Editing Wages as taxable income (section)

== A separate criminal-law question ==
[https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep498/usrep498192/usrep498192.pdf ''Cheek v. United States'', 498 U.S. 192, 201–06 (1991)] concerned the ''willfulness'' element of federal criminal tax charges, not whether § 61 includes wages. The Supreme Court held that a genuinely held misunderstanding of a tax-law duty can be considered by a jury even if objectively unreasonable; it vacated the conviction because the jury instructions improperly excluded that possibility. The Court distinguished a belief that the law is unconstitutional, which reflects knowledge of the duty and disagreement with its validity. A claim about a defendant's state of mind in a criminal prosecution does not establish that wages are untaxed or eliminate civil tax duties. This distinction matters when a video cites ''Cheek'' as if it decided the underlying income question.