Capitation Taxes - Redux

[Weston White]

I have carefully stated THREE TIMES that the Act of 1798 was considered a capitation tax on slaves by the Supreme Court in Springer and Veazie, and I explained at least once that the act called itself a direct tax, though the result was a capitation.

It does not matter what SCOTUS called it, if the Act itself is in disagreement, is not in support with what is cited, perhaps the Justice was misquoted by the stenographer or used the wrong term and was never corrected or perhaps the Justice used the word in reference to it as a poll-tax. We do know that various states laid such taxes using different methods of direct taxation. Though regardless, if the Act itself did not levy a capitation tax and instead levies a direct tax, the Justice misspoke or misquoted something.

THAT'S what I mean when I say that Springer and Veazie discuss the meaning of a capitation only in terms of a direct tax on persons, or a class of persons such as slaves.

The Supreme Court NOWHERE discusses a capitation in any other manner.

Yes the case cited Hamilton or did you miss that to? If so I quoted it a few posts back. BTW, you way to fixated on this case, while completely ignoring other cases such as SCOTUS... gee I wonder why, laff.

Though in the end the most that can be said from your little reference quote is that "It will thus be seen that whenever the government has imposed a tax which it recognized as a direct tax, it has never been applied to any objects but real estate and slaves.", therefore direct taxes were not levied upon persons in consideration of anything and understandably so, imagine the dismay of the people having their revenue taxed without good reason. Revolution!

[LPC]

Which is what Famspear said.

No that is not what he said.

Functional illiteracy strikes another not-so-helpless victim.

WW, let me put it to you plainly: You are a fool, you are a fraud, and you are a fundamental idiot.

And, because I have called you a "fundamental idiot," I have not actually called you an idiot, because a "fundamental idiot" is different from an idiot in the same way that a "fundamental law" is different from a law.

Which is another riposte to your ignorance, stupidity, illiteracy, and delusions that you will be completely incapable of understanding.

[LPC]

Then cite one case that supports that definition of "capitation."

I already did, read POLLOCK yourself, it is very clear.

Yes, it is.

From you:

Capitation Taxes - Tax in consideration of ones labor or business.

From Pollock:

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. 158 U.S. at 635.

Translation: You lose.

[Weston White]

This review shows that personal property, contracts, occupations, and the like have never been regarded by Congress as proper subjects of direct tax. It has been supposed that slaves must be considered as an exception to this observation. But the exception is rather apparent than real. As persons, slaves were proper subjects of a capitation tax, which is described in the Constitution as a direct tax; as property, they were, by the laws of some if not most of the states, classed as real property, descendible to heirs. Under the first view, they would be subject to the tax of 1798 as a capitation tax; under the latter, they would be subject to the taxation of the other years as realty. That the latter view was that taken by the framers of the acts after 1798, becomes highly probable, when it is considered, that in the states where slaves were held, must of the value which would possessed within the land passed into the slaves. If, indeed, the land only had been valued without the slaves, the land would have been subject to much heavier proportional imposition in those states than in states where there were no slaves, for the proportion of tax imposed on each state was determined by population, without reference to the subjects on which it was to be assessed.

Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 75 U.S. 8 Wall. 533 533 (1869)

Actually, what this is saying is that Congress regarded it to be improper to levy a direct tax upon "personal property, contracts, occupations", though that is not say that they could not if they wanted to. At the same time this means that these are in fact objects or subjects taxable only under direct taxes, otherwise they would have as well included a discussion about imposts, duties, and excises or would not have included a discussion of them at all.

[Paul]

Springer and Pollock you goober-dork.

Springer didn't overrule Hylton. It agreed with Hylton -- because direct taxes mean ONLY capitations and taxes on property, taxing the gentleman's income from his labor and from his bonds was not a direct tax. Springer was a lawyer, but engaging in the practice of law was not a privilege granted by the federal government, and the court never said it was. They just said that a tax on income is not a direct tax, since it is neither a capitation nor a tax on property.

