WEBVTT NOTE Those Dirty, Rotten Taxes 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.840 Speaking for the attorneys in the tax business, you know, every time Congress comes up with 2 00:00:03.840 --> 00:00:07.760 a horrible new tax law, we have a saying among the profession. 3 00:00:07.760 --> 00:00:13.160 We call it the Tax Lawyers Full Employment Act. 4 00:00:13.160 --> 00:00:14.800 And really that's true. 5 00:00:14.800 --> 00:00:19.160 Every time they do things and we go out and we redo them, we're always about 10 or 15 6 00:00:19.160 --> 00:00:20.160 years ahead of them. 7 00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:24.280 But I got interested in history many years ago. 8 00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:28.160 In fact, that was sort of my love in college and university, but I didn't think it could 9 00:00:28.160 --> 00:00:29.240 make a living at it. 10 00:00:29.240 --> 00:00:34.280 So I ended up, and I think wisely so, I ended up in the tax field and worked in it for many 11 00:00:34.280 --> 00:00:40.960 years and because of my love of history and my experience in the tax world, I was able 12 00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:44.400 to look at the history of the world in a little different light. 13 00:00:44.400 --> 00:00:50.880 And to me, because I saw the power that taxes were in the lives of people, I said, and it 14 00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:56.720 was pretty obvious, that this has got to be a great power in the direction of civilization. 15 00:00:56.720 --> 00:01:00.960 And I think that it proved to be true. 16 00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:06.200 I kind of had a theory that behind all the great events of history there was a tax story. 17 00:01:06.200 --> 00:01:09.680 And sure enough, there was a tax story. 18 00:01:09.680 --> 00:01:13.000 And one of the greatest sources of tax stories is the Bible. 19 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:17.640 Now, most of you may have been educated in the Bible, and I was too, but I didn't realize 20 00:01:17.640 --> 00:01:21.320 that the Bible is just chuck full of tax stories. 21 00:01:21.320 --> 00:01:26.160 And one of my favorites, and I think it is alive today as it ever was. 22 00:01:26.160 --> 00:01:33.800 And if I was to think of a motto for libertarianism, I think I would select a statement from the 23 00:01:33.800 --> 00:01:36.800 Book of Judges. 24 00:01:36.800 --> 00:01:41.800 Now to let you know where the statement came from is that you remember the children of 25 00:01:41.800 --> 00:01:47.240 Israel and how Moses led them out of Egypt and how they centered in what was Palestine. 26 00:01:47.240 --> 00:01:51.880 And in the so-called promised land they divided up the territories and so each of the twelve 27 00:01:51.880 --> 00:01:55.120 tribes got their own little territory. 28 00:01:55.120 --> 00:02:01.000 And for a period of about 400 years, they were ruled by judges. 29 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:09.360 And in the last of the book of judges, it says, there were no kings in Israel, and every 30 00:02:09.360 --> 00:02:13.360 man did that which was right in his own eyes. 31 00:02:13.360 --> 00:02:15.080 Think about that. 32 00:02:15.080 --> 00:02:16.320 No kings in Israel. 33 00:02:16.320 --> 00:02:22.760 There was no big government, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes. 34 00:02:22.760 --> 00:02:28.920 I think that would be a wonderful logo if I was to think of one for the concept of liberty 35 00:02:28.920 --> 00:02:29.920 and freedom. 36 00:02:29.920 --> 00:02:35.540 Well, what happened there at the end, how they got out of the judges, is that the children 37 00:02:35.540 --> 00:02:39.520 of Israel decided that they wanted a king. 38 00:02:39.520 --> 00:02:46.200 And the prophet Samuel, who was also one of the great judges, he inquired of the Lord, 39 00:02:46.200 --> 00:02:51.800 so we read in the Old Testament, and he was told that God did not want them to have a 40 00:02:51.800 --> 00:03:07.920 The Children of Israel still wanted a king, and I think we would translate that they wanted 41 00:03:07.920 --> 00:03:11.760 big government, because a king was big government. 42 00:03:11.760 --> 00:03:13.440 So that didn't work. 43 00:03:13.440 --> 00:03:17.560 So the prophet Samuel saved his best argument to last. 44 00:03:17.560 --> 00:03:21.060 You normally do that, where your lawyer preaches a case or whoever you might be. 45 00:03:21.060 --> 00:03:25.800 To save your best argument, the last, and his argument was, okay, the Lord doesn't want 46 00:03:25.800 --> 00:03:30.700 to have a king, but if you have a king, you're going to be taxed. 47 00:03:30.700 --> 00:03:33.820 You're going to be taxed in your vineyards, you'll be taxed in your orchards, you'll be 48 00:03:33.820 --> 00:03:39.280 taxed in your fields, you'll be taxed in your flocks, your young man will leave home and 49 00:03:39.280 --> 00:03:43.920 go work for the king, even your daughters will go work for the king. 50 00:03:43.920 --> 00:03:46.100 And they still wanted a king. 51 00:03:46.100 --> 00:03:49.500 And so the Lord said, oh, let them have it. 52 00:03:49.500 --> 00:03:54.460 And of course, that started off the kingships of Israel, and the one thing the Bible doesn't 53 00:03:54.460 --> 00:04:00.460 tell us about is that by the time he went down to the third king, which was Solomon, 54 00:04:00.460 --> 00:04:05.260 you had ruthless tax collection, ruthless tax collection. 55 00:04:05.260 --> 00:04:12.660 And when Solomon died, his son, and of course he had a thousand wives, that always fascinated 56 00:04:12.660 --> 00:04:17.860 me. 57 00:04:17.860 --> 00:04:25.100 What really fascinated me is in the Song of Solomon, and in his proverbs, which are somewhat 58 00:04:25.100 --> 00:04:30.740 attributed to him, he mentioned that for all these wives he had, he couldn't find a good 59 00:04:30.740 --> 00:04:32.420 one in the whole lot. 60 00:04:32.420 --> 00:04:40.260 Now, if you had a thousand wives, you realize it would take you three years to make the 61 00:04:40.260 --> 00:04:44.180 rounds at one night apiece? 