Free Republic

The federal income tax was unconstitutional for most of our county’s existence. The founders of this country would have never agreed to it. We should repeal it.

The Supreme Court announced Monday it would take up a case considering whether Congress can tax income before it is received. The case, Charles G. Moore et ux. v. United States, stems from a Washington state couple’s 2019 lawsuit against the government for a nearly $15,000 tax bill imposed on their small investment in an overseas company, from which they never earned a profit. It considers whether taxes on unrealized gains are legal under the 16th Amendment, which enables Congress to tax incomes “without apportionment among the several States.” Hank Adler, Burra Executive Professor of Accounting at Chapman University, previously...

The American Revolution was sparked in part by unjust taxation. After all, the colonists in Boston rebelled against Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” and summarily tossed English tea into the harbor in protest in 1773. Nowadays Americans collectively spend more than 6 billion hours each year filling out tax forms, keeping records, and learning new tax rules according to the Office of Management and Budget. Complying with the byzantine U.S. tax code is estimated to cost the American economy hundreds of billions of dollars annually – time and money that could otherwise be used for more productive activities like...

Unlike the John Mellencamp lyrics from Jack and Diane, “Don’t actually hold onto 16 as long as you can.” Context The first federal income tax was instituted in 1861 to pay for the Civil War, then repealed in 1872, a few years after the war’s end. After it was reimplemented in 1894, as the first peacetime national income tax, the Supreme Court struck it down as unconstitutional in the 5–4 decision Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Company, because it wasn’t apportioned according to the states’ populations as the Constitution at the time required. So how to ensure that a...

The American Revolution was sparked in part by unjust taxation. After all, the colonists in Boston rebelled against Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” and summarily tossed English tea into the harbor in protest in 1773. Nowadays Americans collectively spend more than 6 billion hours each year filling out tax forms, keeping records, and learning new tax rules according to the Office of Management and Budget. Complying with the byzantine U.S. tax code is estimated to cost the American economy hundreds of billions of dollars annually – time and money that could otherwise be used for more productive activities like...

I'm having difficulty formulating my failing brain.Before 1913 we operated just fine (it seems) without taxes but (and so the meme goes), now everything operates BECAUSE of taxes.

The American Revolution was sparked in part by unjust taxation. After all, the colonists in Boston rebelled against Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” and summarily tossed English tea into the harbor in protest in 1773. Nowadays Americans collectively spend more than 6 billion hours each year filling out tax forms, keeping records, and learning new tax rules according to the Office of Management and Budget. Complying with the byzantine U.S. tax code is estimated to cost the American economy hundreds of billions of dollars annually – time and money that could otherwise be used for more productive activities like...

Some leading proponents of centralized federal power have caught that ole-time states’-rights religion.New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, for example, has been a fervid defender of ObamaCare and other congressional programs invading traditional areas of state control. But, he says, Congress violated the rules of federalism when its new tax law capped income tax deductions for state and local taxes paid (SALT deductions).Are Cuomo and his allies correct? Does the Constitution require Congress to include SALT deductions in its income tax laws? ADVERTISEMENT The Constitution’s actual language does not say so. Some cite a 1985 speech by the late Senator Daniel...

Far too often, articles or books are written about how bad the 16th amendment is(which it absolutely is) but then the authors turn around and point to Woodrow Wilson. This is historical malpractice. It is said that 42 states ratified the 16th amendment, and 40 of those did so prior to March 4, 1913, which was when Wilson was inaugurated. Massachusetts ratified the 16th on the same day, March 4th, and New Hampshire followed a few days later on March 7th. So let me get this straight: Woodrow Wilson as president was so strong and powerful that he reached back...

Of all those whose predictions were dashed by this year’s presidential outcome (“Trump is headed toward a major loss” his Oct. 19 headline blared), few have been more exercised than the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne (“white identity politics and male self-assertion triumphed” he railed the day after). Yesterday, in a piece titled “America will soon be ruled by a minority,” he joined the chorus now condemning the “undemocratic” Electoral College—in the name of the Founders, no less, the very men who created it. Ever the good progressive, he fails to appreciate the role states were meant to play in ordering...