Pollock held that a tax on income derived from property WAS a tax on the property, and therefore a direct tax under the Hylton definition. It agreed with Springer that taxes on income from employments, etc., were indirect.

So you're still at zero.

[Weston White]

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. 158 U.S. at 635.

No this is an 'income tax', POLLOCK found that such taxes should be regarded as a direct tax, did you forget already? This is why the XVI Amendment later came long. This has nothing to do with laboring itself, this regarding gains and profits from business activities, privileges e.g. being an attorney, investments, etc.. laboring is not withing such a class.

[ASITStands]

As was stated before, "It's like arguing with a first-grader!"

No matter what you say, you're wrong, and Weston's right.

It's either a stubborn refusal to consider anything other than a preconceived opinion or a total blindness to reality and clear, concise language. Weston is obviously smarter than I, and he's obviously smarter than all the Supreme Court Justices who preceded him.

I yield to his superior intelligence. I have no further time for him.

[Weston White]

Springer and Pollock you goober-dork.

Springer didn't overrule Hylton. It agreed with Hylton -- because direct taxes mean ONLY capitations and taxes on property, taxing the gentleman's income from his labor and from his bonds was not a direct tax. Springer was a lawyer, but engaging in the practice of law was not a privilege granted by the federal government, and the court never said it was. They just said that a tax on income is not a direct tax, since it is neither a capitation nor a tax on property.

Pollock held that a tax on income derived from property WAS a tax on the property, and therefore a direct tax under the Hylton definition. It agreed with Springer that taxes on income from employments, etc., were indirect.

So you're still at zero.

Nope provide quotes please, I do not trust anything you type.


And specifically provide quote linky please:

"but engaging in the practice of law was not a privilege granted by the federal government, and the court never said it was"

[Weston White]

As was stated before, "It's like arguing with a first-grader!"

No matter what you say, you're wrong, and Weston's right.

It's either a stubborn refusal to consider anything other than a preconceived opinion or a total blindness to reality and clear, concise language. Weston is obviously smarter than I, and he's obviously smarter than all the Supreme Court Justices who preceded him.

I yield to his superior intelligence. I have no further time for him.

No what is going on here is every single one of you fail to make the distinction between when capitation tax is referenced and when other direct tax is referenced.

[Famspear]

Yawn..... Still copying and pasting the same old scams from other tax protesters, eh Weston?

As you and I both know, the nature of Mr. Springer's income (interest income on bonds and compensation for personal services) not only was not material to the holding in the case, the nature of that income wasn't even mentioned by the Court in that case.

And, of course, the tax in question was indeed the federal income tax:

The central and controlling question in this case is whether the tax which was levied on the income, gains, and profits of the plaintiff in error [ . . . .] is a direct tax.

And don't try to tell us that the "income tax" is not "the tax which was levied on the income, gains, and profits" of Mr. Springer.

As you and I both know, there was no mention in the Court's decision of attorney's fees, interest income on bonds, federal privilege, lack of federal privilege, etc., etc. (Everyone knows that tax protesters get that information from the text of the Pollock case, and then try to fool people into believing that the Springer ruling is something other than what it was.)

You, Weston, still have not snapped to the realization that nothing you can say will fool anyone here (or you just don't care). We've already studied all these cases, long before you came here. And we've already refuted your nonsense -- long before you came here. How? Because your nonsense is a repetition of the same old scam that crooks have been posting on the internet for years. You delude yourself to believe that you can somehow find a theory that will work.

