How does the 16th Amendment make the Income Tax possible?
A. Quite simply, the 16th Amendment authorizes the Congress to lay and collect a tax on any income. That’s what the amendment says, and that’s what is does. In follow-up: Q32. “I didn’t find myself enlightened by the answer…. Perhaps a better way to phrase the question would be, why couldn’t an income tax be levied without the 16th amendment? I know that Congress tried to pass an income tax before the 16th amendment but the Supreme Court struck it down. What was the Supreme Court’s rationale for doing so? If, as the FAQ says ‘the 16th Amendment authorizes the Congress to lay and collect a tax on any income,’ what kinds of income could they tax before, and what part of the Constitution so limits them?” A. The question, then, is WHY was it was needed. The issue is not that the Constitution otherwise forbids an income tax, but that it does not otherwise permit one. Without an amendment to specifically state that an income tax was constitutional, any income tax proposed by the Congress w
