Constitutional Challenge: Repealing the 16th Amendment wouldn't kill the income tax

Reason Magazine ^ | January 1999 | David B. Levenstam

[eyespysomething]

My bad, only the Republicans have signed on. But both Chambliss and Miller have, and when herman Cain gets elected senator in November, he is even a stronger proponent of undoing the mess we call the IRS.

[ancient_geezer]

IIRC, NRST legislation was drafted in 1997, it has been introduced into every session of Congress since then.

The interesting thing is the rapid growth of Congress Critter interest with this session, having gone from 7 co-sponsors to 43, plus introduction into the Senate as well.

Support is growing and it is being felt in Congress more each day.

[ancient_geezer]

when herman Cain gets elected senator in November

He is running for Zen Miller's vacating seat in the Senate, isn't he? Too bad we couldn't have both, even with Zen being Dem.

[eyespysomething]

He is running for the Republican nomination for Zell's seat. That's ok, though. Saxby Chambliss, the senator who unseated Cleland in 2002, proposed the Senate version.

Herman Cain is a true conservative, who espouses common sense conservatism instead of compassionate conservatism. If you have a second, check out his web page. He would be a real asset to the senate.

http://www.cainforussenate.org

[ancient_geezer]

If you have a second, check out his web page. He would be a real asset to the senate.

I know, LOL, a few of my collection of Cain articles:

Herman Cain, position regards tax reform, May 9 2002:

Breaking the Mold: Herman Cain and the Rise of Black Conservatives

Herman Cain on National Review Online

[eyespysomething]

LOL, here I am preachin' to the choir again!

I have his bumpersticker on my van, so does the Mr.(on his car), and we are NOT bumpersticker people. It was weird putting it on there.

Yard sign is up also.

I am SO excited about him as a candidate!!!

[ancient_geezer]

here I am preachin' to the choir again!

And to other's as well. FR makes a great soapbox :O)

[Taxman]

Interesting bit of tax trivia (per Charles L. Adams, "For Good and Evil; The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization"):

In 1814, England abolished the income tax which had been levied in 1799, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer was ordered to destroy all copies of the income tax law.

Revenues (excises and import duties, primarily) to the English government were such that the Napoleanic War debt was paid off in short order (I forget how many years, but it did not take long) and the English economy was the envy of all Europe.

In 1894, England reinstituted the very same income tax that had been abolished in 1814. Seems the Chancellor of the Exchequer had kept one copy of the law, and after everybody who remembered how bad the 1799-1814 income tax was had died, Parliament reimposed it.

Coincidentally, the period 1814 to 1894 was the period which became known as the "Industrial Revolution."

Hello? Is there a connection here? Can we learn FRom history?

Also, and perhaps not so coincidentally, the first US (discounting Lincoln's Civil War) income tax was levied by the Congress in 1894. It was declared unconstitutional in 1895, and it took the US LIEberal/Socialist/Marxist Bastard element another 18 years to get the 16th Amendment passed and an income tax implemented in the US.

BTW, I highly commend Adams' book to all of you who are interested in fundamental tax reform. One will not be surprised to learn that a common element of most of the famous revolutions of the people against their governments throughout history have been over/for/about or because of tax policy.

The other common element is FReedom.

Draw your own conclusion.

[Taxman]

Ping to my #28.

[ancient_geezer]

It was declared unconstitutional in 1895

Actually the only thing they declared unconstitutional about it, was that the Court decided that rents and income from investment property were fruits of property and thus could only be taxed as direct taxes(i.e. taxes upon property) through apportionment.

They voided the entire tax statute, not because they saw taxes on wages, salaries etc to be unconstitutional but because the predominate revenues generated were from said investment income and they held that Congress could not have intended to tax employments alone.

The most significant soundbytes from that decision:

POLLOCK v. FARMERS' LOAN & TRUST CO., 158 U.S. 601 (1895):

• "We have considered the act only in respect of the tax on income derived from real estate, and from invested personal property, and have not commented on so much of it as bears on gains or profits from business, privileges, or employments, in view of the instances in which taxation on business, privileges, or employments has assumed the guise of an excise tax and been sustained as such."

• "If that[rents from land] be stricken out, and also the income from all invested personal property, bonds, stocks, investments of all kinds, it is obvious that by a r the largest part of the anticipated revenue would be eliminated, and this would leave the burden of the tax to be borne by professions, trades, employments, or vocations; and in that way what was intended as a tax on capital would remain, in substance, a tax on occupations and labor. We cannot believe that such was the intention of congress."