Cases like Springer, Pollock and so on will never mean what you want them to mean, Weston -- no matter how many posts you make here at Quatloos or other web sites. You cannot change the holdings of the courts. You cannot change the principles of proper legal analysis. You cannot change the legal point that "wage" means what the courts rule the term to mean, not what Pete Hendrickson claims the word means. You cannot change the point that Adam Smith, an eighteenth century foreign economist, will never replace the U.S. courts as the authoritative, primary authority in the interpretation of U.S. law. All your writing about capitations and poll taxes and direct taxes and indirect taxes is just nonsense that not only does not persuade anyone who knows the law, but also does not get you anywhere. The law is what we say the law is -- not what you say the law is.

There is something that you can change, though, Weston. You can change your own belief system. You can work to reduce your obsessions - in particular, your obsessive Anti-Authority feelings. You can stop trying to feed this nonsensical set of feelings you have about how the tax law should work.

You can also study and learn how to analyze the law properly. You can also study and learn how to organize your thoughts so that your writing will make sense.

Nobody here is ever going to fall for your nonsense, Weston. It is clear from your writing that, deep down inside, you do not really believe what you are writing, and that you are feeding your feelings. You are obsessed. You are also projecting your own feelings onto others here.

Nobody here is going to respect you in the way you want to be respected as long as you continue with your unfocused, circuitous, clueless rambling, Weston.

I believe you are smart enough to recognize that your own motivations are misplaced, and have led you down the wrong path, and I believe you are smart enough to stop rebelling against Authority and recognize that I am right. The question that you have to ask yourself is: Does Weston have the moral fortitude to change?

[Weston White]

Reply to ASITStands from a couple pages back:


OMG, this case again? Really?

Alright, you seemed to have left out the above paragraph:

He [Hamilton] suggests that the boundary line between direct and indirect taxes be settled by "a species of arbitration," and that direct taxes be held to be only "capitation or poll taxes, and taxes on lands and buildings, and general assessments [ergo: "other direct taxes"], whether on the whole property of individuals or on their whole real or personal estate. All else must, of necessity, be considered as indirect taxes."

The Act of July 14, 1798, c. 75, 1 Stat. 53. This act imposed a tax upon real estate and a capitation tax upon slaves.

Regarding the above, I did not see the use of the word capitation tax, only direct tax. Though it somewhat moot being that it appears various states implemented such taxes in a variety of ways, supposedly to their own preference.

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. Pomeroy, Const.Law, 177; Pacific Insurance Co. v. Soule, and Scholey v. Rew, supra.

POLLOCK:

While this language is broad enough to cover the interest as well as the professional earnings, the case would have been more significant as a precedent if the distinction had been brought out in the report and commented on in arriving at judgment, for a tax on professional receipts might be treated as an excise or duty, and therefore indirect, when a tax on the income of personalty might be held to be direct.

POLLOCK:

14th. The decision here announced, holding that the tax on the income from real estate and the tax on the income from personal property and investments are direct, and therefore require apportionment, rests necessarily on the proposition that the word "direct" in the Constitution must be construed in the economic sense; that is to say, whether a tax be direct or indirect is to be tested by ascertaining whether it is capable of being shifted from the one who immediately pays it to an ultimate consumer. If it cannot be so shifted, it is direct; if it can be, it is indirect. But the word in this sense applies not only to the income from real estate and personal property, but also to business gains, professional earnings, salaries, and all of the many sources from which human activity evolves profit or income without invested capital. These latter the opinion holds to be taxable without apportionment, upon the theory that taxes on them are "excises," and therefore do not require apportionment according to the previous decisions of this court on the subject of income taxation. These decisions, Hylton v. United States, 3 Dall. 171; Pacific Insurance Co. v. Soule, 7 Wall. 433; Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533; Scholey v. Rew, 23 Wall. 331; Springer v. United States, 102 U. S. 586, hold that the word "direct" in the Constitution refers only to direct taxes on land, and therefore has a constitutional significance wholly different from the sense given to that word by the economists. The ruling now announced overthrows all these decisions. It also subverts the economic signification of the word "direct" which it seemingly adopts. Under that meaning, taxes on business gains, professional earnings, and salaries are as much direct, and, indeed, even more so, than would be taxes on invested personal property. It follows, I submit, that the decision now rendered accepts a rule and at once in part overthrows it. In other words, the necessary result of the conclusion is to repudiate the decision of this court, previously rendered, on the ground that they misinterpreted the word "direct" by not giving it its economic sense, and then to decline to follow the economic sense because of the previous decisions. Thus, the adoption of the economic meaning of the word destroys the decisions, and they, in turn, destroy the rule established. It follows, it seems to me, that the conclusion now announced rests neither upon the economic sense of the word "direct" or the constitutional significance of that term. But it must rest upon one or the other to be sustained. Resting on neither, it has, to my mind, no foundation in reason whatever.

