The logic of Brushaber

[wserra]

Thus, only capitation taxes and real property taxes are "direct" taxes. An income tax is an excise or duty.

My income is not being taxed indirectly. It is being taxed directly.

Moron Alert! Moron Alert!

[Famspear]

Thus, only capitation taxes and real property taxes are "direct" taxes. An income tax is an excise or duty.

My income is not being taxed indirectly. It is being taxed directly.

(sigh.....)


That's correct. Your income is being taxed DIRECTLY! And that's perfectly constitutional, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE INCOME TAX IS CONSIDERED A "DIRECT" TAX OR AN "INDIRECT" TAX.

You are talking about TWO DIFFERENT CONCEPTS!

[Hyrion]

Because my personal income is not taxable under the provisions of the 16th amendment nor is it within the meaning of our Constitution. My income is ... being taxed directly.

I'm sorry, I missed where posted the proof that "income which is taxed directly is not consitutional".

[Hyrion]

I believe that my income should be exempted because I believe that the IRS it is misinterpreting the 16th amendment.

Ok... so next question: how is the IRS misinterpreting the 16th amendment?

[morrand]

Is this argument not identical to IRS Frivolous Claim number D-7? If so, then I suggest the IRS has already done all the "refuting" that is necessary or warranted.

[notorial dissent]

Jimmy, Mikey, and any of the other voices in your head.

You really do seem to have reading comprehension problems, or else are just being intentionally dense. Direct and Indirect are two classes of taxes. Taxing something directly or indirectly has nothing to with type of tax being discussed and has nothing to do with tax law. You are either playing word games, or are simply that ignorant. Either way it is tiresome and childish.

The Congress has ALWAYS had the authority to tax excises, which is what any of your income would be, salaries, wages, etc, unless it comes from property, rents, or interest. Since that is where most people's income arises from you have no valid argument, if by some chance your income is based on property, rents, or interest, then the 16th amendment relieved the income tax of being apportioned, so you are still stuck. There is NO class or type of income that is exempt from taxation.

We now have approximately 100 years of court history all saying that the income tax as currently applied is constitutional and legal.

You are the one making the claims, therefore, it is incumbent upon you to prove them, not upon us to disprove them. Don't like it, tough!!

You have been provided again repeatedly with the answers you requested, based on 100 years of tax court history, and the combined professional experience and knowledge of several highly qualified tax professionals whose business it is to know what the tax laws say and mean, including and particularly the foundation of them. Your response has been to close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears, and hum "I'm an idiot" because you didn't like or get the answers you wanted, again tough. I fear that with your attitude and level of denseness you are doomed to a lifetime of disappointment and unhappiness.

You have been asked repeatedly to provide any court case(s) saying the contrary, and yet still crickets.

You have made several claims, the main one being that income is not taxable, please specify why you believe this to be so.

So now it is time to put up, or to shut up.

[LPC]

Springer v. United States, 102 U.S. 586, 602 (1880). Thus, only capitation taxes and real property taxes are "direct" taxes. An income tax is an excise or duty.

And so an income tax can be imposed without apportionment.

[LPC]

Because my personal income is not taxable under the provisions of the 16th amendment nor is it within the meaning of our Constitution. My income is not being taxed indirectly. It is being taxed directly. The IRS is misusing the 16th amendment by interpreting it their own way.

How is the income tax that is applied to your income different from the income tax that was ruled to be constitutional in Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916)?

[notorial dissent]

Because my personal income is not taxable under the provisions of the 16th amendment nor is it within the meaning of our Constitution. My income is not being taxed indirectly. It is being taxed directly. The IRS is misusing the 16th amendment by interpreting it their own way.

You have to be able to elucidate in clear and concise detail(something you have not and have refused to do here) as to why you believe that your income "is not taxable under the provisions of the 16th amendment nor is it within the meaning of our Constitution", and then, the really hard part, you have to prove to the satisfaction of the court that your belief is valid(the part where you will fall flat on your face).

We're still waiting, and the crickets are still chirping away.

[nattyb]

Thus, only capitation taxes and real property taxes are "direct" taxes. An income tax is an excise or duty. (A "capitation" tax is a fixed tax imposed on every person regardless of income or wealth.)

Because my personal income is not taxable under the provisions of the 16th amendment nor is it within the meaning of our Constitution. My income is not being taxed indirectly. It is being taxed directly.

Let us stick to logic:

You have stated two tax categories: 1) Capitation, and 2) excise or duty

You admit that you are not a person being taxed, therefore, category 1) does not apply.
You admit that your income is being taxed directly. That is an income tax.
Since you admit that "an income tax is an excise or duty", the tax being imposed directly upon your income must also be an "excise or duty".

So what is the problem? Your personal income must be taxable.

[Gregg]

What has shocked me about many tax deniers/protesters is the piddling small amounts many of them are fighting over, and how quickly they make these small amounts relatively big amounts by piling up the various penalties their wrongheadedness brings on. There were people on Lost Horizons who had an initial tax due of less than $5,000 but between doing it for a few years and being sack of hammers stupid they manage to turn the original $5,000 or less tax into over $100,000 of penalties and interest. And they then fight to the last frivolous filing when the IRS starts to sell the house.

