Is U.S. income tax invalid?

Reading through the wealth of information and links provided on this thread (thank you guys), and the myriad of sources found through Google searches during the arguments; I've come to some conclusions.

1. Our founding fathers never anticipated an Income Tax that would burden every productive citizen of the United States.

2. The authors of our constitution apparently thought Federal Taxation would be derived from Excise Taxes and Property Taxes and laid out rules to ensure the fairness of each.

What substitute can there be imagined for this ignis fatuus in finance, but that of permitting the national government to raise its own revenues by the ordinary methods of taxation authorized in every well-ordered constitution of civil government?

the federal government must of necessity be invested with an unqualified power of taxation in the ordinary modes.

3. Prior the 16th Amendment, Income Taxes were unconstitutional because they rightly fell into the category of Direct Taxation and were not apportioned accordingly. Only by perverting the definition of the word "direct" is this not so… and unfortunately our fore fathers utterly failed to define it themselves.

4. SC Justices recognized this, probably to a man, but had no choice but to pretend it wasn't so or the United States government would become insolvent with debt for its ill gotten gains. Over and over; the Justices reasoned correctly that apportionment of an Income Tax would create absurd burdens on citizens of the less affluent several states. They knowingly perverted the meaning of the word "direct", so they could avoid admitting that Income Tax itself fell into a category not covered by the Constitution of the United States.

5. The opinion in Springer, relying heavily on the opinion in Hylton, that the constitution couldn't have intended apportionment be applied to an Income Tax is obviously correct. What the opinion utterly failed to address in both cases; was whether the Income Tax itself may have been what was never intended by the constitution. This I believe to be the case.

6. The 16th amendment, whether it was legally ratified or not, was created in recognition of this constitutional shortcoming. I believe it is intentionally vague because its purpose was to simultaneously create the ability to legally collect an Income Tax, while not admitting that it lacked the constitutional right to collect these same Taxes in years past (this would open the government up to enormous liabilities that it obviously could not afford). This is the reason for all the dancing around the term "direct", both in the SC prior to the 16th, and especially in the Congressional Debates over the 16th, and ultimately the reason for its exclusion in the final draft of the 16th.

7. The 16th amendment in effect, created a new form of taxation that hitherto didn't exist constitutionally, since it was, in fact, a form of Direct Taxation with no need for apportionment. The problem remains that in legislation's attempt to disguise the fact that the constitution hitherto didn't provide for such a Tax, they failed to comprehensively create one when they chose to omit the word "Direct".

8. At the time of the passing of 16th amendment; the intention remained to Tax the Incomes of the affluent, without admitting that previous Taxes to do the same were unconstitutional. At this point; this intention is clear by the ramifications of the omnipresent exemption amounts always having been sufficiently high to safeguard the common laborer from the Income Tax. In light of this condition; it is easier to argue that the Tax itself was more of an excise Tax on business, than it was a Direct Tax on every American. This is, I believe, the opinion in Brushaber, and the reason the SC was again able to dance around the term "Direct Tax".

9. It is abundantly clear in hindsight, that the exemption ($600) intended to shield the common laborer from paying this supposed Excise Tax, apparently intended for business, eroded into impotence with inflation (rapidly, on account of the abandonment of the Classical Gold Standard), resulting in effect; of Direct Taxation of every American's Income. I submit this is likely precisely what legislators intended, but refused to actually quantify legally or acknowledge in any way, because they knew, or at least suspected, the American Public would punish them in their outrage. They had sold an Excise Tax that only affected the affluent, but affectively transitioned to a Direct Tax on everyone.

10. To this day the IRS, the DOJ, the Supreme Court, and the overall Legislative body collectively continue to pretend this legislative fraud never took place, out of necessity. How could they do otherwise? An utter lack of reasonable potential remedy forces each of these branches of government to essentially self sustain with straight denial. So paramount is this denial; they've enacted protective measures to thorough persecute and prosecute anyone and everyone who dares challenge the basis upon which this fraud was perpetrated against the American People.

