Supreme Court - Last day of opinions today. What if...

posted 2 years ago by JonathanE 2 years ago by JonathanE +60 / -1

..they repealed the 16th Amendment (Congress can collect income taxes, 1913).

Is that even possible?

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– TRYNEIN 5 points 2 years ago +5 / -0

The Supreme Court is bound by the Constitution. In Article I, Section 8, the Constitution grants jurisdiction to the federal government to regulate three areas of commerce: “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes” – in other words, foreign commerce, interstate commerce, and Indian commerce.

The 16th Amendment, the income tax, has been the subject of many Supreme Court decisions. The IRS always cites to the Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916), to inform the public that the 16th Amendment was held to be constitutional by the Supreme Court. What the IRS doesn’t inform the public about Mr. Frank Brushaber, the central character in the Supreme Court case, is that he was a withholding agent for several foreign investors in the Union Pacific Railroad, acting as their fiduciary.

The Supreme Court, obviously being aware of all of the pertinent details, ruled in the Brushaber case that the federal government always had the power to tax income as an excise tax and, therefore, the 16th Amendment is constitutional. The Supreme Court then ruled in the very next case it decided, Stanton v. Baltic Mining, 240 US 103 (1916), the following: “… that by the previous ruling it was settled that the provisions of 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 and being placed in the category of direct taxation subject to apportionment by a consideration of the sources from which the income was derived…”. The ”previous ruling” cited in the Stanton decision was referring to the Brushaber decision.

A few years later the Supreme Court again ruled upon the 16th Amendment’s effect on the federal government’s power of taxation. In Peck & Co. v. Lowe, 247 US 165 (1918), the Supreme Court stated, in part: “The Sixteenth Amendment … does not extend the taxing power to new or excepted subjects …”.

The Supreme Court decisions above all inform everyone that no new power of taxation was granted to the federal government by the 16th Amendment. These decisions all inform everyone that the federal government always had the power to tax income from the beginning. Since no new power of taxation was granted to the federal government by the 16th Amendment and the federal government was held to always have had the power to tax income, then the revenue that’s being derived by the federal government from an income tax must come from one of the regulated commerce jurisdictions granted to the federal government by the Constitution – therefore, this revenue must come from foreign commerce, interstate commerce, commerce. After all, generating income is a commercial activity.

The Supreme Court ruled exactly that in Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189 (1920), where the Court stated the following: “The 16th Amendment must be construed in connection with the taxing clauses of the original Constitution and the effect attributed to them before the Amendment was adopted.”.

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– TRYNEIN 2 points 2 years ago +2 / -0

Income is NOT everything that “comes in”:

 We must reject ... the broad contention submitted in behalf of the Government that all receipts -- everything that comes in -- are incomewithin the proper definition of "gross income" ....

[Southern Pacific Co. v. John Z. Lowe, 247 U.S. 330]

Corporate profits are "income":

 [Income] imports, as used here, something entirely distinct from principal or capital either as a subject of taxation or as a measure of the tax;  conveying rather the idea of gain or increase arising from corporate activities.

[Emanuel J. Doyle v. Mitchell Brothers Co., 247 U.S. 179]

Congress CANNOT change the Constitution:

 In order, therefore, that the clauses cited above from Article I of the Constitution may have proper force and effect  ... it becomes essential to distinguish between what is and what is not "income," as the term is there used;  and to apply the distinction ... according to truth and substance, without regard to form.  Congress cannot by any definition it may adopt conclude the matter, since it cannot by legislation alter the Constitution, from which alone it derives its power to legislate, and within whose limitations alone that power can be lawfully exercised.

[Mark Eisner v. Myrtle H. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189]

Again, "income" is a gain, a profit:

 Here we have the essential matter -- not a gain accruing to capital, not a growth or increment of value in the investment;  but a gain, a profit, something of exchangeable value proceeding from the property, severed from the capital however invested or employed, and coming in, being "derived," that is received or drawn by the recipient (the taxpayer) for his separate use, benefit, and disposal -- that is income derived from property.  Nothing else answers the description.

