AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

Article I. Section 2. … Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

a "direct tax" is a tax exacted directly from the person on whom the ultimate burden of the tax is expected to fall.

http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=direct+tax&x=30&y=6
Main Entry: direct tax Pronunciation Guide
Function: noun
: a tax exacted directly from the person on whom the ultimate burden of the tax is expected to fall <property, income, gift, inheritance, and poll taxes are generally included under direct taxes>

The Court then upheld the unapportioned income tax imposed under the 1864 Act, rejecting William Springer's argument that the income tax was a "direct tax" within the meaning of Article I.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

You ignore the constitutional version of who decides meanings. The USSC decided that income taxes are NOT direct taxes under the constitution in 1880.

Article VI. … This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

The Supreme Court did not rule that all income taxes were direct taxes. Instead, the Court held that although generally income taxes are indirect taxes (excises) authorized by the United States Constitution in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1, the taxes on interest, dividends and rents under the 1894 Act had a profound effect on the underlying assets.

We are of opinion that the law in question, so far as it levies a tax on the rents or income of real estate, is in violation of the constitution, and is invalid.

I understand your point of view. However, I am not asking for an interpretation of Constitutional court cases. I am asking for your own direct interpretation of the Constitution as written.

Frankly, okie, I think the court cases on this issue are irrelevant for the reasons you have already cited. That is, too many of these court decisions are politcally motivated and not legally motivated. My way of saying that is, too many of these court cases are legislating the Constiotution and not interpreting it.

However, I respect your position and will not further harass you on this topic.

Of course the Federal government would have been smaller if the constitution was strictly adhered to as you imply it has not been. Let's get rid of the air force since there is no provision in the constitution for any such thing.

Then we need to get rid of long term military research or procurement contracts since we can only appropriate money for 2 years according to the constitution.

Article I. Section 8. To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

Certainly one could argue that the intent of the 2 year limit on army funding was to prevent a standing army. So let's get rid of any armies except at time of declared war.

If only we had followed the strict interpretation of the constitution.........

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005921.html
History of the Income Tax in the United States
Source: Tax Foundation.
The nation had few taxes in its early history. From 1791 to 1802, the United States government was supported by internal taxes on distilled spirits, carriages, refined sugar, tobacco and snuff, property sold at auction, corporate bonds, and slaves. The high cost of the War of 1812 brought about the nation's first sales taxes on gold, silverware, jewelry, and watches. In 1817, however, Congress did away with all internal taxes, relying on tariffs on imported goods to provide sufficient funds for running the government.

In 1862, in order to support the Civil War effort, Congress enacted the nation's first income tax law. It was a forerunner of our modern income tax in that it was based on the principles of graduated, or progressive, taxation and of withholding income at the source. During the Civil War, a person earning from $600 to $10,000 per year paid tax at the rate of 3%. Those with incomes of more than $10,000 paid taxes at a higher rate. Additional sales and excise taxes were added, and an “inheritance” tax also made its debut. In 1866, internal revenue collections reached their highest point in the nation's 90-year history"more than $310 million, an amount not reached again until 1911.

The Act of 1862 established the office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue. The Commissioner was given the power to assess, levy, and collect taxes, and the right to enforce the tax laws through seizure of property and income and through prosecution. The powers and authority remain very much the same today.

In 1868, Congress again focused its taxation efforts on tobacco and distilled spirits and eliminated the income tax in 1872. It had a short-lived revival in 1894 and 1895. In the latter year, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the income tax was unconstitutional because it was not apportioned among the states in conformity with the Constitution.

In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system. The amendment gave Congress legal authority to tax income and resulted in a revenue law that taxed incomes of both individuals and corporations. In fiscal year 1918, annual internal revenue collections for the first time passed the billion-dollar mark, rising to $5.4 billion by 1920. With the advent of World War II, employment increased, as did tax collections"to $7.3 billion. The withholding tax on wages was introduced in 1943 and was instrumental in increasing the number of taxpayers to 60 million and tax collections to $43 billion by 1945.

In 1981, Congress enacted the largest tax cut in U.S. history, approximately $750 billion over six years. The tax reduction, however, was partially offset by two tax acts, in 1982 and 1984, that attempted to raise approximately $265 billion.

On Oct. 22, 1986, President Reagan signed into law the Tax Reform Act of 1986, one of the most far-reaching reforms of the United States tax system since the adoption of the income tax. The top tax rate on individual income was lowered from 50% to 28%, the lowest it had been since 1916. Tax preferences were eliminated to make up most of the revenue. In an attempt to remain revenue neutral, the act called for a $120 billion increase in business taxation and a corresponding decrease in individual taxation over a five-year period.