11. In retrospect, it is clear the government did what it needed to do to self sustain. No one could reasonably argue that the Federal government could exist without funding, nor that the founding fathers didn't intend to provide them with avenues to obtain said funding. However, it is perfectly reasonable to presume that the founding fathers did not intend to allow for an overly invasive, ultimately totalitarian means of obtaining it… such as our current system of Internal Revenue. This may very well be the reason it wasn't covered by the original constitution in the first place. Unfortunately, we'll never know.

This simple train of inquiry furnishes us at once with a test by which to judge of the true nature of the clause complained of. It conducts us to this palpable truth, that a power to lay and collect taxes must be a power to pass all laws NECESSARY and PROPER for the execution of that power; and what does the unfortunate and culumniated provision in question do more than declare the same truth, to wit, that the national legislature, to whom the power of laying and collecting taxes had been previously given, might, in the execution of that power, pass all laws NECESSARY and PROPER to carry it into effect?

12. It is a FACT that IRS rules effectively circumvent the 5th amendment by forcing citizens to provide evidence against themselves. It is a FACT that the DOJ's enforcement of IRS rules effectively circumvents both the 5th and 14th amendments in that they utterly deny citizen's due process. There is NO presumption of innocence and, in fact, a citizen is presumed guilty until he can prove otherwise in a court of law… and even then he is hindered by cumbersomely expensive procedural rules and routinely denied hitherto sometimes effective defenses that protection measures have been legislated to prevent (frivolous, my A$$).

13. The United States of America can no more afford to admit their unconstitutional legislation today than they could in 1913… or during any of the SC cases of the past. Since there is no reasonable remedy for repair; the only thing we can do is accept the Internal Revenue with all it's constitutional shortcomings, or abandon it in favor of a system of taxation that both our founding fore fathers and the citizens of today would approved of. Details available HERE. :wink:

The obscurity is much oftener in the passions and prejudices of the reasoner than in the subject. Men, upon too many occasions, do not give their own understandings fair play; but, yielding to some untoward bias, they entangle themselves in words and confound themselves in subtleties.

How else could it happen (if we admit the objectors to be sincere in their opposition), that positions so clear as those which manifest the necessity of a general power of taxation in the government of the Union, should have to encounter any adversaries among men of discernment?

OCCOM BILL wrote:

3. Prior the 16th Amendment, Income Taxes were unconstitutional because they rightly fell into the category of Direct Taxation and were not apportioned accordingly. Only by perverting the definition of the word "direct" is this not so… and unfortunately our fore fathers utterly failed to define it themselves.

This has been pointed out several times to you Bill as being flat out wrong. Income taxes on personal income from labor were found to be constitutional and an indirect tax.

3. Prior the 16th Amendment, Income Taxes were unconstitutional because they rightly fell into the category of Direct Taxation and were not apportioned accordingly. Only by perverting the definition of the word "direct" is this not so… and unfortunately our fore fathers utterly failed to define it themselves.

Upon each of the other questions argued at the bar, to wit: (1) Whether the void provisions as to rents and income from real estate invalidated the whole act; (2) whether, as to the income from personal property, as such, the act is unconstitutional, as laying direct taxes; (3) whether any part of the tax, if not considered as a direct tax, is invalid for want of uniformity on either of the grounds suggested,-the justices who heard the argument are equally divided, and therefore no opinion is expressed.

We have considered the act only in respect of the tax on income derived from real estate, and from invested personal property, and have not commented on so much of it as bears on gains or profits from business, privileges, or employments, in view of the instances in which taxation on business, privileges, or employments has assumed the guise of an excise tax and been sustained as such.

