income tax is an excise and all excises are on a priviledge

[jg]

In another thread at http://quatloos.com/Q-Forum/viewtopic.p ... a&start=75 there was a discussion of one of Hendirckson's major errors.
To preserve and continue that discussion here are some of the posts already made.

ive an idea why doesnt someone do an analysis of CtC and I mean a legal this is why as a matter of law PHs is wrong and I ll post it at lost horizons. i dont really care if he bans me.
I will post comments to your posts but I ve got alot of reading to do and my boss is out [sic] so its all on me today
....
No but PHs has a SCOTUS case or two in CtC that shows the income tax is an excise and all excises are on a priviledge. True or false? thus "income" must be connected to a federal priviledge----is the theory.

Second, regarding your quote above: Can you show me one case ever decided by any federal court anywhere which held that income must be "connected to a federal privilege"? Just one?

No but PHs has a SCOTUS case or two in CtC that shows the income tax is an excise

There are some cases that describe the income tax as an "excise." The first real income tax case, Springer, described the income tax as an "excise or duty."

There are other Supreme Court cases holding that whether a tax is described as an excise, a duty, an impost, or a tax is irrelevant (Chas. Steward Machine), and that the constitutional power to tax was intended to give Congress the power to tax was intended to be the broadest possible power, within only one exclusion (exports) and two restrictions (apportionment and uniformity).

and all excises are on a priviledge. True or false?

There is no court opinion saying that ALL excises must be imposed ONLY on "privileges."

ONE DEFINITION of "excise" is a tax on a "privilege," but there are other definitions.

What Hendrickson is doing is playing word games, taking a sentence from one opinion and another sentence from another opinion and jamming them together to form a conclusion which has nothing to do with what the court was deciding in either case.

thus "income" must be connected to a federal priviledge

Even assuming that an excise must be imposed on a "privilege," there is no authority whatsoever for the proposition that the privilege must be "federal."

For example, in Flint v. Stone Tracy (1911), a federal tax on the incomes of corporations, enacted before the adoption of the 16th Amendment in 1913, was challenged because the federal government was taxing the "privilege" of operating a business under state corporate charter. The Supreme Court stated that "While the tax in this case, as we have construed the statute, is imposed upon the exercise of the privilege of doing business in a corporate capacity, as such business is done under authority of state franchises, it becomes necessary to consider in this connection the right of the Federal government to tax the activities of private corporations which arise from the exercise of franchises granted by the state in creating and conferring powers upon such corporations. We think it is the result of the cases heretofore decided in this court, that such business activities, though exercised because of state-created franchises, are NOT beyond the taxing power of the United States." (Emphasis added).

I suggest you read the Flint decision and see if you can find anything in there, or in any other decision that Hendrickson cites, that would support the conclusion that Congress cannot tax anything but the exercise of a "federal privilege."

and all excises are on a priviledge. True or false?

That part of it is false. Privilege taxes are all excise taxes, but not all excise taxes are privilege taxes. (All dogs are mammals, but not all mammals are dogs.) One Supreme Court case said that the category of excise taxes also includes taxes on "a transaction or event." Receiving money for working in the private sector is a "transaction or event."

In the case of Steward Machine Co. v. Davis (1937), the Supreme Court said:

We are told that the relation of employment is one so essential to the pursuit of happiness that it may not be burdened with a tax. Appeal is made to history. From the precedents of colonial days we are supplied with illustrations of excises common in the colonies. They are said to have been bound up with the enjoyment of particular commodities. Appeal is also made to principle or the analysis of concepts. An excise, we are told, imports a tax upon a privilege; employment, it is said, is a right, not a privilege, from which it follows that employment is not subject to an excise. Neither the one appeal nor the other leads to the desired goal.

.....

The historical prop failing, the prop or fancied prop of principle remains. We learn that employment for lawful gain is a "natural" or "inherent" or "inalienable" right, and not a "privilege" at all. But natural rights, so called, are as much subject to taxation as rights of less importance. An excise is not limited to vocations or activities that may be prohibited altogether. It is not limited to those that are the outcome of a franchise. It extends to vocations or activities pursued as of common right.

[Cpt Banjo]

I know I've beaten this particular horse to death many times, but maybe Mutter can learn something from it:

While taxes levied upon or collected from persons because of their general ownership of property may be taken to be direct, Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Turst Co., 157 U.S. 429 , 15 S. Ct. 673; Id., 158 U.S. 601 , 15 S. Ct. 912, this court has consistently held, almost from the foundation of the government, that a tax imposed upon a particular use of property or the exercise of a single power over property incidental to ownership, is an excise which neet not be apportioned, and it is enough for present purposes that this tax [the federal gift tax] is of the latter class. Bromley v. McCaughn, 280 U.S. 124, 136 (1929) (emphyasis added)

If the gift of property may be taxed we cannot say that there is any want of constitutional power to tax the receipt of it, whether as the result of inheritance, Stebbins v. Riley, 268 U.S. 137 , 45 S.Ct. 424, 44 A.L.R. 1454, or otherwise, whatever name may be given to the tax, and even though the right to receive it, as distinguished from its actual receipt and possession at a future date, antedated the statute. Receipt in possession and enjoyment is as much a taxable occasion within the reach of the federal taxing power as the enjoyment of any other incident of property. Fernandez v. Wiener, 326 U.S. 340, 353 (1945) (emphasis added)

It should be perfectly obvious that the receipt of compensation for performing labor is taxable via an excise. No privilege of any kind is required.