62 00:04:44.180 --> 00:04:47.180 How in the world could he say there wasn't a good one in the world? 63 00:04:47.180 --> 00:04:51.180 Well, he never had enough exposure to know if he had a brother. 64 00:04:51.180 --> 00:04:53.180 Well, he died. 65 00:04:53.180 --> 00:05:03.180 Now, yeah, that was probably the reason. 66 00:05:03.180 --> 00:05:09.180 Anyway, his son was taking over, and so while they were divided up into these 12 territories, 67 00:05:09.180 --> 00:05:13.180 they kind of had a central Washington, D.C., but it wasn't quite like ours. 68 00:05:13.180 --> 00:05:16.180 And the elders of Israel would meet there and deal with common problems. 69 00:05:16.180 --> 00:05:38.180 and so they've invited his son to come who was going to become the new king and they wanted to know what his tax policy was going to be and they counseled him to be gentle, you know, sort of like George Bush, wise and gentle type, and he said something about the government is going to be nice, you know, in my next term. 70 00:05:38.180 --> 00:05:46.180 But anyway, so they counseled Solomon's son, you know, didn't want to take it easy that the old man that didn't cut a tough on everybody. 71 00:05:46.180 --> 00:05:54.180 So he said he'd think about it for three days, and so in three days they assembled back, and okay, what's the answer? 72 00:05:54.180 --> 00:05:59.180 And he said, well, he said, you know, my father used to collect taxes with whips. 73 00:05:59.180 --> 00:06:04.180 And this is the first indication we have of what life was under Solomon's tax system. 74 00:06:04.180 --> 00:06:07.180 He said, but I'm going to collect taxes with scorpions. 75 00:06:07.180 --> 00:06:14.020 Now a scorpion is a whip that has a metal barb on the end that rips your flesh. 76 00:06:14.020 --> 00:06:17.420 You know, usually the IRS was bad. 77 00:06:17.420 --> 00:06:23.980 Anyway he then backed off and he brought out Solomon's chief tax collector and he said 78 00:06:23.980 --> 00:06:26.020 talk to these guys. 79 00:06:26.020 --> 00:06:28.940 Well they stoned him to death right on the spot. 80 00:06:28.940 --> 00:06:31.180 I don't know that he got much out at the time. 81 00:06:31.180 --> 00:06:38.680 So the Bible then tells us that he got in his chariot and he fled to the house or the 82 00:06:38.680 --> 00:06:43.940 temple his father had built, and the elders of Israel said that no son of David will ever 83 00:06:43.940 --> 00:06:46.100 rule over us. 84 00:06:46.100 --> 00:06:52.260 And that became the separation in the Old Testament of the division of the kingdom, 85 00:06:52.260 --> 00:06:57.060 the kingdom of Judah which was very small ruled by the sons of David and the other 11 86 00:06:57.060 --> 00:06:59.260 tribes that had the kingdom of Israel. 87 00:06:59.260 --> 00:07:04.040 So we read these wonderful stories in the Bible and sometimes we don't realize that 88 00:07:04.040 --> 00:07:05.880 they're tax stories. 89 00:07:05.880 --> 00:07:06.880 And there's tax stories everywhere. 90 00:07:06.880 --> 00:07:11.140 In fact, there's hardly anything that doesn't have a tax basis to it. 91 00:07:11.140 --> 00:07:14.980 And I think that most of us are angry about taxes. 92 00:07:14.980 --> 00:07:16.500 I noticed that I was. 93 00:07:16.500 --> 00:07:19.180 Maybe that's why I ended up in the profession. 94 00:07:19.180 --> 00:07:26.100 But if you think you were angry about taxes, you ought to see how your ancestors were. 95 00:07:26.100 --> 00:07:28.740 I mean, you guys are a bunch of softies. 96 00:07:28.740 --> 00:07:32.420 You have no idea how tough your ancestors were. 97 00:07:32.420 --> 00:07:33.940 And I don't care whether you're French. 98 00:07:33.940 --> 00:07:36.780 Now, let's take the French Revolution, for example. 99 00:07:36.780 --> 00:07:40.740 We all know they chopped off the head of Louis XVI and they chopped off the head of his queen 100 00:07:40.740 --> 00:07:42.020 and she's a let-em-eat cake. 101 00:07:42.020 --> 00:07:43.980 You know the various stories that you hear. 102 00:07:43.980 --> 00:07:49.980 What most people don't know is that the revolutionaries were so angry they took the whole tax bureau 103 00:07:49.980 --> 00:07:56.140 and they hauled them down to the guillotine and they cut all their heads off. 104 00:07:56.140 --> 00:08:04.140 And they did such a thorough job that when Napoleon became emperor, he didn't have anybody to run a tax system. 105 00:08:04.140 --> 00:08:08.140 And that's the reason why he lost the war. 106 00:08:08.140 --> 00:08:12.140 In fact, I remember there was one very great scientist at this period. 107 00:08:12.140 --> 00:08:15.140 It's a long, complicated French name, but he still is recognized. 108 00:08:15.140 --> 00:08:17.140 He's in every encyclopedia. 109 00:08:17.140 --> 00:08:22.140 And he didn't have a lot of money, and so he moonlighted as a tax collector. 110 00:08:22.140 --> 00:08:26.780 Of course, his name was on the list as a tax collector, but it was only part-time. 111 00:08:26.780 --> 00:08:32.220 They hauled him before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and he explained to them that he was a great 112 00:08:32.220 --> 00:08:36.860 scientist and all the things he had done and all the things he could do for the Republic. 113 00:08:36.860 --> 00:08:46.740 The verdict was simple, the Republic has no need for geniuses, and they cut his head off. 114 00:08:46.740 --> 00:08:48.780 Now that was the French Revolution. 115 00:08:48.780 --> 00:08:53.220 The American Revolution, we all know it was a great tax revolt. 116 00:08:53.220 --> 00:08:56.580 It was a remarkable tax revolt. 117 00:08:56.580 --> 00:09:02.540 And I think that you have to get the feeling of how these people felt about taxes. 118 00:09:02.540 --> 00:09:06.420 And one of the men who was often considered the great voice of the revolution, I want 119 00:09:06.420 --> 00:09:11.460 you to read you a little statement that Thomas Paine said, he defined taxes. 120 00:09:11.460 --> 00:09:14.000 Now Thomas Paine wrote these little pamphlets. 121 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:18.280 And George Washington thought they were so good that he had them printed and distributed 122 00:09:18.280 --> 00:09:23.200 at Winter Quarters, and one of them was called Common Sense. 