiden was president?)

This time, the guy is Joe Banister, a former IRS Criminal Investigation Division Special Agent. Not some dude who “did his own research.” Not a guy who “read a blog.” His job was literally to track down people who didn’t pay their taxes. By his own account, he took that task seriously—legally, morally, and ethically.

One day, Banister was listening to a radio talk show and the guest was explaining how paying income tax is in fact not obligatory. That there is no law on any book, signed by any president, that obligates citizens to pay it. Banister’s response—as a responsible federal employee who took an oath to uphold the Constitution—was, “No, lady, Americans are required to pay this, and I’m here to make sure of it.”

So he set out to prove Radio Lady wrong. He started digging into the tax code—deeply, obsessively, the way people do when they’re either trying to prove a point or ruin Thanksgiving forever. Eventually he came to a conclusion that, depending on your tolerance for chaos, is either incredibly intriguing or patently maddening: There is no law requiring 97% of Americans to file and pay federal income tax. In fact, by filling out a tax return in the first place, Banister says that we’re essentially creating a contract between ourselves and the IRS that actually gives them the authority to assess the tax we claim to owe.

Cute, right?

Hahahahahaha is all I can say.

And here’s the weird part: Banister didn’t just think these things quietly in his own home while filling out his 1040 form like the rest of the dutiful peasants. He said it out loud. To other people. On camera. He put it in writing and gave it to his IRS supervisors. (Bless his heart, he thought he might even get a raise or be crowned Employee of the Month.) He shared it with the top dogs at an aviation company who, based on his presentation, stopped withholding taxes from employees’ paychecks.

The government reacted in the way only the government could when an insider breaks from the script: they forced his resignation, arrested him in front of his colleagues, and indicted him on felony charges. One count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and three counts of assisting in filing false tax returns. The basic “we’re not even a little bit amused” starter pack.

The thing that keeps this from being just another clickbait headline or internet rabbit hole, though, is that the jury acquitted him. Not a plea deal. Not a technicality. The phrase “by reason of temporary insanity” never entered the chat. The jury agreed that Banister had committed no crime.

Which raises what I think is a perfectly reasonable question: If filing and paying income tax is the clear-cut, settled, indisputable fact they’ve promised us it is… how does that happen? Because according to the record, the government didn’t exactly come in swinging with a detailed, line-by-line explanation of the law Banister allegedly violated. They didn’t bring in an expert witness to dismantle his claims in open court. They didn’t walk the jury through the definitive, explicit statutory authority that supposedly makes this whole thing obvious. Their argument basically boiled down to, “Because we said so.”

Meanwhile, the jury sat through hours of Banister explaining, in detail, why the existing code showed that wages were not lawfully taxable income. Twice. And then they agreed with him.

In a sane world, this would be . . .

[SNIP]