Nonresident-Alien
The movement claim that 'resident' in IRC § 7701(b) means a federal functionary rather than a person physically dwelling in the United States is unsupported
The movement reads 'resident' in IRC § 7701(b) as a hidden term of art that means federal functionary. The statute defines residence as physical presence (substantial-presence test, green-card test, lawful-permanent-resident status). The textual observation about the IRC's specialized vocabulary is real; the doctrinal conclusion is foreclosed.
The movement claim that ordinary Americans living in the fifty states are 'nonresident aliens' for IRC purposes is unsupported
The 'I am a nonresident alien for IRC purposes' theory holds that ordinary Americans living in the fifty states fall outside the income tax because the IRC's 'United States' means only federal territories. The statutory definitions are clear, the case law is uniform, and the theory is one of the most heavily-sanctioned positions in the IRS frivolous-positions list.
Brushaber held the income tax constitutional under the Sixteenth Amendment — not that Frank Brushaber was a nonresident alien
*The Federal Zone* claims that the Supreme Court in Brushaber treated Frank Brushaber as a nonresident alien and limited the income tax to a 'federal zone.' The Court's actual opinion contains neither holding. The case upheld the income tax as constitutional under the Sixteenth Amendment, addressed three constitutional challenges (apportionment, due process, geographical uniformity), and did not specify Brushaber's citizenship beyond a single procedural acknowledgment that 'averments as to citizenship and residence' had been made. The reinterpretation fails at primary source.
Brushaber: What the Case Actually Says
Brushaber v. Union Pacific (1916) is the most-cited and most-misread case in alternate-tax literature. What the Court actually held: the Sixteenth Amendment did not create new taxing power but removed apportionment as a barrier; the income tax is an excise on the receipt of income, valid against direct-tax challenges. What the movement reads into it: an exemption for private-sector wages. Not in the opinion.
'Nonresident Alien' in the Internal Revenue Code
26 U.S.C. § 7701(b)(1)(B) defines 'nonresident alien' as 'an individual who is neither a citizen of the United States nor a resident of the United States.' The definition has two requirements, both necessary: non-citizenship and non-residency. A U.S. citizen — by the express text of an Act of Congress enacted in 1984 — cannot be a nonresident alien for IRC purposes. This single sentence forecloses the territorial-volunteer reading that *The Federal Zone* and its derivatives depend on.
The Citizen/Alien × Resident/Nonresident Matrix
The IRC distinguishes individual taxpayers along two axes: U.S. citizenship (citizen vs. alien) and U.S. residence (resident vs. nonresident). The four resulting cells map onto real Code sections with distinct tax bases — citizens and resident aliens taxed worldwide under § 1, nonresident aliens taxed on U.S.-source / effectively-connected income under § 871. The Matrix is real; what the alternate-tax movement adds — moving U.S. citizens in the fifty states into the nonresident-alien cell — is not in the Matrix.