123 00:09:23.200 --> 00:09:29.280 And Common Sense says that government at best is a necessary evil. 124 00:09:29.280 --> 00:09:32.760 At worst, it's an intolerable one. 125 00:09:32.760 --> 00:09:36.600 And this is what George Washington and this is what our founders were fighting for. 126 00:09:36.600 --> 00:09:41.400 Now here's the way that Thomas Paine defined taxes. 127 00:09:41.400 --> 00:09:46.820 He called them the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice 128 00:09:46.820 --> 00:09:54.200 of Industry. That's taxes. So if you think you feel angry about taxes, this was the philosophy 129 00:09:54.200 --> 00:09:59.740 upon which this country was founded. It was an anti-tax. There was an anti-tax aspect 130 00:09:59.740 --> 00:10:05.640 of the American character that lived on for well over a hundred years. And you know, I 131 00:10:05.640 --> 00:10:13.040 suspect that that anti-tax aspect of our character is reemerging now. I really think it is. I 132 00:10:13.040 --> 00:10:15.200 I think it's re-emerging now. 133 00:10:15.200 --> 00:10:19.120 But a hundred years later, let me read you a little quote from Brooks Adams. 134 00:10:19.120 --> 00:10:25.320 Now Brooks Adams was the son of Charles Francis Adams, who was the son of John Quincy Adams, 135 00:10:25.320 --> 00:10:26.880 who was the son of John Adams. 136 00:10:26.880 --> 00:10:32.160 So this was the great Massachusetts political family, and if you look up in most any encyclopedia 137 00:10:32.160 --> 00:10:33.160 you'll find Brooks Adams. 138 00:10:33.160 --> 00:10:35.720 He was a very, very brilliant historian. 139 00:10:35.720 --> 00:10:37.640 So he was very respected. 140 00:10:37.640 --> 00:10:46.120 In the Atlantic Magazine, which we still have with us today, in 1878, Brooks Adams said 141 00:10:46.120 --> 00:10:57.040 that all taxation is an evil, but heavy taxation is the greatest curse that can afflict a people. 142 00:10:57.040 --> 00:11:04.440 Now if the Atlantic Magazine wrote that today, they'd get a call from the White House, they'd 143 00:11:04.440 --> 00:11:09.840 They get a call from the commissioner of internal revenue and they get a call from a dozen congressmen. 144 00:11:09.840 --> 00:11:18.400 How can you say, being a very respectable magazine and periodical, that all taxation is in evil? 145 00:11:18.400 --> 00:11:25.360 But that is the way the American people believed a hundred years ago, and they genuinely believed 146 00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:26.360 it. 147 00:11:26.360 --> 00:11:31.580 Today, I think that rebellious characters reemerging. 148 00:11:31.580 --> 00:11:36.200 But 50 years ago, the Chief Counsel for the Internal Revenue Service was a fellow by the 149 00:11:36.200 --> 00:11:43.180 name of Robert Jackson, and Robert Jackson became a Supreme Court Justice, and he wrote 150 00:11:43.180 --> 00:11:48.360 about the honesty of the American people in paying their income taxes. 151 00:11:48.360 --> 00:11:54.360 He said that the number of people that actually didn't pay the full amount was very infinitesimal, 152 00:11:54.360 --> 00:12:00.060 that we should be so proud of this character of obedience to our tax laws. 153 00:12:00.060 --> 00:12:02.460 And you know he may have been right. 154 00:12:02.460 --> 00:12:07.900 And about 10 or 15 years later, the Commissioner, who was Sheldon Cohen, he said the same thing. 155 00:12:07.900 --> 00:12:16.060 America's are such wonderful, obedient, honorable, honest taxpayers, credit to our character. 156 00:12:16.060 --> 00:12:21.260 Well, let's consider what some other people have said recently. 157 00:12:21.260 --> 00:12:26.620 Richard Neely, who is the Chief Justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court, he wrote 158 00:12:26.620 --> 00:12:30.620 I wrote an article a few years ago in which he said, 159 00:12:30.620 --> 00:12:37.620 cheating on the income tax is all-pervasive in all classes of American society, 160 00:12:37.620 --> 00:12:49.620 except among the compulsively honest, you know, the neurotics. 161 00:12:49.620 --> 00:12:54.620 Cheating occurs in direct proportion to the opportunity. 162 00:12:54.620 --> 00:13:00.620 Now, you know, that's true. We have changed. Not we've become bad. We've become rebellious. 163 00:13:00.620 --> 00:13:03.620 Not that we've become evil. We've become mad. 164 00:13:03.620 --> 00:13:07.620 And I just bought this little book that David Brinkley just came out with. 165 00:13:07.620 --> 00:13:11.620 Maybe you've seen the one that everybody's entitled to my opinion. 166 00:13:11.620 --> 00:13:14.620 Here's what David Brinkley said. 167 00:13:14.620 --> 00:13:20.620 The American people as taxpayers have begun in wholesale numbers to cheat. 168 00:13:20.620 --> 00:13:40.620 Out of resentment of a tax system that they think is unfair, too complicated and wasteful of their money, the so-called underground economy is growing rapidly, people working for cash only, reporting nothing, paying nothing. 169 00:13:40.620 --> 00:13:52.620 Now, what is the answer to this? Cracking down, we realize, the IRS cracks down. Nobody's ever thought that maybe the answer to that is to get rid of the lousy tax system. 170 00:13:52.620 --> 00:14:03.620 Maybe the reason that people aren't paying their taxes is because their ancestors rebelled and went to war and fought battles and died because they didn't like a lousy tax system. 171 00:14:03.620 --> 00:14:15.620 And yet our government seems to think that the solution is to bring in a state that is reminiscent of the worst dictatorial states that we've had in this century. 172 00:14:15.620 --> 00:14:25.620 Now let's go back to how we got this lousy tax system, the dirty rotten income tax. We should have said dirty rotten income tax. 173 00:14:25.620 --> 00:14:33.620 We know it came by a constitutional amendment and the amendment was adopted in 1913 and immediately there was a tax law introduced. 174 00:14:33.620 --> 00:14:44.620 I like to think of the generations of Americans who gave us the income tax as a generation of idiots. 