• "We do not mean to say that an act laying by apportionment a direct tax on all real estate and personal property, or the income thereof, might not also lay excise taxes on business, privileges, employments, and vocations. "

• Our conclusions may therefore be summed up as follows:

  First. We adhere to the opinion already announced,-that, taxes on real estate being indisputably direct taxes, taxes on the rents or income of real estate are equally direct taxes.

  Second. We are of opinion that taxes on personal property, or on the income of personal property, are likewise direct taxes.

  Third. The tax imposed by sections 27 to 37, inclusive, of the act of 1894, so far as it falls on the income of real estate, and of personal property, being a direct tax, within the meaning of the constitution, and therefore unconstitutional and void, because not apportioned according to representation, all those sections, constituting one entire scheme of taxation, are necessarily invalid.

• Mr. Justice WHITE, dissenting.

  16. The injustice of the conclusion points to the error of adopting it. It takes invested wealth, and reads it into the constitution as a favored and protected class of property, which cannot be taxed without apportionment, while it leaves the occupation of the minister, the doctor, the professor, the lawyer, the inventor, the author, the merchant, the mechanic, and all other forms of industry upon which the prosperity of a people must depend, subject to taxation without that condition.

[ancient_geezer]

it took the US LIEberal/Socialist/Marxist Bastard element another 18 years to get the 16th Amendment passed

With the bonehead help from conservatives of the time:

read: The Bailey Bill

Sometimes our own representation shoots us in the foot and all liberal/populist cadres need do is stand aside let us doit to ourselves.

Learn from history indeed!

[Paul C. Jesup]

This guy who wrote the article is a bold face lier, income tax was declared UNCONSTITUTIONAL. And it is debatable whether the 16th Amendment was ever properly ratified in Kansas.

[ancient_geezer]

See replies 30 & 31. Pollock only declared investment income to be taxed unconstitutionally.

Read the opinions of the court that made the decision not the personal opinions of later commentators, many with personal and financial agendas beyond the exposition of truth behind them.

[Taxman]

Thass Right!

[Taxman]

I knew you'd have the documentation and set the record right re: Pollock. But that was not my main point.

What is of interest to me, and should be of interest to our fundamental tax reformers, is the period between 1814 and 1894 when there were no income taxes in England and the government thrived (as did Her Majesty's subjects) in a consumption tax environment.

England, of course, was home to Marx and Engels, who published the Communist Manifesto in 1848 and whose work was a proximate cause for first England and then the US to implement an income tax in 1894 (cf Second Plank of the Communist Manifesto).

How that came to pass: The old line LIEberal/Socialist/Marxist Bastards who controlled most of the wealth in England (not earned, BTW -- mostly land and estates given to them because they they were of the Royal family or FRiends of same) paid Marx and Engels to write the Communist Manifesto and promulgate a theology which, when implemented, would guarantee their continuued monetary and political supremacy.

These old line socialists could not stand the fact that ordinary people were creating extraordinary wealth with their hands, hearts and minds in the "tax FRee" environment that England was between 1814 and 1894.

So they put and end to it in 1894 by re-imposing the English income tax. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Read Adams' book. It is most worthwhile.

[Paul C. Jesup]

My belief is, it's all corrupt. The baby is dead, let's throw out the bathwater.

[Destructor]

A valiant effort on the part of these statesmen, but it will never see the light of day. Most Americans are spineless, and would rather stick with the income tax, because they think they know what to expect from that system.

It's ironic to think that most Americans are the descendants of men who went to war over taxes in excess of 10%! We've come a long way!! /sarcasm

[ancient_geezer]

A valiant effort on the part of these statesmen, but it will never see the light of day.

Only takes enough to make a sqeaky door. A commited 1% of the public rattling Congress Critter cages is more than sufficient.

See reply #25 above, for how things are progessing with just the effort among a few dedicated persons to see it done. It is happening and advancing one bit at a time.

[ancient_geezer]

My belief is, it's all corrupt. The baby is dead, let's throw out the bathwater.

To accomplish that successfully it pays to know what the baby and bathwater look like and where the sewer pipe is so you can throw it out without making a total mess.

The result of such investigation is the NRST proposals H.R.25, S.1493 and related proposed constitutional amendment H.J.RES.61.

[ForOurFuture]

Fair Tax Bump!

BTW, now is an excellent time to push the issue, in anticipation of April 15th. If I were able to acquire Fair Tax bumper stickers I'd go around and stick them to signs advertising tax preparation services and around post offices. But the folks at Americans for Fair Taxation seem rather stingy with bumper stickers.