That upon every occasion when it has considered the question whether a duty on incomes was a direct tax, within the meaning of the constitution, this court has, without a dissent- [158 U.S. 601, 661] ing voice, determined it in the negative, always proceeding on the ground that capitation taxes and taxes on land were the only direct taxes contemplated by the framers of the constitution.

If you actually read Springer; you'll see even in the opinion they state no certainty of the definition of "Direct", nor did the SC in Hylton, nor is it defined by the men who originally wrote it for Dog's sake.

We are not aware that any writer, since Hylton v. United States was decided, has expressed a view of the subject different from that of these authors.

Our conclusions are, that direct taxes, within the meaning of the Constitution, are only capitation taxes, as expressed in that instrument, and taxes on real estate; and that the tax of which the plaintiff in error complains is within the category of an excise or duty.

I am inclined to think, but of this I do not give a judicial opinion, that the direct taxes contemplated by the constitution, are only two, to wit, a capitation or poll tax, simply, without regard to property, profession or any other circumstance; and a tax on land. I doubt, whether a tax, by a general assessment of personal property, within the United States, is included within the term direct tax[/b].

I never entertained a doubt, that the principal, I will not say, the only, objects, that the framers of the constitution contemplated, as falling within the rule of apportionment, were a capitation tax and a tax on land.

There is no necessity or propriety, in determining what is or is not, a direct or indirect tax, in all cases. Some difficulties may occur, which we do not at present foresee. Perhaps, a direct tax, in the sense of the constitution, can mean nothing but a tax on something inseparably annexed to the soil: something capable of apportionment, under all such circumstances. A land or a poll tax may be considered of this description.

That's funny, TTH.

In Hylton we have the following statements
Hylton ruling
Justice Chase

Quote:

I am inclined to think, but of this I do not give a judicial opinion, that the direct taxes contemplated by the constitution, are only two, to wit, a capitation or poll tax, simply, without regard to property, profession or any other circumstance; and a tax on land. I doubt, whether a tax, by a general assessment of personal property, within the United States, is included within the term direct tax[/b].

Justic Patersons states

Quote:

I never entertained a doubt, that the principal, I will not say, the only, objects, that the framers of the constitution contemplated, as falling within the rule of apportionment, were a capitation tax and a tax on land.

Justice Iredell

Quote:

There is no necessity or propriety, in determining what is or is not, a direct or indirect tax, in all cases. Some difficulties may occur, which we do not at present foresee. Perhaps, a direct tax, in the sense of the constitution, can mean nothing but a tax on something inseparably annexed to the soil: something capable of apportionment, under all such circumstances. A land or a poll tax may be considered of this description.

Now I agree that there is uncertainty in the meaning of "direct" in the Hylton ruling.

However Bill, you stated. "Only by perverting the definition of the word "direct" is this not so" Only is an absolute Bill. It is you that is making absolute statements in direct contradiction to the uncertainty.

As to your clearly printed words, Bill. I read them as written. Did you not mean them as an absolute? As written they are NOT factual.

The income tax as a whole was not unconstitutional and direct could not "only" be read your way without perverting the definition. Paterson was at the constitutional convention. Do his words not count?

Book Five

Of the Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth.



CHAPTER II

Of the Sources of the General or Public Revenue of the Society

ARTICLE IV

Taxes which, it is intended, should fall indifferently upon every different Species of Revenue

Taxes upon Consumable Commodities

The impossibility of taxing the people, in proportion to their revenue, by any capitation, seems to have given occasion to the invention of taxes upon consumable commodities. The state, not knowing how to tax, directly and proportionably, the revenue of its subjects, endeavours to tax it indirectly by taxing their expense, which, it is supposed, will in most cases be nearly in proportion to their revenue. Their expense is taxed by taxing the consumable commodities upon which it is laid out.

Consumable commodities are either necessaries or luxuries.