175 00:14:44.620 --> 00:14:57.620 During that 10-year period that the income tax came, look at all the other stupid things that our leaders did. 176 00:14:57.620 --> 00:15:04.620 They gave us the Federal Reserve System the next year. They got us in World War I two years after that. 177 00:15:04.620 --> 00:15:10.620 And according to Wilson, we got in that war to make the world safe for democracy. 178 00:15:10.620 --> 00:15:15.020 Now, if you believe that, you'll believe the moon's a piece of green cheese. 179 00:15:15.020 --> 00:15:17.620 We didn't get in to make the world safe for democracy. 180 00:15:17.620 --> 00:15:20.660 We were a bunch of damn fools to get in that war. 181 00:15:20.660 --> 00:15:23.580 We upset the balance of power in Europe, as you knew. 182 00:15:23.580 --> 00:15:28.500 We created a wasteland in which some guy like Hitler could come to power. 183 00:15:28.500 --> 00:15:33.120 And the thing we did worst of all, we exacted tribute from Germany, the same as the Romans 184 00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:37.100 did and the Babylonians did and the Assyrians and the Egyptians did. 185 00:15:37.100 --> 00:15:43.220 And we destroyed certainly this budding democracy that was in Germany, and that set the stage 186 00:15:43.220 --> 00:15:45.340 for World War II. 187 00:15:45.340 --> 00:15:46.340 That was what we did. 188 00:15:46.340 --> 00:15:50.460 But the worst, well I can't say the tax was the worst, the last thing we did, the four 189 00:15:50.460 --> 00:15:55.500 dumb things of this blundering generation, was that we were going to make the world, 190 00:15:55.500 --> 00:16:00.140 after we'd done all these wonderful things, stupid things, we were going to make the world 191 00:16:00.140 --> 00:16:04.100 free from sin. 192 00:16:04.100 --> 00:16:10.620 Now everybody knew that sin was caused by John Barleycorn, and all we had to do was 193 00:16:10.620 --> 00:16:17.700 prohibit the introduction into your body of John Barleycorn, and all of the world's and 194 00:16:17.700 --> 00:16:21.040 all of America's problems would disappear. 195 00:16:21.040 --> 00:16:23.580 The millennium would come. 196 00:16:23.580 --> 00:16:25.020 So we had prohibition. 197 00:16:25.020 --> 00:16:30.660 That was the final act of folly of this generation of idiots, and we know what prohibition was. 198 00:16:30.660 --> 00:16:34.460 My dad tells me he had a flask on the back of his hip and everybody had a flask and there 199 00:16:34.460 --> 00:16:40.060 were speakeasies and my grandfather was making bathtub gin and all those stories. 200 00:16:40.060 --> 00:16:43.460 Maybe yours were too, if you check. 201 00:16:43.460 --> 00:16:53.780 But I would say if I was to personify history and maybe add to her, add to him, well let's 202 00:16:53.780 --> 00:17:00.580 say history will picture him as an old guy with some beard but very wise and his right 203 00:17:00.580 --> 00:17:06.200 Right Hand Aid is a woman, and she's the goddess of liberty. 204 00:17:06.200 --> 00:17:13.860 And I think that if they had been on the scene in 1913, they would have said to the Americans, 205 00:17:13.860 --> 00:17:18.060 no, no, you damn fools. 206 00:17:18.060 --> 00:17:21.880 Don't you know what history teaches about an income tax? 207 00:17:21.880 --> 00:17:28.720 How can you be so dumb as to put this in place and put it on your children and your grandchildren? 208 00:17:28.720 --> 00:17:29.720 How could you do this? 209 00:17:29.720 --> 00:17:36.720 You know, this reminds me of the children of Israel under Samuel, you know, we want an income tax, you know, we want a big government. 210 00:17:36.720 --> 00:17:46.720 And even God had probably said, if God had appeared in 1913 and told the American people not to have an income tax, I think they'd have had it anyway. 211 00:17:46.720 --> 00:17:49.720 Now, why would they have it? 212 00:17:49.720 --> 00:17:57.720 Because the income tax was to be class legislation against the rich, only the rich were going to pay the income tax. 213 00:17:57.720 --> 00:18:03.080 The top two percent. Now, do you remember the top two percent a few years ago? 214 00:18:03.080 --> 00:18:06.480 You remember when Clinton said he was going to end this new tax? 215 00:18:06.480 --> 00:18:12.120 Only the top two percent were going to pay? Exactly a hundred years before that was the argument. 216 00:18:12.120 --> 00:18:21.600 Well, as it turned out, as you know, it brought to truth a Russian proverb or parable, 217 00:18:21.600 --> 00:18:24.680 my wife's a Russian, she's always quoting these things. 218 00:18:24.680 --> 00:18:35.040 And one of their proverbs is that do not dig a ditch for your neighbor to fall into, lest you fall in yourself. 219 00:18:35.040 --> 00:18:38.160 And that's exactly what happened with the income tax. 220 00:18:38.160 --> 00:18:43.920 We ignored the founder, we ignored 3,000, 4,000 years of history. 221 00:18:43.920 --> 00:18:47.680 And we dug the ditch for the rich and they were going to pick up the whole tab, 222 00:18:47.680 --> 00:18:54.080 and they were going to pay for the federal government and the farmers and the workers and the middle class would get a free ride on the rich. 223 00:18:54.080 --> 00:19:01.360 So, why not? Why not repudiate the Constitution? Why not give the Congress the power to tax 224 00:19:01.360 --> 00:19:08.200 at will? Because it isn't going to be on us. We're not going to have to pay it. And that 225 00:19:08.200 --> 00:19:15.960 reminds me of a recorded speech in the United States House of Representatives during the 226 00:19:15.960 --> 00:19:24.000 Civil War period. And they were debating taxes. And one of the Congressmen said, well, the 227 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:30.240 The tax is like a boil that a man had on the end of his nose. 228 00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:34.640 And he kept complaining about the boil on the end of his nose. 229 00:19:34.640 --> 00:19:37.200 And one of his friends and buddies got tired of hearing about it. 230 00:19:37.200 --> 00:19:48.240 He said, well, where else would you rather have it? 231 00:19:48.240 --> 00:19:54.520 And you know what the answer was, I'd rather have it on some other guy's back. 232 00:19:54.520 --> 00:20:03.700 And that is 5,000 years of tax history in one little funny story. 