Talk: Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
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A nice one-liner
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Mis-citation
The citation of the court decision in the body of this article actually misses the real conclusion of the Court. What is stated are actually the arguments of Union Pacific against the tax, not the decision of the court itself. To wit:
Aside from averments as to citizenship and residence, recitals as to the provisions of the statute, and statements as to the business of the corporation, contained in the first ten paragraphs of the bill, advanced to sustain jurisdiction, the bill alleged twenty-one constitutional objections specified in that number of paragraphs or subdivisions. As all the grounds assert a violation of the Constitution, it follows that, in a wide sense, they all charge a repugnancy of the statute to the 16th Amendment, under the more immediate sanction of which the statute was adopted.
The various propositions are so intermingled as to cause it to be difficult to classify them. We are of opinion, however, that the confusion is not inherent, but rather arises from the conclusion that the 16th Amendment provides for a hitherto unknown power of taxation; that is, a power to levy an income tax which, although direct, should not be subject to the regulation of apportionment applicable to all other direct taxes. And the far-reaching effect of this erroneous assumption will be made clear by generalizing the many contentions advanced in argument to support it, as follows:
(Summary of arguments, as quoted in main article body)
But it clearly results that the proposition and the contentions under it, if acceded to, would cause one provision of the Constitution to destroy another; that is, they would result in bringing the provisions of the Amendment exempting a direct tax from apportionment into irreconcilable conflict with the general requirement that all direct taxes be apportioned. Moreover, the tax authorized by the Amendment, being direct, would not come under the rule of uniformity applicable under the Constitution to other than direct taxes, and thus it would come to pass that the result of the Amendment would be to authorize a particular direct tax not subject either to apportionment or to the rule of geographical uniformity, thus giving power to impose a different tax in one state or states than was levied in another state or states. This result, instead of simplifying the situation and making clear the limitations on the taxing power, which obviously the Amendment must have been intended to accomplish, would create radical and destructive changes in our constitutional system and multiply confusion.
Seen in context, then, the court was clearly deciding in favor of the 16th Amendment, not against it.--Eric 22:24, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co.
If I understand this correctly, it's just repeating the findings of Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. Co. If I'm not understanding it correctly, could someone please translate it from legalese into common English? Thanks. -- Beland 23:05, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- However the amendment failed to repeal the apportionment clause, and in the Supreme Court case Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co., (1916), Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:
"But, aside from the obvious error of the proposition, intrinsically considered, it manifestly disregards the fact that by the previous ruling it was settled that the provisions of the 16th Amendment conferred no new power of taxation, but simply prohibited the previous complete and plenary power of income taxation possessed by Congress from the beginning from being taken out of the category of indirect taxation to which it inherently belonged, and being placed [240 U.S. 103, 113] in the category of direct taxation subject to apportionment by a consideration of the sources from which the income was derived,-that is, by testing the tax not by what it was, a tax on income, but by a mistaken theory deduced from the origin or source of the income taxed."
Moved text
I have moved the following text from User:68.200.41.196 here from the main article page. The first few paragraphs certainly seem to me to be unsubstantiated assertion, and the last is blatant anti-tax activist POV. —Stormie 00:54, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)
- Some analysts mistakenly think that the 16th amendment created the income tax, or that it created an exception to the apportionment rule for direct taxes. There is no question that the Internal Revenue Commissioner's agents, the IRS, collects taxes directly from the people, and since income is personal property, such a collection appears to be a direct taxation. Regardless of appearances, such analysts are wrong.
- The 16th amendment did not confer any new power of taxation. Article 1 Section 8 specifically grants Congress the power to tax the people, and an income tax falls within that power.
- The 16th amendment did not create an exception to the apportionment rule for direct taxes. Instead, by declaring that the income tax does not follow the rule of apportionment prescribed in Article 1 Section 3, it categorically classified income tax as an "indirect" tax. Since a tax on one's person, money, income, or property is, by definition, a direct tax, an indirect tax (such as an impost, duty, excise, or tariff) must therefore be a tax on an activity, event, happening, or occurrence.
- The income itself is not the subject of the income tax (or the tax on income). It is merely the means of measuring the amount of tax owed.
- The question all citizens should ask (and demand answers of their legislators) is: what is the subject of the income tax? The tax code (Title 26 USC) stipulates only the manufacture or import of alcohol, tobacco, or firearms, as activities that are taxable for revenue purposes. Why, then, do so many Americans think they magically "owe" a tax on wages?
POV text removed
- Whereas most amendments protect the freedoms of citizens (Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, right to vote, etc.), income tax takes away the natural right of a citizen to keep the all the fruits of his or her labor.
This statement is blatantly anti-tax POV. Also, the 16th Amendment is not the first provision of the Constitution to authorize taxation. -- Beland 21:32, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
still non-NPOV
I'm a newbie around here, so I'm not comfortable editing the article, but it seems to be that it's still not NPOV. In particular:
- In spite of the questionable ratification of the 16th amendment, the amendment was certified in 1913 making it part of the Constitution.
The position that the ratification of the 16th Amendment was "questionable" is decidedly non-mainstream.
- Taxation is an infringement on that right
That's an opinion, not a universally accepted fact.