The statement of the case in the report shows that Springer returned a certain amount as his net income for the particular year, but does not give the details of what his income, gains, and profits consisted in. The original record discloses that the income was not derived in any degree from real estate, but was in part professional as attorney at law and the rest interest on United States bonds.

16th. The injustice of the conclusion points to the error of adopting it. It takes invested wealth and reads it into the Constitution as a favored and protected class of property, which cannot be taxed without apportionment, whilst it leaves the occupation of the minister, the doctor, the professor, the lawyer, the inventor, the author, the merchant, the mechanic, and all other forms of industry upon which the prosperity of a people must depend subject to taxation without that condition. A rule which works out this result, which, it seems to me, stultifies the Constitution by making it an instrument of the most grievous wrong, should not be adopted, especially when, in order to do so, the decisions of this court, the opinions of the law writers and publicists, tradition, practice, and the settled policy of the government must be overthrown.

[Weston White]

Yawn..... Still copying and pasting the same old scams from other tax protesters, eh Weston?

As you and I both know, the nature of Mr. Springer's income (interest income on bonds and compensation for personal services) not only was not material to the holding in the case, the nature of that income wasn't even mentioned by the Court in that case.

And, of course, the tax in question was indeed the federal income tax:

The central and controlling question in this case is whether the tax which was levied on the income, gains, and profits of the plaintiff in error [ . . . .] is a direct tax.

And don't try to tell us that the "income tax" is not "the tax which was levied on the income, gains, and profits" of Mr. Springer.

As you and I both know, there was no mention in the Court's decision of attorney's fees, interest income on bonds, federal privilege, lack of federal privilege, etc., etc. (Everyone knows that tax protesters get that information from the text of the Pollock case, and then try to fool people into believing that the Springer ruling is something other than what it was.)

You, Weston, still have not snapped to the realization that nothing you can say will fool anyone here (or you just don't care). We've already studied all these cases, long before you came here. And we've already refuted your nonsense -- long before you came here. How? Because your nonsense is a repetition of the same old scam that crooks have been posting on the internet for years. You delude yourself to believe that you can somehow find a theory that will work.

Cases like Springer, Pollock and so on will never mean what you want them to mean, Weston -- no matter how many posts you make here at Quatloos or other web sites. You cannot change the holdings of the courts. You cannot change the principles of proper legal analysis. You cannot change the legal point that "wage" means what the courts rule the term to mean, not what Pete Hendrickson claims the word means. You cannot change the point that Adam Smith, an eighteenth century foreign economist, will never replace the U.S. courts as the authoritative, primary authority in the interpretation of U.S. law. All your writing about capitations and poll taxes and direct taxes and indirect taxes is just nonsense that not only does not persuade anyone who knows the law, but also does not get you anywhere. The law is what we say the law is -- not what you say the law is.

There is something that you can change, though, Weston. You can change your own belief system. You can work to reduce your obsessions - in particular, your obsessive Anti-Authority feelings. You can stop trying to feed this nonsensical set of feelings you have about how the tax law should work.

You can also study and learn how to analyze the law properly. You can also study and learn how to organize your thoughts so that your writing will make sense.