Following what seemed to be a yearly tradition of new tax acts that began in 1986, the Revenue Reconciliation Act of 1990 was signed into law on Nov. 5, 1990. As with the '87, '88, and '89 acts, the 1990 act, while providing a number of substantive provisions, was small in comparison with the 1986 act. The emphasis of the 1990 act was increased taxes on the wealthy.

On Aug. 10, 1993, President Clinton signed the Revenue Reconciliation Act of 1993 into law. The act's purpose was to reduce by approximately $496 billion the federal deficit that would otherwise accumulate in fiscal years 1994 through 1998. In 1997, Clinton signed another tax act. The act, which cut taxes by $152 billion, included a cut in capital-gains tax for individuals, a $500 per child tax credit, and tax incentives for education.

President George W. Bush signed a series of tax cuts into law. The largest was the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. It was estimated to save taxpayers $1.3 trillion over ten years, making it the third largest tax cut since World War II. The Bush tax cut created a new lowest rate, 10% for the first several thousand dollars earned. It also established a slow schedule of incremental tax cuts that would eventually double the child tax credit from $500 to $1,000, adjust brackets so that middle-income couples owed the same tax as comparable singles, cut the top four tax rates (28% to 25%; 31% to 28%; 36% to 33%; and 39.6% to 35%).

The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief and Reconciliation Act of 2003 accelerated the tax rate cuts that had been enacted in 2001, and temporarily reduced the tax rate on capital gains and dividends to 15%. In 2004, the U.S. was forced to eliminate a corporate tax provision that had been ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization. Along with that tax hike, Congress passed a cornucopia of tax breaks, which for individuals included an option to deduct the payment of whichever state taxes were higher, sales or income taxes.

Two tax bills signed in 2005 and 2006 extended through 2010 the favorable rates on capital gains and dividends that had been enacted in 2003, raised the exemption levels for the Alternative Minimum Tax, and enacted new tax incentives designed to persuade individuals to save more for retirement.

Enforcement of a truly strict interpretation of our Constitution would have prevented much of the corruption we see today in our federal government.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=157&invol=429
U.S. Supreme Court
POLLOCK v. FARMERS' LOAN & TRUST CO., 157 U.S. 429 (1895)
157 U.S. 429

POLLOCK
v.
FARMERS' LOAN & TRAUST CO. et al. 1
No. 893.


April 8, 1895

...

Nothing can be clearer than that what the constitution intended to guard against was the exercise by the general government of the power of directly taxing persons and property within any state through a majority made up from the other states. It is true that the effect of requiring direct taxes to be apportioned among the states in proportion to their population is necessarily that the amount of taxes on the individual [157 U.S. 429, 583] taxpayer in a state having the taxable subject-matter to a larger extent in proportion to its population than another state has, would be less than in such other state; but this inequality must be held to have been contemplated, and was manifestly designed to operate to restrain the exercise of the power of direct taxation to extraordinary emergencies, and to prevent an attack upon accumulated property by mere force of numbers.

...

But the acceptance of the rule of apportionment was one of the compromises which made the adoption of the constitution possible, and secured the creation of that dual form of government, so elastic and so strong, which has thus far survived in unabated vigor. If, by calling a tax indirect when it is essentially direct, the rule of protection could be frittered away, one of the great landmarks defining the boundary between the nation and the states of which it is composed, would have disappeared, and with it one of the bulwarks of private rights and private property.

...

We are of opinion that the law in question, so far as it levies a tax on the rents or income of real estate, is in violation of the constitution, and is invalid.

...

The result is that the decree of the circuit court is reversed and the cause remanded, with directions to enter a decree in favor of the complainant in respect only of the voluntary payment of the tax on the rents and income of the real estate of the defendant company, and of that which it holds in trust, and on the income from the municipal bonds w ned or so held by it.

...

In a reversal of of the Civil War tax decision, the 1894 tax was held to be unconstitutional by the supreme court on the grounds that certain portions of it were direct taxes, and therefore were invalid because the tax was not apportioned according to population as required by the Constitution.

Okie wrote:

part of the reason for so many problems with lobbyists is the fact that private enterprise has to send people to Washington, to protect their industries from being destroyed by lawyers lawmakers that are totally ignorant of the business enterprise

I agree! Would you post again what you think can be done about this?

That being true, since the 16th Amendment makes no explicit distinction between direct and indirect incomes, the word UNIFORM in Article 1. Section 8., AT THE LEAST, specifies that TAX RATES ON ALL DIRECT DOLLARS OF INCOME MUST BE THE SAME AND NOT BE PROGRESSIVE.

In a reversal of of the Civil War tax decision, the 1894 tax was held to be unconstitutional by the supreme court on the grounds that certain portions of it were direct taxes, and therefore were invalid because the tax was not apportioned according to population as required by the Constitution.

direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers,

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.