January 24, 1916: In Brushaber vs. Union Pacific Railroad, the Supreme Court ruled: that the 16th Amendment doesn’t over-rule the Court’s ruling in the Pollock case which declared general income taxes unconstitutional; The 16th Amendment applies only to gains and profits from commercial and investment activities: The 16th Amendment only applies to excises taxes; The 16th Amendment did not Amend the U.S. Constitution; The 16th Amendment only clarified the federal governments existing authority to create excise taxes without apportionment.
…the [16th] Amendment contains nothing repudiating or challenging the ruling in the Pollock Case that the word direct had a broader significance since it embraced also taxes levied directly on personal property because of its ownership, and therefore the Amendment at least impliedly makes such wider significance a part of the Constitution -- a condition which clearly demonstrates that the purpose was not to change the existing interpretation except to the extent necessary to accomplish the result intended, that is, the prevention of the resort to the sources from which a taxed income was derived in order to cause a direct tax on the income to be a direct tax on the source itself and thereby to take an income tax out of the class of excises, duties and imposts and place it in the class of direct taxes...
Indeed in the light of the history which we have given and of the decision in the Pollock Case and the ground upon which the ruling in that case was based, there is no escape from the Conclusion that the Amendment was drawn for the purpose of doing away for the future with the principle upon which the Pollock Case was decided, that is, of determining whether a tax on income was direct not by a consideration of the burden placed on the taxed income upon which it directly operated, but by taking into view the burden which resulted on the property from which the income was derived, since in express terms the Amendment provides that income taxes, from whatever source the income may be derived, shall not be subject to the regulation of apportionment…
January 24, 1916: In Brushaber vs. Union Pacific Railroad, the Supreme Court ruled: that the 16th Amendment doesn’t over-rule the Court’s ruling in the Pollock case which declared general income taxes unconstitutional; The 16th Amendment applies only to gains and profits from commercial and investment activities: The 16th Amendment only applies to excises taxes; The 16th Amendment did not Amend the U.S. Constitution; The 16th Amendment only clarified the federal governments existing authority to create excise taxes without apportionment.
…the [16th] Amendment contains nothing repudiating or challenging the ruling in the Pollock Case that the word direct had a broader significance since it embraced also taxes levied directly on personal property because of its ownership, and therefore the Amendment at least impliedly makes such wider significance a part of the Constitution -- a condition which clearly demonstrates that the purpose was not to change the existing interpretation except to the extent necessary to accomplish the result intended, that is, the prevention of the resort to the sources from which a taxed income was derived in order to cause a direct tax on the income to be a direct tax on the source itself and thereby to take an income tax out of the class of excises, duties and imposts and place it in the class of direct taxes...
Indeed in the light of the history which we have given and of the decision in the Pollock Case and the ground upon which the ruling in that case was based, there is no escape from the Conclusion that the Amendment was drawn for the purpose of doing away for the future with the principle upon which the Pollock Case was decided, that is, of determining whether a tax on income was direct not by a consideration of the burden placed on the taxed income upon which it directly operated, but by taking into view the burden which resulted on the property from which the income was derived, since in express terms the Amendment provides that income taxes, from whatever source the income may be derived, shall not be subject to the regulation of apportionment…