233 00:20:03.700 --> 00:20:08.760 Because that is the way taxes were assessed and developed and abused throughout 5,000 234 00:20:08.760 --> 00:20:11.180 years of history. 235 00:20:11.180 --> 00:20:16.240 And Madison saw this and he wrote about it in what we call the Federalist Number 10, 236 00:20:16.240 --> 00:20:19.880 And these are a group of bits of, you know, propaganda to try and get the Constitution 237 00:20:19.880 --> 00:20:20.880 adopted. 238 00:20:20.880 --> 00:20:23.120 I use the word propaganda, but they're wonderfully written. 239 00:20:23.120 --> 00:20:24.120 They're beautiful. 240 00:20:24.120 --> 00:20:28.640 It really demonstrates the intellectual capacity of the American people, that they could publish 241 00:20:28.640 --> 00:20:31.640 these things and they could read them and they could understand them and they could 242 00:20:31.640 --> 00:20:32.920 vote for them. 243 00:20:32.920 --> 00:20:39.960 And he said that the greatest defect in the democracy is that the inferior number will 244 00:20:39.960 --> 00:20:46.160 be taxed by the superior number and that every shilling that they put off on the other guy 245 00:20:46.160 --> 00:20:49.360 is a shilling saved in their own pocket. 246 00:20:49.360 --> 00:20:50.360 And there's a story. 247 00:20:50.360 --> 00:20:51.720 You always win your tax. 248 00:20:51.720 --> 00:20:56.680 You always want to put the burden on somebody else, and that's 5,000 years of human history. 249 00:20:56.680 --> 00:21:02.480 But then he goes on and he says, I think the most profound comment made by any of the founders, 250 00:21:02.480 --> 00:21:09.240 at least my favorite, he said, you may argue that wise men will adjust all these conflicting 251 00:21:09.240 --> 00:21:10.240 interests. 252 00:21:10.240 --> 00:21:13.320 In other words, you'll make a Internal Revenue Code. 253 00:21:13.320 --> 00:21:20.120 He says, wise men will not always be at the helm. 254 00:21:20.120 --> 00:21:22.200 That's been our problem. 255 00:21:22.200 --> 00:21:24.520 Wise men have not always been at the helm. 256 00:21:24.520 --> 00:21:37.760 As a matter of fact, we have hardly ever had any wise men at the helm. 257 00:21:37.760 --> 00:21:41.720 And to kind of reinforce that, let me tell you about Charles Dickens. 258 00:21:41.720 --> 00:21:44.360 Charles Dickens, you know, he'll be alive with Shakespeare. 259 00:21:44.360 --> 00:21:45.360 He is one. 260 00:21:45.360 --> 00:21:49.200 You go to the bookstore, you'll see a shelf this long of his books today, and, you know, 261 00:21:49.200 --> 00:21:51.360 he was such a marvelous writer. 262 00:21:51.360 --> 00:21:55.960 But he came to America, and he traveled, and he saw the country, and he saw slavery, and 263 00:21:55.960 --> 00:21:58.740 he went to Richmond, and he went home. 264 00:21:58.740 --> 00:22:02.560 And then he wrote an article about America. 265 00:22:02.560 --> 00:22:05.200 And this is dead serious. 266 00:22:05.200 --> 00:22:12.800 And he said, there's a fatal flaw in the American federal system of government. 267 00:22:12.800 --> 00:22:18.720 And that flaw is the way in which they elect and perpetuate the president. 268 00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:24.400 He said, they get stuck with some guy for four years who's a real third stringer, and 269 00:22:24.400 --> 00:22:31.360 they can't do anything about it, and he brings in his cronies and they milk the federal treasury, 270 00:22:31.360 --> 00:22:32.360 and you're stuck with them. 271 00:22:32.360 --> 00:22:36.240 And he says, under the British system, we get somebody like that, we get rid of them. 272 00:22:36.240 --> 00:22:41.360 And he says, and what has happened, and he's writing now in 1861, he says, what's happened 273 00:22:41.360 --> 00:22:47.520 is that the great leaders that should lead America are not there anymore. 274 00:22:47.520 --> 00:22:52.640 He says, there's no more Jefferson's, there's no more Monroe's, you know, there's no more 275 00:22:52.640 --> 00:22:56.200 Madison's or Adams or Washington's. 276 00:22:56.200 --> 00:23:01.760 You've got Polk's and Tyler's and Buchanan's, and these are flunkies. 277 00:23:01.760 --> 00:23:07.680 And you know if you look at the presidents after that period of time, nothing but flunkies. 278 00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:12.320 And he said the system for some reason does not choose great men but brings to the top 279 00:23:12.320 --> 00:23:19.280 unknowns who have little really going for them and little really quality of greatness. 280 00:23:19.280 --> 00:23:25.400 Now this is what Charles Dickens wrote in 1861 and I think it's consistent with Madison 281 00:23:25.400 --> 00:23:29.980 said that wise men will not always be at the helm. 282 00:23:29.980 --> 00:23:36.400 Now, let's go back to our analogy of this wise old historian who's telling the people 283 00:23:36.400 --> 00:23:40.680 about the income tax, no, no, you dummies, don't do it. 284 00:23:40.680 --> 00:23:42.220 Look back in the history. 285 00:23:42.220 --> 00:23:46.940 You can go all the way back to the Greeks, and the Greeks were the first people that 286 00:23:46.940 --> 00:23:51.060 achieved civilization without despotism. 287 00:23:51.060 --> 00:23:57.500 They were the first people that understood how you can have a civilized and free society 288 00:23:57.500 --> 00:24:00.780 without having an abuse of government. 289 00:24:00.780 --> 00:24:06.340 And they saw Babylon and they saw Syria and they saw Egypt. 290 00:24:06.340 --> 00:24:10.100 And these all were totalitarian states. 291 00:24:10.100 --> 00:24:16.560 And what was the reason that civilization couldn't be achieved with freedom? 292 00:24:16.560 --> 00:24:18.860 The reason was the tax system. 293 00:24:18.860 --> 00:24:24.120 All of these despotic governments had direct forms of taxes. 294 00:24:24.120 --> 00:24:26.660 And the Greeks did not have direct taxes. 295 00:24:26.660 --> 00:24:31.700 And so the direct taxes produced tyranny, and that was a great thesis. 