Substantial-Presence-Test

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

A recurring move in alternate-tax theory reads 'resident' in 26 U.S.C. § 7701(b) as a functionary term — by analogy to 'resident physician,' 'resident agent,' or 'resident commissioner' — and treats 'resident alien' as a foreign national in U.S. employment or office rather than someone physically present in the country. The reading has no support in IRC text (the substantial-presence test counts days, not duties), no support in cross-domain legal usage (federal civil procedure, state taxation, voter eligibility, family-law residency requirements all use the dwelling sense), and no support in the etymology the reading invokes (the functionary uses of 'resident' historically *preserve* the dwelling sense rather than departing from it — early-15c ecclesiastical 'resident' clergy were precisely those who actually lived at the benefice). The claim's premises do not survive contact with the textual sources it claims to draw from.