[Mark Eisner v. Myrtle H. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189]

The Supreme Court has REPEATEDLY ruled that compensation for professional services is not "income":

       In determining the definition of the word "income" thus arrived at, this court has consistently refused to enter into the refinements of lexicographers and economists and has approved, in the definitions quoted, what it believed to be the commonly understood meaning of the term ....

       We continue entirely satisfied with that definition, and, since the fund here taxed was the amount realized from the sale of the stock in 1917, less the capital investment as determined by the trustee as of March 1, 1913, it is palpable that it was a "gain or profit" "produced by" or "derived from" that investment, and that it "proceeded," and was "severed" or rendered severable, from, by the sale for cash, and thereby became that "realized gain" which has been repeatedly declared to be taxable income ....

[Merchant's Loan & Trust v. Smietanka, 255 U.S. 509]

"Income" has been legally and officially defined:

 And the definition of "income" approved by this Court is:  "The gain derived from capital, from labor, or from both combined," provided it beunderstood to include profit gained through a sale or conversion of capital assets.  ...  It is thus very plain that the statute imposes the income tax on the proceeds of the sale of personal property to the extent only that gains are derived therefrom by the vendor ....

[Goodrich v. Edwards, 255 U.S. 527]

You do NOT obtain "income" by charging for services rendered:

 The phraseology of form 1040 is somewhat obscure ....  But it matters little what it does mean;  the statute and the statute alone determines what is income to be taxed.  It taxes only income "derived" from many different sources;  one does not "derive income" by rendering services and charging for them.

[Edwards v. Keith, 231 F. 111 (2nd Cir.)]

No gain, no income -- no income, no tax:

 Income is nothing more nor less than realized gain ....  It is not synonymous with receipts ....  Whatever may constitute income, therefore, must have the essential feature of gain to the recipient ....  If there is no gain, there is no income.

[Conner v. U.S., 303 F.Supp. 1187]

"Income" means "gain" -- "gain" means "profit":

 Income" ... means "gain" "derived" from, and not accruing to, capital or labor or from both combined, including profit gained through the sale or conversion of capital, the gain not being taxable until realized, and, in such connection, "gain" means profit or something of exchangeable value, and "derived" means proceeding from property, severed from capital, however invested or employed, and coming in, received or drawn by taxpayer for his separate use, benefit, and disposal.

[Staples v. U.S., E.D. Penna., 21 F.Supp. 737]

Wages and profits are two DIFFERENT things:

 There is a clear distinction between "profit" and "wages" or compensation for labor.  Compensation for labor cannot be regarded as profit within the meaning of the law.

[Oliver v. Halstead, 196 Va. 992; 86 S.E. 2d 858]

Payment for labor is NOT profit:

 Reasonable compensation for labor or services rendered is not profit.

[Laureldale Cemetery Assoc. v. Matthews] [345 Pa. 239; 47 A. 2d 277, 280]

The meaning of "income" has been CONSISTENT in law:

 ... "Income" has been taken to mean the same thing as used in the Corporation Excise Tax Act of 1909, in the Sixteenth Amendment and in the various revenue acts subsequently passed ...

                    [Bowers v. Kerbaugh-Empire Co., 271 U.S. 174]-

Again, "income" has had the SAME MEANING in law:

 ... and before the 1921 Act this Court had indicated ... what it later held, that "income," as used in the revenue acts taxing income, adopted since the 16th Amendment, has the same meaning that it had in the Act of 1909.

[Burnet v. Harmel, 287 U.S. 103]

"Income" is NOT the same as "gross receipts":

 Constitutionally the only thing that can be taxed by Congress is "income."  And the tax actually imposed by Congress has been on net income as distinct from gross income.  The tax is not, never has been and could not constitutionally be upon "gross receipts" ....

[Anderson Oldsmobile, Inc. v. Hofferbert, USDC Maryland] [102 F.Supp. 902]

Try to find a principle that is better settled:

 Remember that our source is not some "tax protest" group.  Just about everything we are telling you comes from the U.S. Supreme Court.  It would be difficult, and perhaps impossible, in our system of jurisprudence, to find a principle better settled than the one we have been citing.

[Alan Stang, Tax Scam, Mt. Sinai Press, POB 1220] [Alta Loma 91701, CALIF. 1988]