Oh, for crying out loud. That clause is to modify the “No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken” clause. Which means, that although in the past the Constitution forbid taxes that were not in proportion to population, (that is, if State A had 50,000 people, and State B had 100,000 people, it was required that direct taxes had to be proportional to population, so any direct tax scheme had to result in State A paying X and State B paying 2x.
So if people in State A and State B had different incomes, one of the states or the other would be paying more than their proportion.
The 16th Amendment allowed direct taxes to be collected regardless. It doesn’t matter that people in State A make twice as much and so owe twice as much income tax, because now the 16th Amendment allows it. “Enumeration” means the number of people.
Well, if your income is in Federal Reserve Notes, and the tax schedule lists how many Federal Reserve Notes you are required to pay, then this point is moot. If you make an income of $100,000, you figure out how many dollars–Federal Reserve Notes, that is–you are required to pay.
And your complaint about setting the value of barter transactions is valid, but so what? Yes, if you engage in barter transactions in practical terms you will be able to avoid a lot of taxes because there’s no way the IRS can figure out exactly what you did, there are no records. If you avoid using money and don’t brag about it, you’re going to fly under the IRS radar. Heck, even simply using cash will allow you to evade a lot of taxes, because it’s untraceable.
Generally the people who get nailed for income taxes on barter transactions are those who set up “barter clubs”, generally for the purpose of avoiding taxes on the theory that since they aren’t using money then the transactions are untaxable. But that doesn’t work, the real reason barter is usually not taxed is just because the IRS never finds out about it. When you have open barter clubs with records of transactions, what you’ve really done is created your own system of money, even if you never print any bills. And since these money systems without printed notes rely on record keeping they are easy for the IRS to investigate and bust.
Of course, not all forms of barter are taxable…if I trade you my used books for your used kitchen utensils that transaction is probably not taxable, because it’s not income…I had X value of books, you had X value of utensils, and after the transaction I have X value of utensils and you have X value of books, which means that neither of us had any income from the transaction. But if I agree to fix your sink in return for X value of books, then that is income for me. Of course, the value of those books is hard to quantify, but people do buy books from used bookstores, so we could estimate that value. But the reality is that the IRS will never find out about the transaction unless you do this sort of thing routinely and publicly.
The more I read about the Pollack case, the more I see a conflict between that precedent and the guidelines laid out by the 16th. I’m not a lawyer and really hate digging through legalese, but I love looking for loopholes and alternative interpretations. From the Wikipedia:
While the 16th amendment states:
So the Pollack precedent states that unapportioned direct taxes are unconstitutional, while the 16th amendment states that they shall have the power to collect unapportioned income taxes. If would appear to me that Pollack was invalided by the 16th amendment, or at the very least the two conflict. Can you explain how Pollack was not invalided by the 16th?
The Pollock case did indeed declare that direct unapportioned taxes were unconstitutional. So what happened? The 16th amendment passed. See, an amendment to the constitution CHANGES the constitution. So after the 16th Amendment was ratified, congress DID have to power to levy direct unapportioned taxes.
Sort of like, suppose there’s a law against desecrating the flag. But some damn dirty hippy burns the flag anyway, and is charged under the law. But the hippy appeals the case, claiming that the law against flag desecration violates the constitution, namely, the 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech. And the court agrees. And so the flag desecration law cannot be enforced, because the law is unconstitutional. But if we CHANGE the consitution, then we can pass all sorts of crazy laws, see how it works here:
Yes… I may have confused Bricker with another poster on another board that said the that Federal gov’t had the ability to tax income prior to the 16th, and cited an article that used Pollack as the basis for the argument. I fail to see how Pollack can still be used as precedent when it is (from my interpretation) in conflict with the 16th.
Specifically, why do you believe that the 16th Amendment did not validly empower Congress to establish an income tax?
If your answer is “Pollack,” you seem to acknowledge in a subsequent post that Pollack pre-dates the passage of the 16th Amendment, and, to the extent it is conflict with it, the 16th Amendment controls.
If your answer is NOT “Pollack,” then I don’t believe you have answered the question at all.
So, AGAIN, specifically, why do you believe that the 16th Amendment did not validly empower Congress to establish an income tax?
And what phraseology or process WOULD permit Congress to establish an income tax?
Pollack (1894) said it was unconstitutional. (I guess at the time, it was.) Then, the 16th amendment (ratified in 1913) then changes (ammends) the Constitution to make it constitutional. The States had to ratify it. It wasn’t some sneaky over-the-holiday-weekend piece of legislation sprung on the country by fiat.
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.
Well, I interpret this to mean that everyone (who earns an income within the U.S. juridiction) is to pay income tax, and (for the underlined part) using the same tax rates, no matter what State or territory they may live in.
Changes to the Constitution are legal, and there is a mechanism built into the Constitution for this very purpose. The FF knew that the Constitution had to be an evolving document, not a stagnant one.
Slavery was legal (Constitutionally a matter for each State to control) until the 13th amendment, for roughly 78 years. I assume you wouldn’t apply the same strict “it should only be as originally written” policy towards slavery…
Well, I image there were people in 1894 who held that income taxes were constitutional, that’s how the law that was struck down in Pollock got passed in the first place.
So we have a group in congress who wants to impose an income tax and believe they have the authority to do so, they pass a bill that authorizes an income tax, and the law gets declared unconstitutional.
Now Congress has a few options. They can give up. They can write a new law that’s a bit more narrowly crafted and hope that the new law won’t be interpreted as unconstitutional. They can try to pack the Supreme Court with justices who disagree with the ruling. Or they can pass a consitutional amendment specifically allowing what was declared unconstitutional in Pollock. And they chose the last option, to pass an amendment that unambiguously gave congress the power to collect direct unapportioned taxes.
I don’t know, I leave that to the bickering lawyers and politicans. I don’t like legalese, because it can be (mis)interpreted in far too many ways. Morally and philosophically I’m against an income tax, just as I’m against torture, and I don’t think any phrasing or wording will make it morally justifiable in my worldview.
And that’s fine; that’s a perfectly valid and defensible worldview. But that’s not what you’re trying to defend here. You’re trying to defend your view that income tax is either not constitutional or not legal. So far, you’ve presented nothing that is not overwhelmingly - if not unanimously - refuted by a 100-odd-year history of constitutional amendment, statute, and precedent.
I don’t see Jefferson explaining why banking institutions (or, for that matter, standing armies) are dangerous to “our liberties.” The mere existence of an aristocracy of any kind is not, in and of itself, dangerous to the people’s liberty, though it certainly has the potential to be; and, in any case, why is an aristocracy of bankers any worse than an aristocracy of landowners/slaveowners such as Jefferson?
Of course – please correct me if I’m wrong, which I might well be – you are legally obligated to pay said taxes in Federal Reserve notes or by means of a check or credit card transaction payable in/convertible to/redeemable for Federal Reserve notes, because the IRS won’t accept anything else. You can’t pay your taxes in wheat. You can’t even pay your taxes in gold.
Actually, the Federal Reserve is not a federal agency the way the IRS or the Defense Department are federal agencies. Nor is it a private bank the way Chase Manhattan is a private bank. It’s a sort of a giddy harumphrodite – public and private too. You can, indirectly, buy stock in it.