The 17th Amendment, which allowed the popular election of U.S. senators, “disenfranchised” state legislatures and altered the U.S. Constitution's checks and balances, Chapman University Law Professor John Eastman told an audience of state legislators in Washington, D.C. last week. The amendment made it easier for Congress to pass legislation, which eventually led to the massive growth in federal power that the states are still grappling with today... “What the founders did is come up with this counterintuitive notion that adding an extra layer of government would provide less government and greater liberty. And it only worked if those governments were...

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.” – The 16th Amendment, Ratified 1913 The birth of the income tax! Prior to 1913, the constitutionally limited responsibilities of the federal government were generally covered by import tariffs. Occasionally, temporary taxes were imposed to pay for wars, but were to be apportioned by the states and could not be direct, personal taxes, according to the Constitution in Article I, sections 2 and 9. W. Cleon Skousen wrote a very...

Dr. Carason: I never had an audit until I spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast. And then all of the sudden they came in and said, "We just want to look at your real estate dealings." And then they didn't find anything. And then they took a look at the whole year. And they didn't find anything. And then they looked at the next year and they didn't find anything. And they won't find anything. The fact is the IRS is not honest and we have to get rid of them.

In our last guest essay for Coach is Right we made an opening case for Article V state amendment conventions, rather than SCOTUS, to deal with major social and governing issues. It is through state conventions rather than the elastic whims of nine unaccountable lawyers that the Framers envisioned a free people would keep and improve their republic. Enlightenment philosophers recognized that whereas power is aggressive, liberty is passive. Unless it is actively pursued, liberty will always fade in the face of encroaching power. Our Framing generation knew this and provided the means by which liberty could be actively defended....

I have believed for close to 20 years that the 16th amendment was never properly ratified and that the IRS and all the shenanigans we citizens go through every year is ILLEGAL. For all of my adult life, I have spent 6 months dreading tax season and then 6 months worrying if maybe I had done something wrong when filing them. This year, when our tax preparer (for the first time in my adult life, we actually hired a preparer as I believed that a citizen should NOT have to pay someone else to do their taxes, as it should...

Though they may seem like it, the dates that holidays fall on aren't usually random. They typically commemorate a significant event that happened on or around that day. Obviously, this makes sense. However, it's hard to guess why April 15 was chosen as Tax Day, the deadline for filing and paying your taxes. The 16th Amendment, which instituted a national income tax, was passed by Congress on July 2, 1909 and ratified on Feb. 3, 1913, but neither of these days made the cut to be the Tax Day. What gives? If the April 15 deadline to file and pay...

Prior to 1913, there was no federal income tax. The states had rights and representation in Washington, D.C., there was no Federal Reserve Bank, and the federal government lived under the enumerated powers afforded within the U.S. Constitution. What a difference one year can make... ... Passage of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution would forever change life in America, and not for the better. ... Further, thanks to the 17th Amendment, also passed in 1913, the states no longer have representation in Washington, D.C. Once again, what seemed like a simple sentence and a good idea to some at...

A three-legged stool can always stand without wobbling – a solid foundation for good or evil. Addressing the 14th, 16th and 17th Amendments. The Articles (7) and their clauses, the Bill of Rights (Amendments 1-10) are original to the Founders, Framers, and Ratifiers. The 11th and 12th Amendments serve to States’ protection. The 13th freed the slaves. The 14th Amendment – This was the first of three Amendments that created the “progressive” three legged stool. The 14th was a mandatory ratification, a required condition before states were allowed reunification after the Civil War. Congress deliberately established federal supremacy. The 14th,...

SEE: Bridenstine: Repeal the 16th Amendment ”U.S. Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., has introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to repeal the 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which allows the federal government to levy the income tax.” Wrong Mr. Bridenstien! The 16th Amendment does not allow the federal government to levy an “income tax”. In fact, the phrase “income tax” does not even appear in the 16th Amendment, and the power to levy an income tax was exercised long before the 16th Amendment was adopted! The first so called “income tax” is found in An Act to...

With the 2014 election just around the corner “conservatives” have the opportunity to win the hearts and minds of the American people by offering real tax reform. Have most Americans not witnessed the progressive’s disastrous and slavish experiment associated with the 16th Amendment and taxes levied on incomes without apportionment? Have we not recently seen how this very tax has been used during election time to punish and harass those who dare to speak out and against our despotic federal government? Have we not also witnessed for generations how this despicable tax is used by our federal government to...