Nobody here is ever going to fall for your nonsense, Weston. It is clear from your writing that, deep down inside, you do not really believe what you are writing, and that you are feeding your feelings. You are obsessed. You are also projecting your own feelings onto others here.

Nobody here is going to respect you in the way you want to be respected as long as you continue with your unfocused, circuitous, clueless rambling, Weston.

I believe you are smart enough to recognize that your own motivations are misplaced, and have led you down the wrong path, and I believe you are smart enough to stop rebelling against Authority and recognize that I am right. The question that you have to ask yourself is: Does Weston have the moral fortitude to change?

We do not have access to the actual court transcripts, if you do then please post them. I seriously doubt that such information was not provided to the court, for it not would be no way to determine where it fell or how ti applied to law. There would be no way to apply it to anything.

Nothing else in your post is worthy or discussion... A pattern with you I notice.

[Weston White]

Oh and Famspear and friends... You have been served!

But Albert Gallatin, in his "Sketch of the Finances of the United States," published in November, 1796, said:

"The most generally received opinion, however, is that, by direct taxes in the Constitution, those are meant which are raised on the capital or revenue of the people; by indirect, such as are raised on their expense. As that opinion is, in itself, rational and conformable to the decision which has taken place on the subject of the carriage tax, and as it appears important, for the sake of preventing future controversies, which may be not more fatal to the revenue than to the tranquility of the Union, that a fixed interpretation should be generally adopted, it will not be improper to corroborate it by quoting the author from whom the idea seems to have been borrowed."

He then quotes from Smith's Wealth of Nations, and continues:

"The remarkable coincidence of the clause of the Constitution with this passage in using the word 'capitation' as a generic expression, including the different species of direct taxes, an acceptation of the word peculiar, it is believed, to Dr. Smith, leaves little doubt that the framers of the one had the other in view at the time, and that they, as well as he, by direct taxes, meant those paid directly from, and falling immediately on, the revenue, and, by indirect, those which are paid indirectly out of the revenue by falling immediately upon the expense."

So says POLLOCK!

Whatever you claim that is in opposition to the above has been overruled! Savvy!

[Weston White]

And a bit of a reality check/gut check for you since you like citing the case so much:


CertainlyWashington himself, and the majority of the framers, if they well understood the sense in which the word "direct" was used, would hare declined to adopt and approve a taxing act which clearly violated the provisions of the Constitution if the w ord "direct," as therein used, had the meaning which must be attached to it if read by the light of the theories of Turgot and Adam Smith. As has already been noted, all the judges who expressed opinions in the Hylton case suggested that "direct," in the constitutional sense, referred only to taxes on land and capitation taxes. Could they have possibly made this suggestion if the word had been used as Smith and Turgot used it? It is immaterial whether the suggestions of the judges were dicta or not. They could not certainly have made this intimation, if they understood the meaning of the word "direct" as being that which it must have imported if construed according to the writers mentioned. Take the language of Mr. Justice Paterson:

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

He had borne a conspicuous part in the convention. Can we say that he understood the meaning of the framers, and yet, after the lapse of a hundred years, fritter away that language, uttered by him from this bench in the first great case in which this court was called upon to interpret the meaning of the word "direct?" It cannot be said that his language was used carelessly or without a knowledge of its great import. The debate upon the passage of the carriage tax act had manifested divergence of opinion as to the meaning of the word "direct." The magnitude of the issue is shown by all contemporaneous authority to have been deeply felt, and its far-reaching consequence was appreciated. Those controversies came here for settlement and were then determined with a full knowledge of the importance of the issues. They should not be now reopened.

<disengaging POLLOCK hard-core reality mode>

[LPC]

As was stated before, "It's like arguing with a first-grader!"

No, as I said before, it's like arguing with an angry, irrational, illiterate first-grader.

[Famspear]

Oh and Famspear and friends... You have been served!