296 00:24:31.700 --> 00:24:38.300 So if I was a historian talking to the American people in 1913, I said, this is a direct tax. 297 00:24:38.300 --> 00:24:43.000 And your founders were well aware of it, and they put in the Constitution some restrictions 298 00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:44.700 on direct tax. 299 00:24:44.700 --> 00:24:50.740 Taxes had to be apportioned among the states by population, and that was a terrific control 300 00:24:50.740 --> 00:24:55.900 to prevent direct taxes from being destructive of society. 301 00:24:55.900 --> 00:25:01.900 In Montesquieu, who was the great sage of the Enlightenment, he said direct taxes produced slavery. 302 00:25:01.900 --> 00:25:08.900 And the founders knew this, and I've read all the debates in all of the states on the ratification of the Constitution. 303 00:25:08.900 --> 00:25:18.900 I've read Madison's notes. There isn't one word ever in favor of direct taxation except in the event of a national emergency 304 00:25:18.900 --> 00:25:23.900 when there was nothing else to do to save the country. And that was Cicero. 305 00:25:23.900 --> 00:25:31.660 Cicero, the great Roman, said that in times past, he said, our ancestors, our fathers, 306 00:25:31.660 --> 00:25:34.600 had direct taxes because of wars. 307 00:25:34.600 --> 00:25:38.100 But then Cicero said that we should never let that happen to us. 308 00:25:38.100 --> 00:25:43.820 And if any people, he didn't just include the Romans, if any people find it necessary 309 00:25:43.820 --> 00:25:50.060 to have direct taxation, they should only do so if there's no alternative other than 310 00:25:50.060 --> 00:25:54.260 and Complete National Collapse. 311 00:25:54.260 --> 00:25:55.660 Now that was the Romans. 312 00:25:55.660 --> 00:26:00.620 But the Roman tax story is probably the greatest source of wisdom we have about taxes, because 313 00:26:00.620 --> 00:26:05.260 a couple of hundred years later, the Romans had direct taxes. 314 00:26:05.260 --> 00:26:09.740 And like most people, the Romans weren't paying. 315 00:26:09.740 --> 00:26:13.980 And so the Emperor Diocletian called in his great rage, and he says, you know, we've got 316 00:26:13.980 --> 00:26:16.740 a tremendous problem of tax evasion out here. 317 00:26:16.740 --> 00:26:19.860 You know, sort of like David Brinkman requested. 318 00:26:19.860 --> 00:26:21.420 and what are we going to do about it? 319 00:26:21.420 --> 00:26:24.220 And he said, well, if the people get on the tax rolls 320 00:26:24.220 --> 00:26:26.020 and then they disappear. 321 00:26:26.020 --> 00:26:27.740 And then we can't find them. 322 00:26:27.740 --> 00:26:30.060 Well, Diocletian said, that's easy. 323 00:26:30.060 --> 00:26:34.340 We will simply order that every Roman stay where he is, 324 00:26:34.340 --> 00:26:38.340 stay in the city he's in, stay in the job he's in. 325 00:26:38.340 --> 00:26:41.620 If he's a cobbler and makes shoes, he will make shoes. 326 00:26:41.620 --> 00:26:43.620 His sons will make shoes. 327 00:26:43.620 --> 00:26:46.500 And his sons will marry shoemaker's daughters. 328 00:26:46.500 --> 00:26:53.260 and they enslaved the Roman world to collect taxes and they set the stage for the destruction 329 00:26:53.260 --> 00:27:00.000 of Rome and the collapse of Rome when it took 175 years before Rome finally fell apart. 330 00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:07.580 And one great historian said that Diocletian saved Rome, but he never asked, was it worth 331 00:27:07.580 --> 00:27:13.960 saving to make a vast prison for scores of millions of men? 332 00:27:13.960 --> 00:27:16.880 So here's Rome that once believed in liberty and freedom. 333 00:27:16.880 --> 00:27:20.200 They said that freedom is valued above all things. 334 00:27:20.200 --> 00:27:24.480 That liberty is something upon which no price can be put. 335 00:27:24.480 --> 00:27:29.160 And to show how much they believed in liberty, they created the goddess of liberty. 336 00:27:29.160 --> 00:27:30.800 And you see her all the time. 337 00:27:30.800 --> 00:27:35.520 You see her in New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty, given to us by the French with 338 00:27:35.520 --> 00:27:39.160 an idea and a concept from the Romans. 339 00:27:39.160 --> 00:27:42.520 And it was based on taxes, and Diocletian destroyed that. 340 00:27:42.520 --> 00:27:48.060 And the Roman temples disappeared that had the goddess in them. 341 00:27:48.060 --> 00:27:56.760 Now when you look at your coins, did you ever wonder whatever became of the goddess of liberty? 342 00:27:56.760 --> 00:28:00.160 Did you know that she was on all your coins 40 years ago? 343 00:28:00.160 --> 00:28:03.480 She was on your gold coins, she was on your dollars, she was on your 50 cents, she was 344 00:28:03.480 --> 00:28:06.120 on your quarters, she was on your dimes. 345 00:28:06.120 --> 00:28:08.180 You know, you've gotten rid of her. 346 00:28:08.180 --> 00:28:11.180 Now you've got presidents. Some of them are really loonies, too. 347 00:28:11.180 --> 00:28:20.180 But, see, a loony happens to be the name of a Canadian dollar, isn't it? 348 00:28:20.180 --> 00:28:25.180 Is that significant, that we have gotten rid of the goddess of liberty? 349 00:28:25.180 --> 00:28:31.180 I think it is. I think it's just as significant as when the Romans got rid of the goddess of liberty. 350 00:28:31.180 --> 00:28:37.180 Now we're worshipping presidents. Shouldn't we really put her back on our coins? 351 00:28:37.180 --> 00:28:46.180 I don't think we should. You know why? Because those coins were silver and gold. Our coins are junk metal. 352 00:28:46.180 --> 00:28:52.180 I wouldn't want to insult the goddess of liberty by having her on one of our coins today. 353 00:28:52.180 --> 00:28:56.180 So, that I think is the lesson we learned from the Romans. 354 00:28:56.180 --> 00:29:03.180 If we come up to the 19th century, our wise old historian now is going to sit there and talk to the American people. 355 00:29:03.180 --> 00:29:06.180 He's going to say, well, who invented the income tax? 356 00:29:06.180 --> 00:29:13.680 Well, the British invented the modern income tax, and they invented it as the tax to beat Napoleon, and they beat Napoleon. 357 00:29:13.680 --> 00:29:23.680 And when the war was over, the House of Commons assembled and the legislation was that the tax would end when the war was ended. 