Weston White and the "Quatpillar" - continued

[Dr. Caligari]

If the Supreme Court said that "births, marriages and burials" can be taxed via an excise, why can't the earnings of a private-sector laborer?

Because they aren't taxing those things. They are taxing the privilege of the State recognizing those things. When you get a certificate of birth you're paying for the State to certify it. They are not taxing people to have children. When you get a marriage license you are not being taxed to marry, you're paying a tax for the privilege of having the State recognize it. There is a difference.

Its just like the tax on inheritance. It's not a tax on the death of the subject its a tax on the privilege to legally transfer wealth. The State has granted that right through the law. Without the law it is not recognized by the State and thus not subject to the protections of it.

They are referring to an English tax from Colonial times. There were no marriage licenses or birth or death certificates then.

[ASITStands]

Weston can't get ANYTHING right. Sunday is not the seventh day of the week.

Does that mean the bad power of the Quatloosian has been restored?

Whew! For a minute there I thought I might have to find another avocation.

[SteveSy]

If the Supreme Court said that "births, marriages and burials" can be taxed via an excise, why can't the earnings of a private-sector laborer?

Because they aren't taxing those things. They are taxing the privilege of the State recognizing those things. When you get a certificate of birth you're paying for the State to certify it. They are not taxing people to have children. When you get a marriage license you are not being taxed to marry, you're paying a tax for the privilege of having the State recognize it. There is a difference.

Its just like the tax on inheritance. It's not a tax on the death of the subject its a tax on the privilege to legally transfer wealth. The State has granted that right through the law. Without the law it is not recognized by the State and thus not subject to the protections of it.

They are referring to an English tax from Colonial times. There were no marriage licenses or birth or death certificates then.

There might have not been certificates but they did register them. Furthermore, if it was truly colonial times then it was under British rule and may have been considered a direct tax.

Parliament passed an act which granted "to His Majesty certain Rates and Duties upon Marriage, Births and Burials

Well, if we're going to look at English law as a foundation to support a tax then you have an issue my friend, English law holds, and always held such, that a tax on income generally is a direct tax.

There are a slew of SC cases explaining why such things as inheritance is taxable. Going back to the original one's its clear the taxes are on the privilege the state is providing.

[Dr. Caligari]

Oh and BTW, to realize income, one first has to engage in some applicable activity or be a qualifying subject. One does not just obtain income without first engaging in an activity of sorts. Geez.

Exactly right! And the "activity" is (like the activity in Bromley), the act of receiving money.

[SteveSy]

Oh and BTW, to realize income, one first has to engage in some applicable activity or be a qualifying subject. One does not just obtain income without first engaging in an activity of sorts. Geez.

Exactly right! And the "activity" is (like the activity in Bromley), the act of receiving money.

Dr you know as well as I do the court did not mean to say that any activity is taxable by an indirect tax...that is, well, absurd and would destroy any meaning within the constitution concerning direct or indirect taxes. Managing slaves is an activity, slaves working on a farm is an activity, occupying a home is an activity, voting is an activity. Instead of taxing people to vote they could just tax the activity of voting. Up and until that case there is no documentation whatsoever to support such a finding. We would have to assume the court wholly fabricated that out of thin air.

[Weston White]

Weston can't get ANYTHING right. Sunday is not the seventh day of the week.

ROFLMAO

For brevity:

Monday 1st
Tuesday 2nd
Wednesday 3rd
Thursday 4th
Friday 5th
Saturday 6th
Sunday 7th

[Weston White]

Oh and BTW, to realize income, one first has to engage in some applicable activity or be a qualifying subject. One does not just obtain income without first engaging in an activity of sorts. Geez.

Exactly right! And the "activity" is (like the activity in Bromley), the act of receiving money.

OMG, why do I even bother? You know you are right... now go on peon, go slip back into your chains of bondage, you serf and get back to work so that your neighbors can profit from the sweat of your brow, go on now, get! Stop staring at your keyboard, get back working you slave, you helot, you lackey, you chattel! Your a trite servant, you drudge!

You have still yet 2-months more of work full-time for free before you have paid your yearly dues for the privileges of working so that you can eat and shower and whatnot, now get to it you menial lesser being. YOU ARE NOT WORTHY OF FREEDOM, NOR LIBERTY, NOR ANY SUCH PURSUITS!

[Prof]

Weston can't get ANYTHING right. Sunday is not the seventh day of the week.

