Includes & including
Almost NOTHING governments are created to do can they actually be held LEGALLY accountable for doing in court. Here is the proof of that:
Your Irresponsible, Lawless, and Anarchist Beast Government, Form #05.054
https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/YourIrresponsibleLawlessGov.pdf
In tandem with their uniformly anarchist approach, members of the Executive Branch such as the Treasury will often try to put themselves into the role of being able to literally add ANYTHING they want to statutory definitions so as to bring anyone and everyone into the reach of their ability to enforce against and steal from. The person who designed our Three Branch system of government described this tendency of the Judiciary and the Executive when he said:
“When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
Again, there is no liberty, if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would be then the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression [sound familiar?].
There would be an end of everything, were the same man or the same body, whether of the nobles or of the people, to exercise those three powers, that of enacting laws, that of executing the public resolutions, and of trying the causes of individuals.”
[. . .]
In what a situation must the poor subject be in those republics! The same body of magistrates are possessed, as executors of the laws, of the whole power they have given themselves in quality of legislators. They may plunder the state by their general determinations; and as they have likewise the judiciary power in their hands, every private citizen may be ruined by their particular decisions.”
[The Spirit of Laws, Charles de Montesquieu, Book XI, Section 6, 1758;
SOURCE: http://famguardian.org\Publications\SpiritOfLaws\sol_11.htm]
The way the above is implemented by the Treasury Department in the I.R.C. is by abusing the words “includes and including”:
26 U.S. Code § 7701 – Definitions
[. . .]
(c)Includes and including
The terms “includes” and “including” when used in a definition contained in this title shall not be deemed to exclude other things otherwise within the meaning of the term defined.
Courts have interpreted the terms “includes” and “including” as encompassing ONLY falling within the “same general class” as the thing or things specified.
“The Secretary has delegated its rule-making authority under § 847 to the ATF. In defining ammunition, the ATF has indicated that the term shall include “percussion caps.” 27 C.F.R. § 55.11 (1983). Furthermore, the Bureau has provided that “the terms ‘includes’ and ‘including’ do not exclude other things not named which are in the same general class or are otherwise within the scope of the term defined.” Id.”
[Bingham, Ltd. v. United States, 724 F.2d. 921, 927 (11th Cir. 1984)]
To impute anything BEYOND things falling in the same general and IDENTIFIED class would be to engage in an unconstitutional presumption in violation of due process of law. If you have to GUESS about what class is specified or what is included in the unidentified class, then the law is what the courts call “void for vagueness” because it fails the constitutional requirement for “reasonable notice” of what is included or expected because it doesn’t unambiguously describe the target audience, as documented in:
Reasonable Notice, Form #05.022
https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/ReasonableNotice.pdf
Otherwise, all doubts about what is included MUST be resolved in FAVOR of you and not the government, as we point out in:
PROOF OF FACTS: Ambiguous tax statutes are to be construed against the government, FTSIG
https://ftsig.org/proof-of-facts-ambiguous-tax-statutes-are-to-be-construed-against-the-government/
The above authority is often abused by legally ignorant revenue agents as an excuse or justification to ADD anything they want to be “included” in whatever definition you are challenging their authority with. This has the practical effect of:
- Depriving you of the constitutionally required “reasonable notice” of whether you are actually “included” or affected by the thing defined. See:
Requirement for Reasonable Notice, Form #05.022
https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/ReasonableNotice.pdf - Impermissibly delegating legislative powers to an Executive Employee in violation of the Separation of Powers Doctrine. See:
Government Conspiracy to Destroy the Separation of Powers, Form #05.023
https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/SeparationOfPowers.pdf - Turning a “society of law” as the U.S. Supreme Court calls it in Marbury v. Madison into a “society of Men”.
- Destroying the “rule of law” and replacing it with the “rule of men”.
The result of all the above is that you are put under the subjective and ever changing whims of an unelected bureaucrat in the Executive Branch who is serving within what we call “The Administrative State”. This is not permitted by our constitutional system of government:
When we consider the nature and the theory of our institutions of government, the principles upon which they are supposed 370*370 to rest, and review the history of their development, we are constrained to conclude that they do not mean to leave room for the play and action of purely personal and arbitrary power. Sovereignty itself is, of course, not subject to law, for it is the author and source of law; but in our system, while sovereign powers are delegated to the agencies of government, sovereignty itself remains with the people, by whom and for whom all government exists and acts. And the law is the definition and limitation of power. It is, indeed, quite true, that there must always be lodged somewhere, and in some person or body, the authority of final decision; and in many cases of mere administration the responsibility is purely political, no appeal lying except to the ultimate tribunal of the public judgment, exercised either in the pressure of opinion or by means of the suffrage. But the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, considered as individual possessions, are secured by those maxims of constitutional law which are the monuments showing the victorious progress of the race in securing to men the blessings of civilization under the reign of just and equal laws, so that, in the famous language of the Massachusetts Bill of Rights, the government of the commonwealth “may be a government of laws and not of men.” For, the very idea that one man may be compelled to hold his life, or the means of living, or any material right essential to the enjoyment of life, at the mere will of another, seems to be intolerable in any country where freedom prevails, as being the essence of slavery itself.
[Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 369-370 (1886);
SOURCE: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2131565438211553011]
To the above end, the Rules of Statutory Construction and Interpretation were implemented by the U.S. Supreme Court to LIMIT the reading of statutes so that Executive Branch and Judicial Branch employees CANNOT arbitrarily add anything they want to what a statutory definition explicitly and expressly says. Below are a few simple examples:
“It is axiomatic that the statutory definition of the term excludes unstated meanings of that term. Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U.S. 379, 392, and n. 10 (1979). Congress’ use of the term “propaganda” in this statute, as indeed in other legislation, has no pejorative connotation.{19} As judges, it is our duty to [481 U.S. 485] construe legislation as it is written, not as it might be read by a layman, or as it might be understood by someone who has not even read it.“
[Meese v. Keene, 481 U.S. 465, 484 (1987);
SOURCE: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=13796872946132691159]“When a statute includes an explicit definition, we must follow that definition, even if it varies from that term’s ordinary meaning. Meese v. Keene, 481 U.S. 465, 484-485 (1987) (“It is axiomatic that the statutory definition of the term excludes unstated meanings of that term”); Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U.S. at 392-393, n. 10 (“As a rule, `a definition which declares what a term “means” . . . excludes any meaning that is not stated’”); Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Lenroot, 323 U.S. 490, 502 (1945); Fox v. Standard Oil Co. of N.J., 294 U.S. 87, 95-96 (1935) (Cardozo, J.); see also 2A N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutes and Statutory Construction § 47.07, p. 152, and n. 10 (5th ed. 1992) (collecting cases). That is to say, the statute, read “as a whole,” post at 998 [530 U.S. 943] (THOMAS, J., dissenting), leads the reader to a definition. That definition does not include the Attorney General’s restriction — “the child up to the head.” Its words, “substantial portion,” indicate the contrary.”
[Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914, 942-943 (2000);
SOURCE: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1902129435857948493]
Most of the time, arbitrarily adding to definitions something that does not expressly appear SOMEWHERE in the statutes is done merely by presumption, which is universally condemned by courts as a violation of due process of law:
‘It is apparent,’ this court said in the Bailey Case ( 219 U.S. 239 , 31 S. Ct. 145, 151) ‘that a constitutional prohibition cannot be transgressed indirectly by the creation of a statutory presumption any more than it can be violated by direct enactment. The power to create presumptions is not a means of escape from constitutional restrictions.’
[Heiner v. Donnan, 285 U.S. 312 (1932);
SOURCE: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=285&page=312]
“If any question of fact or liability be conclusively presumed [rather than proven] against him, this is not due process of law.“
[Black’s Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition, p. 500]
Even among the most seasoned freedom researchers, the concepts documented on this page are very commonly misunderstood, resulting in the unsubstantiated false belief that things fall within definitions such as “United States” that actually are not included and cannot lawfully be included. This subject is therefore worthy of extreme attention to detail, because it is the origin of a significant amount of misunderstanding and even conflict within the freedom community.
Whenever there is confusion about the meanings of terms or their intended context, the most important things to remember are:
- Doubts about the meaning of statutory language must always be resolved against the statute drafter and in your favor, according to the U.S. Supreme Court. See:
PROOF OF FACTS: Ambiguous tax statutes are to be construed against the government, FTSIG
https://ftsig.org/proof-of-facts-ambiguous-tax-statutes-are-to-be-construed-against-the-government/ - A statute that fails to completely disclose all things included or within the class of things described fails the constitutional requirement for “reasonable notice” and thus is unenforceable and void for vagueness. See:
Requirement for Reasonable Notice, Form #05.022
https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/ReasonableNotice.pdf - Congress can only control, regulate, or tax PUBLIC property it owns, not PRIVATE property. The ability to regulate or tax PRIVATE property is repugnant to the constitution. Thus, everything in civil statutes must be presumed to relate to PUBLIC property that Congress owns and therefore controls. The question then becomes HOW exactly did they acquire that ownership interest as the origin of their authority to regulate under Article 4, Section 3, Clause 2 of the Constitution?
The abuse of the words “includes and including” to unlawfully expand enforcement authority of Executive Branch employees within “The Administrative State”, as well as tools and techniques for combating such abuse are exhaustively explained in:
Legal Deception, Propaganda, and Fraud, Form #05.014, Sections 15.5.8 and 18.2
https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/LegalDecPropFraud.pdf