I don't want to prolong this overly much -- it's getting late and I'm sort of tired -- so let these be my last comments.

"'In jurisprudence, a natural person is a human being perceptible through the senses and subject to physical laws, as opposed to an artificial person, i.e., an organization that the law treats for some purposes as if it were a person distinct from its members or owner.'"

While that's an archaic definition, it' still pretty accurate. There are persons, on the one hand, and there are entities -- corporations, partnerships, trusts, and the like -- that the law has recognized as having a legally cognizable existence, on the other. That's easy. (And, under the Internal Revenue COde, tey all get taxed).

The second part makes no sense.

"With that as a guide, the simplest way to change you the natural person into you the artificial person (who can then be taxed, as a corporation) is through the manipulation of the rules of grammar. And you'd never go along with it voluntarily, so it's done through subterfuge."

A person's legal status can't be changed merely by the simple expedient of using capital letters or by the manipulation of the rules of grammar. The use of capital letters, as opposed to initial caps, is a purely stylistic, substantively insignificant phenomenon. Capital letters are typically used in the titles of legal pleadings, in transcripts when identifying the speaker, in the headings of reported cases, and the like. Lots of times you will see an named person and a corporation identified in caps in the title of a case and then, in the text of the case, both are identified in lower case w/ initial caps. Similarly with transcripts. Do you suppose that by identifying a corporation in lower case letters with initial caps it is somehow transform into a "natural person"? I don't think so. The use or non-use of capital letters simply makes no difference.

The other difficulty I have with the notion is that corporate status is a sought after benefit, in that it classically shields the individuals who are the owners of the corporation from personal liability for the acts of the corporation (with some exceptions). Typically, there are quite a few hoops that need to be jumped through for the benefit of corporate status to be legally recognized. In no jurisdiction can it be accomplished by the simple expedient of capitalizing one's name. If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it to avoid personally liability for, say, their own debts -- "Hey, don't ask me: it's the "JOHN SMITH" corporation that owes you the money, not I, John Smith." Again, with apologies -- or thanks -- to Mr. Clinton, that dog still won't hunt.

And on that cheery note, I bid you,

Bon soir.

michael