358 00:29:23.680 --> 00:29:33.680 So the Crown made a motion to extend the tax, and the British Parliament rejected it, voted it out overwhelmingly. 359 00:29:33.680 --> 00:29:51.680 The speaker that was against the tax said this would become the herald of an all-embracing tyranny and they voted the tax down and according to the historical record there was the loudest, most tumultuous roar in the House of Commons that had ever been heard in 500 years. 360 00:29:51.680 --> 00:29:57.680 I wonder if we abolish the income tax if our Congress would have such a tumultuous roar. 361 00:29:57.680 --> 00:30:03.600 and then the motion was made to destroy the records and that passed and they 362 00:30:03.600 --> 00:30:07.120 ordered the chancellor of the Exchequer to burn all the income tax records and 363 00:30:07.120 --> 00:30:11.360 so these big huge bonfires and they brought in the record and he stoke the 364 00:30:11.360 --> 00:30:15.080 fire and that would be like the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and did 365 00:30:15.080 --> 00:30:19.640 you know he had the arrogance to have the duplicated copy of all those records 366 00:30:19.640 --> 00:30:23.400 buried away in the invasion of the Exchequer court which were discovered 367 00:30:23.400 --> 00:30:29.400 were years and years later, and yet Parliament had ordered the total destruction 368 00:30:29.400 --> 00:30:32.400 because they didn't want the tax ever reintroduced. 369 00:30:32.400 --> 00:30:37.400 And you know the old saying, dead men tell no tales, well, burned tax records tell no tales either. 370 00:30:37.400 --> 00:30:42.400 Now that's not advice. 371 00:30:42.400 --> 00:30:49.400 Many years ago I had a client, he said he managed to have a fire every few years. 372 00:30:49.400 --> 00:30:52.400 That's not good tax planning. 373 00:30:53.400 --> 00:30:59.400 But the whole generation of Britain under that income tax had to die away before it could be reintroduced. 374 00:30:59.400 --> 00:31:02.400 And then it was reintroduced by Sir Robert Peel. 375 00:31:02.400 --> 00:31:08.400 And instead of being the progressive tax at some stages and then at sometimes a flat 10%, 376 00:31:08.400 --> 00:31:11.400 Sir Robert Peel says, well, you know, we've got a few problems. 377 00:31:11.400 --> 00:31:12.400 This is 1843. 378 00:31:12.400 --> 00:31:15.400 Now, we want to have a little tiny itty bitty income tax. 379 00:31:15.400 --> 00:31:22.800 and this little bitty income tax will be 3% and it'll be for 3 years and you know they still have it. 380 00:31:22.800 --> 00:31:28.000 3 years later they extended it, 3 years later they extended it, Gladstone came in and then they extended it for 7 years 381 00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:35.200 but Gladstone said it's a terrible tax, it's inequitable, it produces frauds and it proves terrible inquisitions on the people 382 00:31:35.200 --> 00:31:39.300 but we'll extend it for 7 years and it'll go 3, 2, 1 and out. 383 00:31:39.300 --> 00:31:41.400 Never went 3, 2, 1 and out. 384 00:31:41.400 --> 00:31:46.240 It went 333 and forever, and of course, the rates went up. 385 00:31:46.240 --> 00:31:48.880 So you have the British experience. 386 00:31:48.880 --> 00:31:54.640 But another experience that you have, and the one that's always fascinated me, is the German experience. 387 00:31:54.640 --> 00:32:02.480 The Germans introduced an income tax in the latter part of the 19th century, and the maximum rate was 8%. 388 00:32:02.480 --> 00:32:11.480 And that particular tax kind of shocked the world because of the audit. 389 00:32:11.480 --> 00:32:15.480 And when the debates came for the income tax in America in 1911, 390 00:32:15.480 --> 00:32:20.480 a famous professor named Edwin Seligman wrote a book called The Income Tax, and it's a brilliant book. 391 00:32:20.480 --> 00:32:22.980 It's a marvelous study. 392 00:32:22.980 --> 00:32:27.980 The only thing that exceeds its brilliance is its stupidity in predictions, 393 00:32:27.980 --> 00:32:32.980 Because it predicted that what happened in Germany would never happen in America. 394 00:32:32.980 --> 00:32:36.980 That the German people are frightened by their government and by their tax ministry, 395 00:32:36.980 --> 00:32:39.980 and the tax ministry gets away with his audit. 396 00:32:39.980 --> 00:32:44.980 But it will never happen in America. America would never stand for it. 397 00:32:44.980 --> 00:32:51.980 You know, one of the German legislatures said the country is covered with a perfect system of espionage. 398 00:32:51.980 --> 00:32:57.980 And you know, we have a perfect system of, in fact, a double perfect system of espionage. 399 00:32:57.980 --> 00:33:06.980 And when the French adopted the income tax, which surely by the time we did, the French premier or prime minister, he said to the National Assembly, 400 00:33:06.980 --> 00:33:11.980 don't worry, what happened in Germany will never happen in France. 401 00:33:11.980 --> 00:33:18.980 We wouldn't tolerate what happens in France to happen in Germany, what happens in Germany to happen in France, and it was simply an audit. 402 00:33:18.980 --> 00:33:24.980 All you do is the taxpayers were summoned to come in with their books and records and go over them with a tax bill. 403 00:33:24.980 --> 00:33:30.980 That was this horrible system that was in Germany that would never happen in America and would never happen in France. 404 00:33:30.980 --> 00:33:37.980 But history, you see, should have taught that to the American people in 1913. 405 00:33:37.980 --> 00:33:43.980 That you could have what happened in Britain, you could have what happened in France, you could have what happened in the ancient world. 406 00:33:43.980 --> 00:33:48.580 in the ancient world. Every single rational thing was screaming at America, 407 00:33:48.580 --> 00:33:55.280 no, no, you damn fools, don't adopt an income tax. And so we've adopted it, and we've got it, 408 00:33:55.280 --> 00:34:01.780 and now we try to enforce it, and we try to reinforce it, we try to enforce it with information returns. 409 00:34:01.780 --> 00:34:05.680 You can hardly go to the bathroom without somebody sending in an information return. 