ROFLMAO

For brevity:

Monday 1st
Tuesday 2nd
Wednesday 3rd
Thursday 4th
Friday 5th
Saturday 6th
Sunday 7th

All those Seventh Day Adventists have got it wrong?

[Cpt Banjo]

Yes, I am well aware that all of you suffer from applying sentence logic. That is why I crafted a complex reply. I did not want to have to bother actually having to thereafter generate another reply to you or anybody else's reply. To sort of cut you all off at the source, while making my point clean and clear for all other readers happening upon this forum. Mission accomplished.

The only thing you've accomplished, Mr. White, is to demonstrate beyond any doubt that you're an intellectual coward who can't admit that what he wrote is not only gibberish, but completely nonresponsive. You have also demonstrated that you are wholly incapable of answering a very simple question.

Oh and BTW, to realize income, one first has to engage in some applicable activity or be a qualifying subject. One does not just obtain income without first engaging in an activity of sorts. Geez.

Here's an example that shows just how hopelessly wrong you are. Suppose a rich uncle wants to help out his nephew, so he conveys to him producing mineral interests that throw off $10,000 per month in royalties. The nephew sits at home, watching TV all day. Each month, he receives a royalty check. Whether you want to admit it or not, the nephew has indeed realized income (it's not even necessary that he deposit the checks), although he hasn't engaged in any activity whatsoever, except maybe saying "Thank you" to his uncle.

[Cpt Banjo]

Dr you know as well as I do the court did not mean to say that any activity is taxable by an indirect tax...that is, well, absurd and would destroy any meaning within the constitution concerning direct or indirect taxes.

The Bromley rationale was confined to the exercise of property rights; it did not purport to apply to things like voting.

Moreover, if you assume (as the Supreme Court has)* that the only direct taxes under the Constitution are capitations and those that are imposed on the mere ownership of property, then it follows that any other kind of economic activity is reachable via an indirect tax.

*If you think that Pollock still has any validity, then a tax on investment income is also a direct tax; but that would mean that it needn't be geographically uniform, and Congress could theoretically tax such income at higher rates in Alaska than in New York. Would you really want to make that argument?

[Judge Roy Bean]

ROFLMAO

For stupidity:

Monday 1st
Tuesday 2nd
Wednesday 3rd
Thursday 4th
Friday 5th
Saturday 6th
Sunday 7th

(correction applied in color)
For reality:
Sunday is the first day of the week.
Seen any calendars lately, WW?

[webhick]

ROFLMAO

For stupidity:

Monday 1st
Tuesday 2nd
Wednesday 3rd
Thursday 4th
Friday 5th
Saturday 6th
Sunday 7th

(correction applied in color)
For reality:
Sunday is the first day of the week.
Seen any calendars lately, WW?

In all fairness, ISO-8601 says that Monday is the first day of the week, although most people use Sunday. Most PIMs also allow you to change the first day of the week from Sunday to Monday, but they usually default to Sunday.

[Famspear]

I thought Wednesday was the first day of the week.

(You see, I was born on a Wednesday, and I've been counting the weeks that way ever since........)

EDIT:

[Weston White]

Well, if we're going to look at English law as a foundation to support a tax then you have an issue my friend, English law holds, and always held such, that a tax on income generally is a direct tax.

There are a slew of SC cases explaining why such things as inheritance is taxable. Going back to the original one's its clear the taxes are on the privilege the state is providing.

That would serve to make sense, which seems to be part of the confusion, in reading historical documents, there seemed to be some that thought the income tax was direct and others that thought in theory it should be indirect. Though since the XVI Amendment it is now indirect regardless. Though the income tax is its own class of tax, a tax upon enrichment from property and privilege, while the capitation and poll taxes were taxes upon persons and their property also directly. This further realizes that all these heads of taxation came from concepts and practices as established originally in English and France during the founding of our own Nation. And during such time a tax upon the common laborer was defined as a capitation tax, another way to say this is it was a tax upon the person, for being a person [as stated in SCOTUS], meaning anything effecting that person directly and unavoidably, the most basic and elementary concepts of living of experiencing life.

In fact this is perhaps why the Framers made no mention of income taxes, because it was too much of a hybrid between direct and indirect and could very easily be used to cloud or abuse the intended purposes of the division of direct and indirect taxation. I think I recall reading that some of the Framers were still living when the first income tax was passed and they made no objections to it implementation or implication, though I might be confusing this with something else(?).