But Albert Gallatin, in his "Sketch of the Finances of the United States," published in November, 1796, said:

"The most generally received opinion, however, is that, by direct taxes in the Constitution, those are meant which are raised on the capital or revenue of the people; by indirect, such as are raised on their expense. As that opinion is, in itself, rational and conformable to the decision which has taken place on the subject of the carriage tax, and as it appears important, for the sake of preventing future controversies, which may be not more fatal to the revenue than to the tranquility of the Union, that a fixed interpretation should be generally adopted, it will not be improper to corroborate it by quoting the author from whom the idea seems to have been borrowed."

He then quotes from Smith's Wealth of Nations, and continues:

"The remarkable coincidence of the clause of the Constitution with this passage in using the word 'capitation' as a generic expression, including the different species of direct taxes, an acceptation of the word peculiar, it is believed, to Dr. Smith, leaves little doubt that the framers of the one had the other in view at the time, and that they, as well as he, by direct taxes, meant those paid directly from, and falling immediately on, the revenue, and, by indirect, those which are paid indirectly out of the revenue by falling immediately upon the expense."

So says POLLOCK!

Whatever you claim that is in opposition to the above has been overruled! Savvy!

No, Weston. (Yawn......) You're trying to give the false impression that this was a ruling by the United States Supreme Court in the Pollock case. This is just an excerpt where the Court quotes Gallatin. The Court rejected Gallatin, and the Court rejected Adam Smith.

As usual, Weston, you're lying.

And you're lying stupidly. You obviously must know that other people have copies of the text of Pollock.

Stupid, Weston. Dumb as dirt.

If you really believed in your scam, I would think you would at at least try harder to fool us. Your efforts appear to be half-hearted. Sell your scam to the Witless Wonders at losthorizons.

Oh, I forgot; Pete Hendrickson ran you off.

[LPC]

POLLOCK:

14th. The decision here announced, holding that the tax on the income from real estate and the tax on the income from personal property and investments are direct, and therefore require apportionment, rests necessarily on the proposition that the word "direct" in the Constitution must be construed in the economic sense; that is to say, whether a tax be direct or indirect is to be tested by ascertaining whether it is capable of being shifted from the one who immediately pays it to an ultimate consumer. If it cannot be so shifted, it is direct; if it can be, it is indirect. But the word in this sense applies not only to the income from real estate and personal property, but also to business gains, professional earnings, salaries, and all of the many sources from which human activity evolves profit or income without invested capital. These latter the opinion holds to be taxable without apportionment, upon the theory that taxes on them are "excises," and therefore do not require apportionment according to the previous decisions of this court on the subject of income taxation. These decisions, Hylton v. United States, 3 Dall. 171; Pacific Insurance Co. v. Soule, 7 Wall. 433; Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533; Scholey v. Rew, 23 Wall. 331; Springer v. United States, 102 U. S. 586, hold that the word "direct" in the Constitution refers only to direct taxes on land, and therefore has a constitutional significance wholly different from the sense given to that word by the economists. The ruling now announced overthrows all these decisions. It also subverts the economic signification of the word "direct" which it seemingly adopts. Under that meaning, taxes on business gains, professional earnings, and salaries are as much direct, and, indeed, even more so, than would be taxes on invested personal property. It follows, I submit, that the decision now rendered accepts a rule and at once in part overthrows it. In other words, the necessary result of the conclusion is to repudiate the decision of this court, previously rendered, on the ground that they misinterpreted the word "direct" by not giving it its economic sense, and then to decline to follow the economic sense because of the previous decisions. Thus, the adoption of the economic meaning of the word destroys the decisions, and they, in turn, destroy the rule established. It follows, it seems to me, that the conclusion now announced rests neither upon the economic sense of the word "direct" or the constitutional significance of that term. But it must rest upon one or the other to be sustained. Resting on neither, it has, to my mind, no foundation in reason whatever.

