Talk:Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Semi-protected edit request on 10 March 2018

(Change X : On June 16. 1909 a Letter to Congress from President Taft, .... The House of Representatives has adopted the suggestion and has provided in the bill it passed for the collection of such a tax. In the Senate the action of its Finance Committee and the course of the debate indicate that it may not agree to this provision, and it is now proposed to make up the deficit by the imposition of a general income tax, in form and substance of almost exactly the same character as that which in the case of Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company (157 U. S., 429) was held by the Supreme Court to be a direct tax, and therefore not within the power of the Federal Government to impose unless apportioned among the several States according to population.... A report on the Income Tax being ratified by the State of Alabama in the New York Times August 2 or 3, 1909 stating it passed with one question being asked, "does this apply wages" answer NO. Also on March 27 1943 on Congressional Record page 2580 you can read the real idea of what the Income Tax was about.)

This is not really correct about the Sixteenth Amendment. I have made an extensive study of this. If one studies this, it did not remove the requirements of either Art I Sec 2 and Art I Sec 9 are still in our Constitution. The United States Government is only allowed to tax Duties, Imposts and Excises according to Art VIII. No direct taxation without apportionment is still the law of the land. I can site pages of the Congressional Record that one can look up for the correct information. I can site and back up every thing I write about, I can show where everything I say can be found. This is one of the greatest lies every told and it is hidden in plain site. I can not do all of this in a day but I have the information about the true meaning of the Sixteenth Amendment, so hopefully I can get back to this page to input more correct information. John R. White 1952JohnWhite (talk) 00:54, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

This type of claim belongs in the Tax protester arguments article, not this article. This article is about the Sixteenth Amendment's history and its legal effect, as held by the Supreme Court. SMP0328. (talk) 01:29, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Dear 1952JohnWhite: Your description is not correct. No, you don't have "the information about the true meaning of the Sixteenth Amendment." You've been reading tax protester literature. We've seen all this before, and we've been dealing with this kind of thing in Wikipedia for many years. By the way, the text of the original Constitution does not contain an "Article VIII." (And Amendment 8 has nothing to do with this subject.)

Based on the statements you have made, it is obvious that you have been conducting your own original research, using material gathered from tax protester sources. We've seen this over and over, a thousand times.

One ultimate purpose of the people who assembled these kinds of tax protester materials some years ago is to support an argument that might go something like this: "Because the Federal income tax is a direct tax, it is unconstitutional -- even with the Sixteenth Amendment." The problem is that this kind of argument is frivolous as a matter of law.

You haven't discovered something new.

Here's the bottom line: Under the Sixteenth Amendment, Congress can impose a tax on incomes without apportionment, regardless of whether that tax is considered a direct tax or not. Period. Famspear (talk) 13:38, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

PS: As editor SMP0328 has noted, Wikipedia has specific articles for tax protester material. We don't clutter the main tax articles with this stuff. For example, see Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments. Famspear (talk) 13:43, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

PS: Your reference to "March 27 1943 on Congressional Record page 2580" is another indication that you've been reading tax protester literature. You're referring to the famous quote by F. Morse Hubbard, who was an attorney in the Department of the Treasury. Here is the quote: “The income tax is, therefore, not a tax on income as such. It is an excise tax with respect to certain activities and privileges which is measured by reference to the income which they produce. The income is not the subject of the tax: it is the basis for determining the amount of the tax.”

The problem is that Hubbard was wrong. The income tax is indeed a tax on income. It is not a tax on "certain activities and privileges." And, there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution or any tax statute that makes the Federal income tax be what Hubbard claimed.

As legal commentator Daniel Evans has noted, "Hubbard’s opinion in 1943 (30 years after the ratification of the 16th Amendment and the enactment of the first income tax under that amendment) about the nature of the income tax is flatly contradicted by a statement in 1913 by one of original authors of the income tax:

"Under the proposed measure income is both the subject and the measure of the tax.” Representative Cordell Hull, Cong. Rec. (8/5/1913) (reprinted in Foster’s Income Tax.)"

Evans goes on to note:

"Hubbard seems to have been laboring under the misconception that, if Congress imposed a tax "on" income, and if the taxpayer spent the income before Congress could collect the tax, then Congress would be unable to collect the tax at all. But that is nonsense. As noted elsewhere, it is perfectly clear that the taxpayer who earns the income is personally liable for the tax, and I.R.C. section 6321 even imposes a lien for the amount of any tax that is assessed and unpaid on all of the property of the taxpayer, not just the income itself. So Hubbard’s semantic hair-splitting was completely unnecessary."

See: Daniel B. Evans, The Tax Protester FAQ, at [1] (excerpts under the Fair Use Doctrine).

Hubbard's argument is also contradicted by a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. Stealing is not a "privileged" activity. Yet, the Federal income tax is imposed on the receipt of stolen money by a thief. See James v. United States (1961). Indeed, the receipt of stolen money is taxable as income to the thief, even though it is not his money, and even if the thief is caught and is forced to return the money to its true owner. Further, the thief has no automatic right to a deduction for the repayment of the money to its true owner. Famspear (talk) 14:51, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

To be fair to the OP, I think he was referring to Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 when he said "Art VIII". That clause gives Congress the power to impose duties, imposts, and excises. Ditto to everything else you said. SMP0328. (talk) 02:26, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

That's what I suspect as well. Famspear (talk) 02:39, 12 March 2018 (UTC)