As well to note there appeared to be a divide that poll taxes belonged within the category of 'other direct taxes' being that slaves were to be considered property and others thought that capitations and polls as in capitation and poll taxes were virtually synonymous.

The point is though, to iterate, that these individual classes of taxes as they exist in our Nations is nothing new, none of them, they are all based upon those as used in Europe during our National founding, and during these times economists wrote about the practice and purpose of such forms of taxation, though the Framers would have already been aware of those individual classes of taxes, regardless. The only major distinction was the transition of how those individual classes of taxes were applied within our Nation. Never did their meanings change only how they affected the people and their property.

It is clear that poll taxes were laid in England, capitation taxes in France, income taxes were practiced in England, and it was known the classes of excise and duties, and imposts was included basically to serve as a catch all term.

Now what is a bit interesting it that in the Convention the term poll tax was specifically used in discussion and in the context of what was to be considered property tied or bonded to the land, as realty would otherwise be itself, though this term was not specifically included within the Constitution, instead capitation taxes and other direct taxes was used, this is after the clause first only included the use of capitation taxes, even months after the discussions took place.

The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787
by James Madison
THURSDAY. JULY 12. IN CONVENTION
Mr. ELSEWORTH. In case of a poll tax there wd. be no difficulty. But there wd. probably be none. The sum allotted to a State may be levied without difficulty according to the plan used by the State in raising its own supplies. On the question on ye. whole proposition; as proportioning representation to direct taxation & both to the white & 3/5 of 18 black inhabitants, & requiring a Census within six years — & within every ten years afterwards.


The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787
by James Madison
THURSDAY. JULY 12. IN CONVENTION

Mr. GOVr. MORRIS, admitted that some objections lay agst. his motion, but supposed they would be removed by restraining the rule to direct taxation. With regard to indirect taxes on exports & imports & on consumption, the rule would be inapplicable. Notwithstanding what had been said to the contrary he was persuaded that the imports & consumption were pretty nearly equal throughout the Union.

General PINKNEY liked the idea. He thought it so just that it could not be objected to. But foresaw that if the revision of the census was left to the discretion of the Legislature, it would never be carried into execution. The rule must be fixed, and the execution of it enforced by the Constitution. He was alarmed at what was said yesterday, *2 concerning the negroes. He was now again alarmed at what had been thrown out concerning the taxing of exports. S. Carola. has in one year exported to the amount of £600,000 Sterling all which was the fruit of the labor of her blacks. Will she be represented in proportion to this amount? She will not. Neither ought she then to be subject to a tax on it. He hoped a clause would be inserted in the system, restraining the Legislature from a 3 taxing Exports.


The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787
by James Madison

WEDNESDAY SEPr 12. 1787. 1 IN CONVENTION
No capitation tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census herein before directed to be taken.


The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787
by James Madison
FRIDAY SEPR 14TH 1787 1 IN CONVENTION

Art. I. Sect. 9. "No capitation tax shall be laid, unless &c"
Mr. READ moved to insert after "capitation" the words, "or other direct tax" He was afraid that some liberty might otherwise be taken to saddle the States, with a readjustment by this rule, of past requisitions of Congs. — and that his amendment by giving another cast to the meaning would take away the pretext. Mr. WILLIAMSON 2ded. the motion which was agreed to,


“What are called poll-taxes in the southern provinces of North America, and in the West Indian Islands annual taxes of so much a head upon every negro, are properly taxes upon the profits of a certain species of stock employed in agriculture. As the planters are, the greater part of them, both farmers and landlords, the final payment of the tax falls upon them in their quality of landlords without any retribution.”
Wealth of Nations

[Weston White]

I thought Wednesday was the first day of the week.

(You see, I was born on a Wednesday, and I've been counting the weeks that way ever since........)

EDIT:

That is because you think the world evolves around you. Because you suffer from Quatlostia.

[Weston White]

ROFLMAO

For stupidity:

Monday 1st
Tuesday 2nd
Wednesday 3rd
Thursday 4th
Friday 5th
Saturday 6th
Sunday 7th

(correction applied in color)
For reality:
Sunday is the first day of the week.
Seen any calendars lately, WW?

You can't even quote me correctly, so I am not listening to you yet again... "Judge"... God it feels so good to be able to say that! I am going to have to try that for reals one day.

[Quixote]

You can't just levy a tax on air and you can't just tax, for the purpose of taxing or to prove a point or to set an example or to push an agenda or to punish.

