MN Stix wrote:That said my friends, is where “privileged activity” enters the “income tax”. Taxing everyone on their labor would otherwise result in a direct tax.
A conclusion for which you have presented no authority whatsoever. There is no Supreme Court decision in the history of the United States declaring that a tax on labor is a "direct tax."
And forgive me for repeating myself, but you've still got the problem of that pesky 16th Amendment, which states that tax on incomes do NOT need to be apportioned.
MN Stix wrote:Another issue is that “privilege” has just been pulled out of thin air, or an ill conclusion drawn from a SCOTUS case. That is not the case, as you should be well aware of. It is well represented in the following cases:
Flint v. Stone Tracy Co., 220 U.S. 107 (1911)
“Duties and imposts are terms commonly applied to levies made by governments on the importation or exportation of commodities. Excises are taxes laid upon the manufacture, sale, or consumption of commodities within the country, upon licenses to pursue certain occupations, and upon corporate privileges.”
In what way is the "consumption of commodities" such as wheat and other foodstuffs a "privilege"?
And you have previously dismissed as irrelevant the decisions in Pollock and Brushaber, both of which discussed the taxation of incomes from "professions, trades, employments, or vocations" and incomes from "occupations and labor." The decision in Flint v. Stone Tracy concerned a tax on incomes derived from corporate franchises. How is that more relevant?
MN Stix wrote:As you can plainly see, the fruit of my labor is clearly an unalienable right. The Bill of Rights do not spell out unalienable rights. The Bill of Rights should be view as privileges granted by congress, not the creator. Don’t hate on the messenger, take it up with the founders or SCOTUS. We find this spelled out below, in plain English language.
Butcher's Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U.S. 746 (1883)
“It has been well said that 'the property which every man has in his own labor, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of the poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his own hands, and to hinder his employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his neighbor, is a plain violation of this most sacred property’.”
And…
Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U.S. 1 (1915)
”Included in the right of personal liberty and the right of private property- partaking of the nature of each- is the right to make contracts for the acquisition of property. Chief among such contracts is that of personal employment, by which labor and other services are exchanged for money or other forms of property”
Now find a case in which the court held that a "right" could not be taxed.
The idea that there may be rights or privileges that are exempt from taxation has been rejected from the very beginnings of the United States. In rejecting such a claim in 1830, Chief Justice Marshall wrote:
“The power of legislation, and consequently of taxation, operates on all the persons and property belonging to the body politic. This is an original principle, which has its foundation in society itself. It is granted by all, for the benefit of all. It resides in government as a part of itself, and need not be reserved when property of any description, or the right to use it in any manner, is granted to individuals or corporate bodies. However absolute the right of an individual may be, it is still in the nature of that right, that it must bear a portion of the public burthens; and that portion must be determined by the legislature.”
Providence Bank v. Billings, 29 U.S. 514, 563 (1830).
In upholding the power of New York to tax a bequest to the United States, the Supreme Court observed in 1896 that:
“[T]he laws of all civilized states recognize in every citizen the absolute right to his own earnings, and to the enjoyment of his own property, and the increase thereof, during his life, except so far as the state may require him to contribute his share for public expenses....”
United States v. Perkins, 163 U.S. 625, 627 (1896).
So even rights that the Supreme Court refers to as “absolute“ may be subject to tax.
The idea that the “right to work” is somehow exempt from tax was expressly refuted by the Supreme Court in 1937, upholding the constitutionality of the Social Security tax paid by employers on wages:
“But natural rights, so called, are as much subject to taxation as rights of lesser 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.”
Charles C. Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 548 (1937).
On the same day that the Steward Machine case was decided, the same justices confirmed the same principle in upholding the constitutionality of an Alabama unemployment tax:
“Taxes, which are but the means of distributing the burden of the cost of government, are commonly levied on property or its use, but they may likewise be laid on the exercise of personal rights and privileges. As has been pointed out by the opinion in the Chas. C. Steward Machine Co. Case, such levies, including taxes on the exercise of the right to employ or to be employed, were known in England and the Colonies before the adoption of the Constitution, and must be taken to be embraced within the wide range of choice of subjects of taxation....”
Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co., 301 U.S. 495, 508 (1937).
Attempting to establish that “rights” cannot be taxed, tax protesters will sometimes cite:
“A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the federal constitution.”
Murdock v Pennsylvania, 319 US 105, 113 (1943).
But the Supreme Court in the very next sentence declared that “Thus, it [the state] may not exact a license tax for the privilege of carrying on interstate commerce (citation omitted), although it may tax the property used in, or the income derived from, that commerce, so long as those taxes are not discriminatory.” Which means that, regardless of whether a state can tax the “right to work,” the state can still tax the income from the exercise of that right. Accord, Allison McCoy v. United States, 88 AFTR2d ¶2001-5607, 2001 TNT 236-16, No. 3:00-CV-2786-M (U.S.D.C. N.D.Tex. 11/16/2001).
And the Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that nondiscriminatory taxes can apply to newspapers and other publications protected by the First Amendment. (“It is beyond dispute that the States and the Federal Government can subject newspapers to generally applicable economic regulations [including taxes] without creating constitutional problems.” Minneapolis Star & Tribune v. Minnesota Commissioner of Revenue, 460 U.S. 575, 581 (1983). See also, Arkansas Writers’ Project v. Ragland, 481 U.S. 221, 228 (1987) (“a genuinely nondiscriminatory tax on the receipts of newspapers would be constitutionally permissible”); Grosjean v. American Press, 297 U.S. 233, 250 (1936) (“It is not intended by anything we have said to suggest that the owners of newspapers are immune from any of the ordinary forms of taxation for support of the government.”). Similarly, the Supreme Court has upheld an obligation to withhold Social Security taxes from the wages of employees even when the withholding violates the religious beliefs of the employer. United States v. Lee, 455 U.S. 252 (1982).
So the Supreme Court has consistently upheld the imposition of taxes on incomes even when the incomes are derived from the exercise of constitutional rights.