I have been blessed, lucky, smart, whatever, and made a pretty good little box of money. I've paid pretty much for very good advice and have, so far, managed to not pay tax on the vast majority of what I've made, most of it is on paper anyway...for instance, I bought Ford stock when the car companies were going down and everyone else went bankrupt. I felt confident that Ford would survive and when it got below $2 I literally bet the house and my company and pretty much every dollar I could get my hands on, a good deal of it in my 401K account, I own today, 134,000 shares of Ford with a basis of $1.26 a share, today trading @ $16.24, worth something close to $2.7 million on which I haven't paid any tax (I will when I sell it outside my plan, only when I withdrawal inside the plan) and when I get quarterly dividends I only pay capital gains, not straight income tax.

I don't think that's fair. I personally believe that Capital Gains should max out at the median national income and after that you should pay regular income tax, but without FICA.Just a little part of my plan to make it more fair. And yes, I'm protesting in my way against the tax breaks the rich get and I totally take advantage of. If you're not able to put your money to work for you in meaningful ways, you miss a lot a tax breaks.
The ultimate tax break for the rich is double tax free bonds, where I'm slowly moving some of my equities too. I loose the bigger returns that taxable accounts make but I drop the taxes altogether, at my level there is is a magic number I am alining for, a level were the tax free income in enough to spay the bills and a plan to give away all the taxable stuff when I die, hopefully in ways that avoid taxes. Most of it is going to charity, a lot of it is in TOD accounts that transfer to the beneficiaries tax free outside of the actual estate (this is a big deal amost of them are going that way so my estate will be under the level of the estate taxes. Pretty clever, maybe even devious, but I want it it to go where it will do some good and not just pay on the debt.

I'm rambling in Ambien again, so I may wake up tonight and read this and delete it all because sometimes my "impaired" writhing is pretty out there. So, we'll see.

[wserra]

Spaying bills is fun. Spaying bill collectors is even more fun.

But don't try it while you're writhing.

[Famspear]

enough to spay the bills.....

Spaying bills is fun. Spaying bill collectors is even more fun......

[Famspear]

....I'm rambling in Ambien again, so I may wake up tonight and read this and delete it all because sometimes my "impaired" writhing is pretty out there....

I know whutchoomean. Thomtimes when I dwink too much (hiccup) -- too much of (hiccup) -- too much of my thooper theecret thpehshul thawth, I thtart lithping -- and I drool, too!

[Colonel_Buck]

After reading this post about a 1000 times, my observations. Please correct as needed.

The only 2 taxes that can pass constitutional muster as a direct tax are
1) a tax on people (capitation), and
2) a tax on real estate (property tax).

From the beginning of the republic down to Pollock, the Supreme Court had always considered a tax on incomes as an indirect tax, subject only to uniformity. And it didn't matter from whence the income was derived.

The Supreme Court in Pollock "carved out" an exemption from the uniformity requirement for taxes on certain incomes only, income derived from real property. So, from the time of Pollock until the 16th Amendment was ratified, we had two kinds of income taxes;
1) indirect income taxes (wages, salaries, etc.), and
2) direct income taxes (rents, royalties, etc.).

Now, along comes the 16th Amendment and from the time of its ratification down to the present, we are now back to considering all taxes on income to be indirect, regardless of the source. The only thing the 16th Amendment did was to prevent the courts from doing what they did in Pollock ever again.

There is a difference between the essence of a given tax and how that tax is collected. The constitution cares only for the essence, not the collection process and procedures. This is how an indirect tax can be directly collected.

[Famspear]

After reading this post about a 1000 times, my observations. Please correct as needed.

The only 2 taxes that can pass constitutional muster as a direct tax are
1) a tax on people (capitation), and
2) a tax on real estate (property tax).

I would frame it as the following probably being the categories of direct tax:

1. A tax on people (capitation), as in: $10 per person per year;
2. A tax on property (whether real estate or not) by reason of its ownership.

From the beginning of the republic down to Pollock, the Supreme Court had always considered a tax on incomes as an indirect tax, subject only to uniformity. And it didn't matter from whence the income was derived.

The Supreme Court in Pollock "carved out" an exemption from the uniformity requirement ....

I don't think there was a carve out from the uniformity requirement. What the Court did was to treat taxes on income from property as taxes that were required to be apportioned.

......for taxes on certain incomes only, income derived from real property. So, from the time of Pollock until the 16th Amendment was ratified, we had two kinds of income taxes;
1) indirect income taxes (wages, salaries, etc.), and
2) direct income taxes (rents, royalties, etc.).

There were two Pollock decisions. Taxes on incomes from any kind of property (not just real property) were deemed to be subject to the apportionment requirement.