(Emphasis added)

Proof positive that WW doesn't read what he writes. Perhaps the rest of us should follow his example.

[Weston White]

Dr you know as well as I do the court did not mean to say that any activity is taxable by an indirect tax...that is, well, absurd and would destroy any meaning within the constitution concerning direct or indirect taxes.

The Bromley rationale was confined to the exercise of property rights; it did not purport to apply to things like voting.

Moreover, if you assume (as the Supreme Court has)* that the only direct taxes under the Constitution are capitations and those that are imposed on the mere ownership of property, then it follows that any other kind of economic activity is reachable via an indirect tax.

*If you think that Pollock still has any validity, then a tax on investment income is also a direct tax; but that would mean that it needn't be geographically uniform, and Congress could theoretically tax such income at higher rates in Alaska than in New York. Would you really want to make that argument?

That contention is complete hogwash.

§ 5. The Meaning of Income
At the outset of such a study it is desirable to secure a clear idea of what is meant by income. Income is, of course, to be distinguished from, mere receipts or gross revenue. It is more than that which simply comes in from any economic activity. By income is always meant net income, as opposed to gross income. In other words, from the receipts in any enterprise we must, in the first place, deduct the expenses of the enterprise — that is, the outlay incurred in securing the gross product But, secondly, income as a personal category differs from net product. If a debt has been contracted in order to secure the produce of a given piece of property or of a given enterprise, the interest on the debt must be deducted. Finally, in the outlays or expenses which have been incurred to secure the product, there must also be included a compensation for wear and tear of plant; just as the investor in securities com-putes his actual income by deducting an amortization quota from the annual proceeds. Income, therefore, always means ^C net income.

What has been stated is equivalent to saying that income is that which comes in to an individual above all necessary expenses of acquisition, and which is available for his own consumption. Since the income is a flow of wealth, it must always be estimated for a definite period, so that when we speak of income for purposes of taxation, we really mean
annual income. Strictly speaking, income, as contrasted with capital denotes that amount of wealth which flows in during a definite period and which is at the disposal of the owner for purposes of consumption, so that in consuming it, his capital remains unimpaired.

The history of the general property tax has been told in another place. 1 It will be pertinent, however, to recall some points in this history so far as they bear upon the subject of the present investigation. In the first place, real estate under the feudal system was rarely bought and sold, so that practi-cally the only method of ascertaining the value of the land was by taking account of its rents. The local property tax, so far as real estate was concerned, was therefore a tax on produce rather than on selling value ; and later on, when in some cases the tax was assessed on the selling value, this was reached by capitalizing the rent. In the second place, all movables or personal property were assessed at the selling value, so that the tax became a combination of a tax on prod-uce and on selling value. In the third place, as the expressed effort of the legislator was to reach the faculty of the tax-payer, the recipients of wages or salaries were considered also to possess some taxable ability, even if they had no prop-erty. We therefore frequently find an assessment on such individuals in some rough proportion to their gains. As there were virtually no important professions for a long time during the Middle Ages, this practically meant a tax upon the day laborer. In the case of official salaries, however, the same method was often pursued as in the case of real estate, and the salaries were reduced to a capital sum for purposes of taxation. In the fourth place, as trade and commerce developed, where the gains of the business man could not be approximately determined from the capital invested, we occasionally find as a supplement to the property tax, a tax upon assumed profits of business.

The mediaeval system was therefore really a little more than a general property tax. The overwhelming mass of the revenue came indeed from the tax on personal property and real estate, but this was now and then supplemented by a tax on the faculties of the laborers and sometimes by a tax on the assumed faculties of the business man. Occasionally we find, in addition to the general property tax and even as a part of it, a so-called personal tax, either in the shape of a poll or capitation tax, to reach individuals who had no property, or in the shape of a graduated capitation or class tax, designed to reach certain classes whose gains were not entirely in pro-portion to their property.

…

Thus it is that everywhere the beginnings of direct-l taxation take the form of the poll or capitation tax. ""In a primitive community where private property has but slightly developed or where the differentiation in economic conditions is insignificant, where there are no very rich and no very poor, where every man works and where individual revenue is de-rived almost exclusively from individual exertion, it is indeed true that polls form an approximately satisfactory test of ability in taxation. Wherever we have primitive economic and democratic conditions, whether it be in the early stages of Teutonic civilization or in the beginnings of Puritan New England, we find that the poll tax forms an essential ingredient of the fiscal system.