410 00:34:05.680 --> 00:34:10.580 President Clinton couldn't get a lady as Attorney General because she had kids, 411 00:34:10.580 --> 00:34:15.580 Because she had babysitters and she didn't file a return, so what did you get an old maid with no kids? 412 00:34:15.580 --> 00:34:21.580 That's an easy way out. 413 00:34:21.580 --> 00:34:27.580 Well, suppose you're a little lazy and a high school sophomore comes down, mows your lawn on Saturday afternoon, 414 00:34:27.580 --> 00:34:33.580 you've got to file six forms for him. So what do you do? You buy one of these fancy motor jobs and you do it yourself. 415 00:34:33.580 --> 00:34:36.580 It isn't worth the trouble to file all the tax returns. 416 00:34:36.580 --> 00:34:39.580 We photograph everything that goes to your bank account. 417 00:34:39.580 --> 00:34:42.580 No nation in the world does that. 418 00:34:42.580 --> 00:34:47.580 The only hope we have is something that the Ulysses Grant said, the President, he said, 419 00:34:47.580 --> 00:34:50.580 the best way to get rid of a bad law is to strictly enforce it. 420 00:34:50.580 --> 00:34:53.580 Well, we're strictly enforcing it. 421 00:34:53.580 --> 00:34:57.580 And we're getting a tremendous amount of evasion, and maybe we will get rid of it. 422 00:34:57.580 --> 00:35:02.580 You know, Chairman Bill Archer, he invited me to speak to the House Ways and Means Committee 423 00:35:02.580 --> 00:35:05.580 about getting rid of the income tax, and I had a wonderful time. 424 00:35:05.580 --> 00:35:35.580 and I told the story about the British House of Commons yelling and screaming and he said boy that was really interesting, you know and he said I got to read that guy's book well I hope he did but whether or not we'll get rid of it I don't know I'm inclined to not be as optimistic as some people are and I'll tell you a little story about a personal story in the family and kind of leave you with this my wife was a Russian she was a little girl and was trapped in the German zone and during the war she 425 00:35:35.580 --> 00:35:41.700 She was shipped into a labor camp when she was 12 and was in that labor camp in Germany. 426 00:35:41.700 --> 00:35:42.700 And she was lucky. 427 00:35:42.700 --> 00:35:44.340 She was freed in the American zone. 428 00:35:44.340 --> 00:35:46.660 It's a fascinating story. 429 00:35:46.660 --> 00:35:50.340 She got on the train to go back to Russia because the Russians came in with the trains 430 00:35:50.340 --> 00:35:54.860 to gather up all of the Russians that had been shipped to Germany and an old Russian 431 00:35:54.860 --> 00:35:59.180 lady, what we call a babushka, said, young lady, she said, you get off this train. 432 00:35:59.180 --> 00:36:00.860 She said, you don't want to go back. 433 00:36:00.860 --> 00:36:04.780 They'll say you're a traitor for working for the Germans even though you're only 12. 434 00:36:04.780 --> 00:36:06.220 And that's true, that's what they did to her. 435 00:36:06.220 --> 00:36:09.820 And so she got off the train and she hid, in fact there was a bunch of GIs there, she ran 436 00:36:09.820 --> 00:36:15.220 over and got in the middle of the GIs and they sheltered her and the Russians couldn't 437 00:36:15.220 --> 00:36:16.220 get to her. 438 00:36:16.220 --> 00:36:21.620 And so she eventually went to a DP camp, you know that was ridiculous, and so she eventually 439 00:36:21.620 --> 00:36:25.660 ended up over here and I was lucky enough to have married her. 440 00:36:25.660 --> 00:36:30.060 She never saw her mother again, her mother died, and I took her back in 1970 to see her 441 00:36:30.060 --> 00:36:34.660 Her father, who she hadn't seen since 1941, because she was separated from her mother 442 00:36:34.660 --> 00:36:39.060 and father in the summer of 1941 when Hitler invaded, so she got trapped there. 443 00:36:39.060 --> 00:36:44.880 So she was all by herself, 12 years old, so she had quite a life. 444 00:36:44.880 --> 00:36:51.300 But he was a smart old guy, and he'd been an engineer, and he made a wisecrack about 445 00:36:51.300 --> 00:36:58.540 Stalin, and he ended three years in a prison for saying something derogatory about Stalin. 446 00:36:58.540 --> 00:37:04.400 And he got out. He said he'd say it again if he had to. He was a tough old bird, but 447 00:37:04.400 --> 00:37:10.400 he told me something in 1971 and I totally dismissed it. He said, communism will not 448 00:37:10.400 --> 00:37:15.540 last in Russia. It won't last at the end of the century. He said, I wouldn't live to see 449 00:37:15.540 --> 00:37:20.700 its end, but you will. It won't last. It won't last, he kept saying. Well, I figured from 450 00:37:20.700 --> 00:37:24.100 my experience going into Russia, it'd be there for a thousand years. You know, Hitler was 451 00:37:24.100 --> 00:37:33.700 And then when the Soviet Union fell apart, my wife reminded me of what he said, it won't 452 00:37:33.700 --> 00:37:36.100 last until the end of the century. 453 00:37:36.100 --> 00:37:38.420 And there were some interesting scholarly articles written. 454 00:37:38.420 --> 00:37:39.420 Why didn't we know? 455 00:37:39.420 --> 00:37:44.860 You know, where's all our PhDs and our Sovietologists and the Department of State and the CIA? 456 00:37:44.860 --> 00:37:47.740 How come no one knew it was going to collapse? 457 00:37:47.740 --> 00:37:51.420 Well, the Russian people knew it was going to collapse, because I don't think he was 458 00:37:51.420 --> 00:37:56.780 is expressing an odd idea. The Russians are just waiting for the old guard to die out. 459 00:37:56.780 --> 00:38:01.940 They're just waiting for the opportunity to break out of communism. And maybe I think 460 00:38:01.940 --> 00:38:06.940 that's the way it's going to be with us. Maybe the liberals are going to have to die. 461 00:38:06.940 --> 00:38:11.660 You know, maybe we're going to have to get rid of all these socialist-thinking ideas, 462 00:38:11.660 --> 00:38:18.780 these totalitarian-thinking ideas. And when that happens, then the income tax will die 463 00:38:18.780 --> 00:38:19.780 at the same time. 464 00:38:19.780 --> 00:38:21.820 Anyway, that's our hope for the future.