Now, along comes the 16th Amendment and from the time of its ratification down to the present, we are now back to considering all taxes on income to be indirect, regardless of the source. The only thing the 16th Amendment did was to prevent the courts from doing what they did in Pollock ever again.

Sort of. The Brushaber court explained it that way. However, subsequent court opinions have pointed out that it no longer matters (with respect to apportionment) whether a given income tax is considered "direct" or "indirect." Under the Amendment, if it's an income tax, it's not required to be apportioned. Period.

There is a difference between the essence of a given tax and how that tax is collected. The constitution cares only for the essence, not the collection process and procedures. This is how an indirect tax can be directly collected.

I believe that is essentially correct. The term "direct" when used in the Constitution in the phrase "direct tax" is a way of describing a category of taxes, and not the collection process and procedures. So, as you said, an "indirect tax" (such as an income tax on amounts received as compensation for services) can be imposed on and collected directly from the person receiving the income.

[notorial dissent]

Col Buck, good to hear from you again.

I think you and Famspear have both hit the same nut pretty well on the head from idfferent angles with pretty much the same results.

My take on it has always been that the Pollock court decided out of the blue there were two now types of income when I don't really see or think that there were. Their argument that an Income on profits from land or property was some how a direct tax fails for me in that there was no tax on property that wasn't producing an income any more than there was a tax on people who weren't making an income. You either had income, or you didn't, it shouldn't have mattered where it came from. The Pollock Court came up with this when the prior court in Lincoln's time hadn't, and I have a feeling that a modern court wouldn't either, but the 16th has settled that argument, at least for those of us who can actually read and comprehend.

And, yes, for some reason, the difference between the type of tax, and the method of collection does seem to be a point of confusion for some people, but then again, reading for and in context would resolve that. The discussion in the Constitution is not about how a tax is collected, but under what circumstances it is collected, two entirely different meanings of the term.

[Brian Rookard]

Well, it's been a while ... and I stop by to visit the ole stomping grounds ... and here we go with the Brushaber decision all over again.

Here's the simple way to answer the 16th Amendment question and any discussion of Brushaber ... the 16th Amendment doesn't matter anymore.

In the Pollock decision (which led to the adoption of the 16th Amendment, the Supreme Court looked to the "source" of the income (real property in that case) and said that a tax on the income from property was akin to a tax on the underlying source (real property). A tax on real property is a direct tax ... so we're going to consider a tax on income in the form of rents as a direct tax as well.

Forget the 16th Amendment and Brushaber and fast-forward to the case of New York ex rel Cohn v. Graves, 300 U.S. 308 (1937). In the Graves case, the Supreme Court effectively abandoned the rationale of Pollock saying that a tax on income is not a tax on the source of the income, the court saying:

"Neither analysis of the two types of taxes nor consideration of the bases upon which the power to impose them rests supports the contention that a tax on income is a tax on the land which produces it. The incidence of a tax on income differs from that of a tax on property."

Thus, a tax on income is NOT a tax on the source of that income. That destroys the entire basis in Pollock for claiming that an income tax is a direct tax.

And to punctuate this ... a few years later, the issue was raised whether a tax on the income from state issued bonds was a tax on the state instrumentality issuing those bonds. In the case of Graves v. New York ex rel O'Keefe, 306 U.S. 466 (1939) the Supreme Court emphatically stated, in no uncertain terms:

The theory, which once won a qualified approval, that a tax on income is legally or economically a tax on its source, is no longer tenable.

The Supreme Court effectively has overruled Pollock and the Supreme Court will NEVER rule that a tax on income is a tax on the underlying source of that income. Consequently, the 16th Amendment is unnecessary - we are back to the Springer decision and an income tax will always be considered an excise tax.

The above point was made in one of the earlier tax protestor decisions ... Ficalora v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 751 F2d 85 (2nd Cir. 1984):

Finally, in the case of New York ex rel. Cohn v. Graves, 300 U.S. 308, 57 S.Ct. 466, 81 L.Ed. 666 (1937), the Supreme Court in effect overruled Pollock, and in so doing rendered the Sixteenth Amendment unnecessary, when it sustained New York's income tax on income derived from real property in New Jersey.

Of course, it's also why all these calls for repealing the 16th Amendment are irrelevant ... for repealing the 16th Amendment will result in a big fat Nothingburger.

Tax protestors are barking up the wrong tree ... as always.

[Brian Rookard]

Because my personal income is not taxable under the provisions of the 16th amendment nor is it within the meaning of our Constitution. My income is not being taxed indirectly. It is being taxed directly. The IRS is misusing the 16th amendment by interpreting it their own way. The only interpretation of the 16th amendment matters, is Chief Justice Whites.

My income should be exempted, not me. Can't exempt a person. If I was personally exempted from paying a income tax. That would mean that I can go out and buy apartment buildings and not pay income tax on the rents received as income.

Your theory of direct/indirect taxation was specifically refuted 115 years ago in the case of Knowlton v. Moore, 178 U.S. 41 (1900) ... start reading at page 81 of the decision for your edification (although I doubt it will truly help) ....