Thursday, October 1, 2026

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent: Why are we paying taxes?

Editor's note: Washington is hemorrhaging money, and its own watchdog says so. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates the federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion every year to fraud, a range so wide it shows officials cannot even measure the damage (also see This is an advertisement: You just had $1.4 million stolen from you). Officials can't measure the damage but average Americans sure the hell can. At the high end, that is roughly 10% of annual federal revenue vanishing while politicians argue that taxpayers simply are not paying enough. Pandemic relief programs were especially easy pickings, with one inspector general flagging over $200 billion in potentially fraudulent loans. Meanwhile the national debt has passed $40 trillion, and the federal workforce has been cut by hundreds of thousands with little visible change for ordinary Americans. Before anyone in congress or the senate (absolutely worthless and on a deeper level financial terrorists) asks for another tax increase, they should explain where the hell a half-trillion is disappearing to every year. The following is not legal advice and only serves to alert Americans that current financial circumstances in this predator and prey ecosphere (when you become institutionalized there is no dissent or rebellion) can no longer continue as is:

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The Case for Abolishing the IRS

October 1, 2026

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is an agency that holds the most sensitive financial data of nearly every American, wields enormous coercive power, and answers to whoever occupies the White House. Its critics argue that these three facts, taken together, make reform inadequate and abolition the only coherent remedy.

Start with data security. In 2015, hackers breached the agency and exposed the information of about 330,000 taxpayers. Years later, contractor Charles Littlejohn stole the tax records of thousands of wealthy Americans and leaked them to the press, and he was sentenced to five years in prison. The IRS's decision to contract with Palantir, a firm built for large-scale government data integration (a CIA project with Alex Karp as its frontman) and analysis, should concern every American whose private financial records are now potentially accessible through yet another outside company. An institution that cannot reliably protect the secrets it compels citizens to hand over has weak claim to that compulsion.

Next, political control. In January 2026, President Trump, his sons, and the Trump Organization sued the IRS and Treasury for at least $10 billion over the Littlejohn leak. Trump appoints the leaders of those agencies and controls the Justice Department that defended them. The case was dropped in May, and the DOJ announced a settlement that included a $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization" fund and a provision barring the IRS from pursuing tax claims against Trump. The fund was later abandoned after congressional backlash. In July, Judge Kathleen Williams found the suit had been filed for an improper purpose and that the parties were not truly adverse. She sanctioned the lawyers, and this week an appeals court refused to pause those sanctions. Whatever one thinks of Trump personally, the episode shows how easily the agency's power can be bent by whoever controls it. Critics note that previous administrations faced similar accusations of using the IRS against opponents, so the weakness is structural, not partisan.

Then there is the system the agency enforced, and the scale of the bureaucracy required to enforce it. In fiscal year 2025 the IRS spent $19 billion to collect $5.3 trillion, employed roughly 81,000 people in pay status (down from nearly 100,000 earlier that year after rapid hiring and subsequent cuts), and retained about 1,670 attorneys. Average employee pay hovered around $85,000. Even after Department of Government Efficiency-driven reductions that eliminated tens of thousands of positions and identified clear waste, such as thousands of unused software licenses paid for but never activated, the agency still operates a large, expensive apparatus whose complexity gives it wide discretion while leaving ordinary households dependent on paid software or professionals simply to comply. Reform efforts, including the 2019 Taxpayer First Act, have not changed that underlying reality. Funding and staffing continue to swing with each political cycle, which makes service and enforcement unreliable for everyone.

That same apparatus creates a powerful internal obstacle to meaningful change. Roughly 1,700 attorneys, along with the broader workforce whose salaries and careers depend on the continued existence and authority of the IRS, have little institutional incentive to push for reform that would shrink or abolish the agency. Self-interest is ordinary human behavior; large bureaucracies rarely volunteer to dismantle themselves.

Proponents of abolition conclude that a simpler revenue system, such as the FairTax proposal in H.R. 25, would remove the need for a vast collection bureaucracy and the power that comes with it.

In fairness, the other side has serious responses. Abolition would require replacing roughly half of federal revenue, and the FairTax has never passed since it was first introduced in 1999. Economists dispute whether a national sales tax could raise enough money without burdening lower-income households. Defenders also argue that the problems above call for better security, firmer independence from the White House, and a simpler tax code, not the elimination of the agency that collects the money.

The case for abolition is strongest as a critique of how the IRS is run and controlled, its cost, its complexity, its vulnerability to political direction, and the natural resistance of those whose livelihoods depend on its continuation. Whether eliminating it, instead of fixing it, is the right answer is a question for voters and Congress to settle.
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99% of Americans are not required to file and pay federal income taxes! (Short) from the Freedom Law School:



Editor's note: According to the following linked material concerning the 16th Amendment, Bill Benson (passed away in 2021 alone in a federal prison denied medication), working with Montana activist Red Beckman, traveled to the 48 states that participated in the ratification process and gathered more than 17,000 certified documents from state legislative archives which, they claim, prove the 16th Amendment was never validly ratified; Benson and Beckman published these findings in a book titled The Law That Never Was. The link below describes Benson as having spent over two decades trying to bring this evidence before the public and the courts, including serving time in jail, and notes that as of 2009 the federal government had sued him seeking an injunction to stop him from telling people the 16th Amendment was not ratified, treating his statements as the promotion of an abusive tax shelter under 26 U.S.C. § 6700. The lawsuit as a First Amendment free-speech case rather than a tax-evasion matter, with the argument being that lower courts had avoided the core ratification issue. Devvy Kidd and a lecture by Red Beckman included disclaimers supporting the content represents Benson and Beckman's opinions protected by the First Amendment. Those roughly 1,700 IRS lawyers mentioned above will fight to the death to protect their own financial interests within the IRS:

The Law That Never Was ! Income Tax law NEVER RATIFIED?

The Law That Never Was


As of 1 October 2026, the IRS has no Senate-confirmed commissioner, day-to-day operations are run by CEO Frank Bisignano under Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, after President Trump removed Billy Long in August 2025 following less than two months on the job amid internal friction over control of the agency. The following is a letter dated 24 June 2025 to the previous IRS Commissioner Billy Long concerning the 16th Amendment:

International Public Notice: The Cromer Case -- Answer to Thomas Freed


And when it comes to taxes and the IRS?



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