How can one argue that US income tax is unconstitutional?
Income taxation falls under the 16th Amendment of the Constitution. Arguments have been made that this amendment was never fully ratified. Below is an excerpt from: http://www.wealth4freedom.com/16thHistory.htm “Strange as it may seem, the Sixteenth Amendment (which gave the American people the affliction of confiscatory income taxes) was never supposed to have passed. It was introduced by the Republicans as part of a political scheme to trick the Democrats, but it backfired. Background The Founding Fathers had rejected income taxes (or any other direct taxes) unless they were apportioned to each state according to population. Nevertheless, an income tax was levied during the Civil War and upheld by the Supreme Court on somewhat tenuous reasoning. When another income tax was enacted in 1893, the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional. In connection with the two Pollock cases reviewed in 1895, the Court declared that the act violated Article I, section 9 of the Constitution. During the
There are only two general types of taxes authorized by the Constitution; Direct, and Indirect, period. The 16th Amendment did NOT authorize some new form of taxation… “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 of being able to tax people outside direct and indirect, as they are being taxed today – JTM) that is, a power to levy an income tax which, although direct, should not be subject to the regulations 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…” “But it clearly results that the proposition and the contentions under it -(the 16th Amendment), if acceded to, would cause one provision of the Constitution to destroy another; that is, they would result in bringing the provisions of the (1
