Supreme Court / Income vs. Wealth Tax

[Brian Rookard]

Been a long time since I've posted around here.

We finally got a really good decision and discussion by Justice Thomas going through the history of the 16th Amendment and a discussion about the distinction between taxing the property itself (an ad valorem property tax), and the income derived from property. A good analysis of Pollock and Brushaber and Eisner.

Ad valorem property taxes must be apportioned.

He's not wrong. Case is Moore v. United States.

[The Observer]

Welcome back, Brian. Always good to see original crew members.

I was a bit disappointed to see that the Court avoided ruling on the "realization" principle. I would have hoped that they could have put that issue to rest, once and for all.

[JamesVincent]

I was a bit disappointed to see that the Court avoided ruling on the "realization" principle. I would have hoped that they could have put that issue to rest, once and for all.

Which I, too, thought weird. My understanding was that it was one of the larger issues.

[Cpt Banjo]

Had the Court held that realization is required it would have had far-reaching consequences. As Justice Kavanaugh explained:

The upshot is that the Moores’ argument, taken to its logical conclusion, could render vast swaths of the Internal Revenue Code unconstitutional. See, e.g., 26 U. S. C. §305(c) (deemed stock distributions); §§446, 448 (accrual accounting); §701 (partnership taxation); §§951–965 (subpart F); §951A (pass-through tax on global intangible low-taxed income);
§1256(a) (certain futures contracts); §1272(a) (original issue discount instruments); §§1361–1379 (S corporations); §§2501–2524 (gift taxes).

And those tax provisions, if suddenly eliminated, would deprive the U. S. Government and the American people of
trillions in lost tax revenue. The logical implications of the Moores’ theory would therefore require Congress to either
drastically cut critical national programs or significantly increase taxes on the remaining sources available to it—
including, of course, on ordinary Americans. The Constitution does not require that fiscal calamity.

This is result-oriented reasoning that in my opinion has no place in constitutional adjudication. It was really unnecessary to the Court's decision, although I'm not surprised he included it in the opinion.

[wserra]

Moved from TP forum.

ETA: And absolutely welcome back, Brian. But where's the Jack Nicholson avatar?