Do I have to pay federal income tax? I just saw a startling dvd called Aaron Russo's America?

"America: Freedom to Fascism" is inaccurate conspiracy theory nonsense.

There is a law concerning income taxes and it is codified as Title 26 U.S.C. You can read it at http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/26/ or at http://www.access.gpo.gov/uscode/title26/title26.html For the actual laws passed by Congress, you have to go to the U.S. Statutes at Large, which can be read at any Federal Depository Library. http://www.gpoaccess.gov/libraries.html

I suggest you go to http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html and lookup almost every point in the film. I also recommend that you try and verify different quotes from the film from RELIABLE websites.

BTW, the book, "The Law that Never Was" by Bill Benson has been completed refuted. Also, no court has EVER accepted any of the arguments brought forth in that book. Here is a court case that discussed the book. In U.S. v. Thomas, 788 F.2d 1250 (7th Cir. 1986), cert. den. 107 S.Ct. 187 (1986), the court stated,
[QUOTE]
"Benson and Beckman did not discover anything; they rediscovered something that Secretary Knox considered in 1913. Thirty-eight states ratified the sixteenth amendment, and thirty-seven sent formal instruments of ratification to the Secretary of State. (Minnesota notified the Secretary orally, and additional states ratified later; we consider only those Secretary Knox considered.) Only four instruments repeat the language of the sixteenth amendment exactly as Congress approved it. The others contain errors of diction, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. The text Congress transmitted to the states was: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.” Many of the instruments neglected to capitalize “States,” and some capitalized other words instead. The instrument from Illinois had “remuneration” in place of “enumeration”; the instrument from Missouri substituted “levy” for “lay”; the instrument from Washington had “income” not “incomes”; others made similar blunders.

“Thomas insists that because the states did not approve exactly the same text, the amendment did not go into effect. Secretary Knox considered this argument. The Solicitor of the Department of State drew up a list of the errors in the instruments and--taking into account both the triviality of the deviations and the treatment of earlier amendments that had experienced more substantial problems--advised the Secretary that he was authorized to declare the amendment adopted. The Secretary did so."

Although Thomas urges us to take the view of several state courts that only agreement on the literal text may make a legal document effective, the Supreme Court follows the “enrolled bill rule.” If a legislative document is authenticated in regular form by the appropriate officials, the court treats that document as properly adopted.
[END QUOTE]

A few sentences later in the same decision, the court continues, "Secretary Knox declared that enough states had ratified the sixteenth amendment. The Secretary’ decision is not transparently defective. We need not decide when, if ever, such a decision may be reviewed in order to know that Secretary Knox’ decision is now beyond review."
[END QUOTE OF CASE]

Judge Fox's statement was in the context of giving an example. He was not making a statement of fact. Here is a larger portion of the transcripts where that quote was made.
[QUOTE]
"I will say I think, you know, colonel, I have to tell you that there are cases where a long course of history in fact does change the Constitution, and I can think of one instance. I believe I'm correct on this. I think if you were to go back and try to find and review the ratification of the 16th amendment, which was the internal revenue, income tax, I think if you went back and examined that carefully, you would find that a sufficient number of states never ratified that amendment...And nonetheless, I think it's fair to say that it is part of the Constitution of the United States, and I don't think any court would ever...set it aside."
[END QUOTE]
The comments made by Judge Fox were made in passing, without judicial review, and in a case that had nothing to do with the 16th amendment. In the end, the Judge also said that he didn't think any court would ever set it aside.

The Federal Reserve act was properly passed by Congress and does not require a Constitutional amendment. While the Federal Reserve Act was passed on Dec. 23, 1913, according to the Congressional record, the bill passed the house by a count of 298 to 60. 358 members voted out of 435, that's pretty good attendance. That's probably better attendance than the current House of Representative gets on most days. The Senate passed the bill with a vote of 43 to 25. That's 68 members voted out of 96. Again, that is good attendance.

Finally, the quote by Woodrow Wilson that the film says he made in 1919 is false. First, there is no record anywhere that Woodrow Wilson said the first part of that quote. The rest of the quote is taken from Woodrow Wilson's book, "The New Freedom". However, "The New Freedom" was published in 1913! Also, the book is actually a compilation of speeches he made on the campaign trail during 1911 and 1912. He was really discussing corporate monopolies and not the Federal Reserve (which didn't exist yet) or the banks. You can read "The New Freedom" for yourself at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14811

Look at all I have written refuting many points in the movie, "Freedom to Fascism" and that's only the first five minutes of it.

To summarize, there is a law concerning income taxes. If you earn more than the standard deduction, you must file tax returns. Wages from a job are income. Income is NOT limited to corporate profits. The Federal Reserve is not some great conspiracy. BTW, Sherry Peel Jackson, one of the people interviewed in the film, was charged earlier this year with "willful failure to file" covering four years. Her trial lasted two days, Oct. 29th and 30th. The jury deliberated for 45 minutes. GUILTY on all counts.