With the development of private property, however, and with the differentiation of economic classes, a change sets in. The original equality of wealth is followed by an inequality

of possessions. The distribution of ownership, in other words, is now gradually divorced from the mere accumulation of numbers. A poll tax responds less and less well to the de-mands of faculty until it finally becomes, at all events as the sole test of ability, almost wholly a mockery. Efforts may indeed be made to improve the situation for a time by grad-uating the poll tax according to outward signs so that the poll tax in some cases becomes a class tax, the assessment being graded roughly in accordance with the social position of the individual. But this class or classified poll tax, as we find it in the early Middle Ages, is only a makeshift, and be-fore long the poll tax is either supplemented or supplanted by a property tax.

…

There remains one other point which deserves a word of comment. This refers to the question of uniformity. It might be claimed, and in fact it has been claimed, that under the proposed amendment there will be no assurance of uni-formity, for the constitutional provision as to uniformity spe-cifically applies only to "all duties, imposts and excises." Since the amendment, while changing the method of levying the income tax, in so far as it has been held to be a direct tax, leaves unaltered its nature or appellation as a direct tax, it might be contended that the income tax as a direct tax is not necessarily subject to the constitutional inhibition as to uniformity.

This contention, however, is clearly erroneous. The con-stitution gives a double classification of taxes — one according to their nature, the other according to the mode of levy. According to their nature, taxes are divided into the four classes of direct taxes, duties, imposts and excises. Accord-ing to the mode of levy, however, taxes are divided into two classes only — those subject to the rule of apportionment and those subject to the rule of uniformity. If, now, the income tax is by constitutional amendment taken out of the first cate-gory, it necessarily falls into the second. There is no third category into which it could fall. To assume that an income tax could be levied without uniformity would be to make of the tax neither fish nor flesh — to keep it, as it were, suspended in mid-air between the two solid posts of appor-tionment and uniformity. These are the only methods con- templated by the constitution. Every tax, no matter what its , application, must be levied in one of these two ways. If the one way is barred by the constitutional amendment, it must necessarily be levied in the other way. To assume that under the amendment we could have anything but a uniform income tax would be to do violence to every rule of constitutional construction.

Chief Justice Fuller, in the first Pollock case, makes this clear. He says : " Although there have been from time to time intimations that there might be some tax which was not a direct tax when included under the words 'duties, im-positions and excises,' such a tax for more than a hundred years of national existence has as yet remained undiscovered, notwithstanding the stress of particular circumstances has in-vited thorough investigation into sources of revenue." * Is it reasonable to suppose that the couft would fly in the face of the experience of a century in order to create such an abor-tion ? Moreover, any such interpretation of the amendment would lead to a manifest absurdity. For under the existing decisions an income tax levied on business or on professional incomes is still to be classed as an excise or duty, and there-fore subject to the uniformity clause. How, then, could we have a general income tax a part of which should be uniform and a part of which should not be uniform ? Such a tax would indeed be theoretically possible, but is it conceivable that any legislature composed of sane human beings would attempt to enact such a measure? Moreover, apart from any such considerations, it is scarcely open to doubt that the other clauses, such as the fifth amendment, as well as the implied restrictions of the constitution, would avail to prevent any serious derogation from the principles of equality in taxation.
…
' "Capital is a deposit for the purpose of carrying on any business or specu-lation; income is the emolument which arises from it." — Observations an the Income Act; particularly as it relates to the Occupiers of Land : with some Proposals of Amendment. To which is added a Short Scheme for Meliorating the Condition of the Labouring Man. By Francis Newbery. London, 1801, p. 13.

The Income Tax: A Study of the History, Theory and Practice of Income

[Weston White]

You can't just levy a tax on air and you can't just tax, for the purpose of taxing or to prove a point or to set an example or to push an agenda or to punish.

(Emphasis added)

Proof positive that WW doesn't read what he writes. Perhaps the rest of us should follow his example.

What is that suppose to mean? What you were not aware that Congress can only tax for any one or more of three prescribed purposes?

[Nikki]

Weston can't get ANYTHING right. Sunday is not the seventh day of the week.

ROFLMAO

For brevity:

Monday 1st
Tuesday 2nd
Wednesday 3rd
Thursday 4th
Friday 5th
Saturday 6th
Sunday 7th

Go back to your KJB. God rested on the seventh day after completing his creation work. The seventh day was Saturday, according to His word to the people at that time.

It's really funny how you seem to get EVERYTHING wrong that you touch.