By necessaries I understand not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without. A linen shirt, for example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessary of life. The Greeks and Romans lived, I suppose, very comfortably though they had no linen. But in the present times, through the greater part of Europe, a creditable day-labourer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt, the want of which would be supposed to denote that disgraceful degree of poverty which, it is presumed, nobody can well fall into without extreme bad conduct. Custom, in the same manner, has rendered leather shoes a necessary of life in England. The poorest creditable person of either sex would be ashamed to appear in public without them. In Scotland, custom has rendered them a necessary of life to the lowest order of men; but not to the same order of women, who may, without any discredit, walk about barefooted. In France they are necessaries neither to men nor to women, the lowest rank of both sexes appearing there publicly, without any discredit, sometimes in wooden shoes, and sometimes barefooted. Under necessaries, therefore, I comprehend not only those things which nature, but those things which the established rules of decency have rendered necessary to the lowest rank of people. All other things I call luxuries, without meaning by this appellation to throw the smallest degree of reproach upon the temperate use of them. Beer and ale, for example, in Great Britain, and wine, even in the wine countries, I call luxuries. A man of any rank may, without any reproach, abstain totally from tasting such liquors. Nature does not render them necessary for the support of life, and custom nowhere renders it indecent to live without them.

As the wages of labour are everywhere regulated, partly by the demand for it, and partly by the average price of the necessary articles of subsistence, whatever raises this average price must necessarily raise those wages so that the labourer may still be able to purchase that quantity of those necessary articles which the state of the demand for labour, whether increasing, stationary, or declining, requires that he should have. A tax upon those articles necessarily raises their price somewhat higher than the amount of the tax, because the dealer, who advances the tax, must generally get it back with a profit. Such a tax must, therefore, occasion a rise in the wages of labour proportionable to this rise of price.

It is thus that a tax upon the necessaries of life operates exactly in the same manner as a direct tax upon the wages of labour.

Only by perverting the definition of the word "direct" is this not so… and unfortunately our fore fathers utterly failed to define it themselves.

4. SC Justices recognized this, probably to a man, but had no choice but to pretend it wasn't so or the United States government would become insolvent with debt for its ill gotten gains.

parados wrote:

In Hylton we have the following statements
Hylton ruling
Justice Chase

Quote:

I am inclined to think, but of this I do not give a judicial opinion, that the direct taxes contemplated by the constitution, are only two, to wit, a capitation or poll tax, simply, without regard to property, profession or any other circumstance; and a tax on land. I doubt, whether a tax, by a general assessment of personal property, within the United States, is included within the term direct tax[/b].

Justice Chase wouldn't even give this as a judicial opinion. How sure was he?

parados wrote:

Justic Patersons states

Quote:

I never entertained a doubt, that the principal, I will not say, the only, objects, that the framers of the constitution contemplated, as falling within the rule of apportionment, were a capitation tax and a tax on land.

This is absurd. Our framers weren't known for vagueness. If this is all they meant; why not just say so? Justice Paterson betrays himself with his false certainty.

parados wrote:

Justice Iredell

Quote:

There is no necessity or propriety, in determining what is or is not, a direct or indirect tax, in all cases. Some difficulties may occur, which we do not at present foresee. Perhaps, a direct tax, in the sense of the constitution, can mean nothing but a tax on something inseparably annexed to the soil: something capable of apportionment, under all such circumstances. A land or a poll tax may be considered of this description.

In other words; he knows for sure that land and poll taxes are definitely Direct Taxes (Yep, water is wet.) Other than that, he doesn't claim to know... but does offer the opinion that there is no necessity to determine what does or does not constitute a Direct Tax. Hogwash... that is the very question he is supposedly answering.

Neither Justices Cushing nor Elsworth heard the arguments or offered opinions. Of the 3 that did; one refused to give a judicial opinion, one said it didn't matter (both used the language of uncertainty) ...

...and the ONLY guy left is Patterson, who claims he had NO DOUBT that the framers meant only capitation tax and a tax on land... which is absurd on it's face because if that was the case they would have simply written that.