Given that new Pope Leo is an American citizen, he is still required under U.S. law to pay income taxes to the U.S. government. In other words, even though he is now a head of state, he is still a servant of the U.S. Empire, one who is required to send a portion of his income to the U.S. Treasury.
What happens if the Pope decides that he is no longer going to help fund the U.S. Empire through the payment of income taxes?
We all know what will happen. The IRS will come after him with a vengeance. They will have him indicted by a federal grand jury. A warrant will be issued for his arrest. Interpol will be notified. As soon as the Pope visits a country that is a loyal member of the U.S. Empire, he will be taken into custody and quickly extradited to the United States, where he will be prosecuted, convicted, and incarcerated for daring to not fund the U.S. Empire with a portion of his income.
U.S. officials would argue that no American citizen is above the law, not even the Pope. They would remind us that every American citizen exists to serve the greater good of the nation. His income effectively belongs to the federal government, which decides how much of people’s income they will be permitted to keep. The citizenry serve the government, not the other way around. If a citizen refuses to serve the Empire by refusing to pay his income taxes, the IRS is there to straighten him out.
An American citizen named Irwin Schiff learned this lesson the hard way. He believed that the income tax was unconstitutional and, therefore, that he didn’t have to deliver any portion of his income to the federal government. He wrote books advising people of the same thing. Many of those people stopped paying their income taxes as well.
Federal officials became apoplectic over Schiff. The IRS went after him with a vengeance. They had him indicted, prosecuted, and jailed. When Schiff got terminal cancer, the feds viciously refused to give him a compassionate early release so that he could die among his family. He had to serve as a message to anyone else who even thought about going down that road. He died in prison for having refused to fund the Empire with a portion of his income.
That’s what they would do to the Pope if he refused to serve and support the Empire with his income taxes. Even though Pope Leo is now a head of the Vatican, he still exists as a serf within the U.S. Empire, just as every other American citizen does. Pay up or pay the consequences.
What happens if Pope Leo decides to give up his American citizenship in order to no longer be a serf within the U.S. Empire? The U.S. government will punish him with an exit tax for his act of disloyalty, which is what they do to any American who decides to change citizenship. What happens if that person refuses to pay the exit tax? The IRS will have him indicted, prosecuted, convicted, and incarcerated. If Pope Leo decides that he no longer wishes to be a serf within the U.S. Empire, he will have to pay the Empire’s exit tax … or else.
It’s worth nothing that our American ancestors lived without income taxation and the IRS for more than a 100 years. That’s because they knew that an income tax and an IRS to enforce it were antithetical to the principles of a genuinely free society. They understood that anyone who lives under a government that wields the power to seize their income is a serf, not a genuinely free person. Only a person who is free to keep everything he earns and decide for himself what to do with his own money can genuinely be considered free.
Our American ancestors were right to reject income taxation and the serfdom that comes with it. Pope Leo is implicitly reminding us that if the American people ever wish to regain their sovereignty as free men and free women, a necessary prerequisite is the abolition of the income tax and the IRS that enforces it.
Reprinted with permission from Future of Freedom Foundation.
