| THE SIXTEENTH AMENDMENT Sixteenth Amendment (AKA the “Income Tax Amendment”) (AKA the “Basis of Income Taxation”) Regarding the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution for the United States of America, it provided no constitutional or legislative authority for the income tax as most people know it today. It did however make a statement that allowed the United States Supreme Court to finally determine what class of tax the income tax really is. Legislation for the income tax existed prior to the Sixteenth Amendment and was originally ruled to be unconstitutional because a tax on incomes derived from personal property was a direct tax and could be imposed only by the rule of apportionment according to population. The income tax on “professions, trades, employment or vocations” were considered to be excises and was voided on the ground that Congress never intended to permit the entire “burden of the tax to be borne by professions, trades, employments, or vocations” after real estate and personal property were exempted in 158 U.S. at 635. Because of a series of cases the court thus found it possible to sustain a corporate income tax as an excise “measured by income” on the privilege of doing business in corporate form, Flint v. Stone Tracy Co., 220 U. S. 107 (1911). As quoted by the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress’ co-authors of “The Constitution of the United States of America, Analysis and Interpretation”, Johnny H. Killian and George A. Costello, “The Sixteenth 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.” (Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co., 240 U.S. 103, 112 (1916)) Their work is also known as Senate Document No. 103-6, 103rd Congress, 1st Session and contains annotations of cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States to June 29, 1992. Newer editions available on line. meetup.com/citizenssupportgroup-org(by Announcement Administrator on 7/27/2010 11:20:23 PM) |