LAW AND ANALYSIS
1. Citizenship
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution defines the basis for United States citizenship, stating that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The Fourteenth Amendment, therefore, establishes simultaneous state and federal citizenship. See United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 549 (1875) (“The same person may be at the same time a citizen of the United States and a citizen of a State. . . .”); In re Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36, 74 (1873) (A man “must reside within the State to make him a citizen of it, but it is only necessary that he should be born or naturalized in the United States to be a citizen of the Union”). The Fourteenth Amendment’s granting of citizenship applies to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, regardless of race. See, e.g., Bell v. State of Maryland, 378 U.S. 226, 249 (1964) (Douglas, J., concurring) (“The Fourteenth Amendment also makes every person who is born here a citizen; and there is no second or third or fourth class of citizenship.”).
Section 7701(a)(9) of the Internal Revenue Code states that “[t]he term 'United States' when used in a geographical sense includes only the States and the District of Columbia.” Claims that individuals are not citizens of the United States but are solely citizens of a sovereign state and not subject to federal taxation have been uniformly rejected by the courts. See, e.g., United States v. Hilgeford, 7 F.3d 1340, 1342 (7th Cir. 1993) (“The defendant in this case apparently holds a sincere belief that he is a citizen of the mythical “Indiana State Republic” and for that reason is an alien beyond the jurisdictional reach of federal courts. This belief is, of course, incorrect.”); United States v. Gerads, 999 F.2d 1255, 1256 (8th Cir. 1993) (“[We] reject appellants’ contention that they are not citizens of the United States, but rather “Free Citizens of the Republic of Minnesota” and, consequently, not subject to taxation.”); O’Driscoll v. Internal Revenue Service, 1991 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9829, *5-6 (E.D. Penn. 1991) (“Despite plaintiff’s linguistic gymnastics, he is a citizen of both the United States and Pennsylvania, and liable for federal taxes.”).
Similarly, the individual states are part of the United States and income earned within them is fully subject to United States taxation. See, e.g., Solomon v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1993-509 (responding to argument that all of petitioner’s income was earned outside of the United States, the court held that “petitioner attempts to argue an absurd proposition, essentially that the State of Illinois is not part of the United States.”).