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Repealing the Sixteenth Amendment would accomplish nothing.
The 16th Amendment was passed to close a loophole created by the case of Pollock v. Farmers Loan & Trust, United States Supreme Court, 158 U.S. 601, 1895.
Mr. Pollock argued that federal stock he had purchased was his personal property, and that taxing the federal dividends from that stock was equivalent to taxing personal property, which was an unapportioned direct tax prohibited under Article I of the Constitution. The Supreme Court agreed, and struck those particular sections from the tax code.
The sole purpose of the amendment was to close this loophole and restore to Congress the power to tax federal dividends, even if those federal dividends were derived from personal property - hence the “source derived” language found in the amendment.
Contrary to internet lore, the amendment didn't create the income tax we know and loathe today, it didn't transform the income tax into a unapportioned direct tax, nor did it modify, repeal, revoke or affect the apportionment requirement for capitations and other direct taxes found in the Constitution. It simply prohibits the courts from using the overruled reasoning of the Pollock decision to shield otherwise excisable dividends and rents from the tax.
"The Supreme Court, in a decision written by Chief Justice White, first noted that the Sixteenth Amendment did not authorize any new type of tax, nor did it repeal or revoke the tax clauses of Article I of the Constitution, quoted above. Direct taxes were, notwithstanding the advent of the Sixteenth Amendment, still subject to the rule of apportionment..."
Legislative Attorney of the American Law Division of the Library of Congress Howard M. Zaritsky in his 1979 Report No. 80-19A, entitled 'Some Constitutional Questions Regarding the Federal Income Tax Laws'.
The very suggestion of a non-apportioned direct tax is completely incoherent, because that would cause:
“...one provision of the Constitution [to] destroy another; that is, [it] would result in bringing the provisions of the Amendment [supposedly] exempting a direct tax from apportionment into irreconcilable conflict with the general requirement that all direct taxes be apportioned. ... 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."
Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916)
I wish the 16th amendment was repealed, but then we’d see a federal sales tax or something to that effect replace it. I wish we could amend the 16th amendment so we have a flat rate income tax, thus denying the left’s ability to use tax policy to wage class warfare.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank you, pede!
Repealing the Sixteenth Amendment would accomplish nothing.
The 16th Amendment was passed to close a loophole created by the case of Pollock v. Farmers Loan & Trust, United States Supreme Court, 158 U.S. 601, 1895.
Mr. Pollock argued that federal stock he had purchased was his personal property, and that taxing the federal dividends from that stock was equivalent to taxing personal property, which was an unapportioned direct tax prohibited under Article I of the Constitution. The Supreme Court agreed, and struck those particular sections from the tax code.
The sole purpose of the amendment was to close this loophole and restore to Congress the power to tax federal dividends, even if those federal dividends were derived from personal property - hence the “source derived” language found in the amendment.
Contrary to internet lore, the amendment didn't create the income tax we know and loathe today, it didn't transform the income tax into a unapportioned direct tax, nor did it modify, repeal, revoke or affect the apportionment requirement for capitations and other direct taxes found in the Constitution. It simply prohibits the courts from using the overruled reasoning of the Pollock decision to shield otherwise excisable dividends and rents from the tax.
"The Supreme Court, in a decision written by Chief Justice White, first noted that the Sixteenth Amendment did not authorize any new type of tax, nor did it repeal or revoke the tax clauses of Article I of the Constitution, quoted above. Direct taxes were, notwithstanding the advent of the Sixteenth Amendment, still subject to the rule of apportionment..." Legislative Attorney of the American Law Division of the Library of Congress Howard M. Zaritsky in his 1979 Report No. 80-19A, entitled 'Some Constitutional Questions Regarding the Federal Income Tax Laws'.
The very suggestion of a non-apportioned direct tax is completely incoherent, because that would cause:
“...one provision of the Constitution [to] destroy another; that is, [it] would result in bringing the provisions of the Amendment [supposedly] exempting a direct tax from apportionment into irreconcilable conflict with the general requirement that all direct taxes be apportioned. ... 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." Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916)
I wish the 16th amendment was repealed, but then we’d see a federal sales tax or something to that effect replace it. I wish we could amend the 16th amendment so we have a flat rate income tax, thus denying the left’s ability to use tax policy to wage class warfare.
limit it to a certain % if that were to happen