The statement of the case in the report shows that Springer returned a certain amount as his net income for the particular year, but does not give the details of what his income, gains, and profits consisted in. The original record discloses that the income was not derived in any degree from real estate, but was in part professional as attorney at law and the rest interest on United States bonds.

16th. The injustice of the conclusion points to the error of adopting it. It takes invested wealth and reads it into the Constitution as a favored and protected class of property, which cannot be taxed without apportionment, whilst it leaves the occupation of the minister, the doctor, the professor, the lawyer, the inventor, the author, the merchant, the mechanic, and all other forms of industry upon which the prosperity of a people must depend subject to taxation without that condition. A rule which works out this result, which, it seems to me, stultifies the Constitution by making it an instrument of the most grievous wrong, should not be adopted, especially when, in order to do so, the decisions of this court, the opinions of the law writers and publicists, tradition, practice, and the settled policy of the government must be overthrown.

You're quoting from the DISSENT, which voted to uphold the constitutionality of the income tax, you f***ing moron.

[Weston White]

No, Weston. (Yawn......) You're trying to give the false impression that this was a ruling by the United States Supreme Court in the Pollock case. This is just an excerpt where the Court quotes Gallatin. The Court rejected Gallatin, and the Court rejected Adam Smith.

As usual, Weston, you're lying.

And you're lying stupidly. You obviously must know that other people have copies of the text of Pollock.

Stupid, Weston. Dumb as dirt.

If you really believed in your scam, I would think you would at at least try harder to fool us. Your efforts appear to be half-hearted. Sell your scam to the Witless Wonders at losthorizons.

Oh, I forgot; Pete Hendrickson ran you off.

NEGATIVE... they only stated that Dr. Adam Smith did not discuss direct taxes as meant within the U.S. Constitution, this is because it was a vehicle created later by the Forefathers during the Convention. This had nothing to due with effecting Capitation taxes or the principles established therefrom. If you bothered to read the Federalist Papers and the Convention transcripts you would realize that.

BTW do you even know who he is? I think he knows what he is talking about... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Gallatin

[LPC]

But Albert Gallatin, in his "Sketch of the Finances of the United States," published in November, 1796, said:

"The most generally received opinion, however, is that, by direct taxes in the Constitution, those are meant which are raised on the capital or revenue of the people; by indirect, such as are raised on their expense. As that opinion is, in itself, rational and conformable to the decision which has taken place on the subject of the carriage tax, and as it appears important, for the sake of preventing future controversies, which may be not more fatal to the revenue than to the tranquility of the Union, that a fixed interpretation should be generally adopted, it will not be improper to corroborate it by quoting the author from whom the idea seems to have been borrowed."

He then quotes from Smith's Wealth of Nations, and continues:

"The remarkable coincidence of the clause of the Constitution with this passage in using the word 'capitation' as a generic expression, including the different species of direct taxes, an acceptation of the word peculiar, it is believed, to Dr. Smith, leaves little doubt that the framers of the one had the other in view at the time, and that they, as well as he, by direct taxes, meant those paid directly from, and falling immediately on, the revenue, and, by indirect, those which are paid indirectly out of the revenue by falling immediately upon the expense."

So says POLLOCK!

Whatever you claim that is in opposition to the above has been overruled! Savvy!

No, Weston. (Yawn......) You're trying to give the false impression that this was a ruling by the United States Supreme Court in the Pollock case. This is just an excerpt where the Court quotes Gallatin. The Court rejected Gallatin, and the Court rejected Adam Smith.

As usual, Weston, you're lying.

The actual ruling and holding the Supreme Court was what I quoted before:

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.

158 U.S. 635.

Which is contrary to what WW claims.

[Weston White]

You're quoting from the DISSENT, which voted to uphold the constitutionality of the income tax, you f***ing moron.

And what is your point? See you still do not get that the income tax is not the capitation tax, never was, never will be. Savvy? Say, are you really even an attorney?