Rehash part II

[Famspear]

SteveSy wrote:

An income tax is constitutional as long as it stays within the bounds of what income taxes can constitutionally tax. A tax on a corporations income is perfectly constitutional in my opinion. A tax on the earnings of a McDonalds worker is a capitation tax, its not an income tax at all.

A tax on the earnings of a McDonalds worker is an excise, an indirect tax. It's an income tax.

A tax on the earnings of an individual was an indirect tax in the 1860s. It was an indirect tax when Pollock was decided. It was an indirect tax when the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified. It was an indirect tax when the 1939 Internal Revenue Code was enacted. It was an indirect tax when the '54 Code was enacted. It was an indirect tax when the '54 Code was renamed as the 1986 Code. It was an indirect tax last week. It's an indirect tax today. It will be an indirect tax tomorrow.

The argument that Federal income tax on the earnings of a McDonalds worker is a "capitation" and not an "income tax" is completely erroneous.

[Judge Roy Bean]

Steve, for whatever reason, you are by all accounts a dedicated opponent to the status quo in terms of the extant taxation system.

But at some point the "so what" light comes on.

Your arguments are, while diligent and voluminous, unconvincing to a body of what appears to be authorities who have significant credentials as well as the lay audience, which in tax matters I join.

I respect your dedication and resolve but one has to wonder why you don't devote your energy toward trying to steer the ship as opposed to demanding everyone else accept your theory that the ship doesn't exist?

[SteveSy]

SteveSy wrote:

An income tax is constitutional as long as it stays within the bounds of what income taxes can constitutionally tax. A tax on a corporations income is perfectly constitutional in my opinion. A tax on the earnings of a McDonalds worker is a capitation tax, its not an income tax at all.

A tax on the earnings of a McDonalds worker is an excise, an indirect tax. It's an income tax.

A tax on the earnings of an individual was an indirect tax in the 1860s. It was an indirect tax when Pollock was decided.

So please quote me anyone during or shortly after the ratification of the constitution that said so. If it was so widely known surely you can find someone, anyone saying so.

Here, I'll start off by quoting a few people I know that said otherwise, you are welcome to post a quote from someone arguing these people were wrong:


While this doesn't say that income taxes are direct taxes it makes it clear a general tax on earnings isn't a indirect tax.

Uniformity is an instant operation on individuals, without the intervention of assessments, or any regard to states, and is at once easy, certain, and efficacious. All taxes on expenses or consumption are indirect taxes. A tax on carriages is of this kind, and of course is not a direct tax. Indirect taxes are circuitous modes of reaching the revenue of individuals, who generally live according to their income.

- Hylton v. United States 3 Dallas (3 U.S.) 171 (1796)

According to these opinions, a capitation tax, and taxes on land, and on property and income generally, were a direct charge, as well in the immediate as ultimate sources of contribution.

- Elliot Debates (ratification of the constitution), the topic of discussion is concerning Direct Taxes. May 6, 1794

The most generally received opinion, however, is that, by direct taxes in the Constitution, those are meant which are raised on the capital or revenue of the people; by indirect, such as are raised on their expense.

- Albert Gallatin Sketch of the Finances of the United States (1796)

He was soon to be the Secretary of the Treasury of the U.S., seems he would have known.


Now your turn, quote someone who said an income tax was a indirect tax, who was there in that period. My guess is you will avoid this challenge like th plague and claim it doesn't matter what the people that ratified the constitution thought.

[LPC]

An income tax is constitutional as long as it stays within the bounds of what income taxes can constitutionally tax. A tax on a corporations income is perfectly constitutional in my opinion. A tax on the earnings of a McDonalds worker is a capitation tax, its not an income tax at all.

If Sybil is ever committed to an institution of the constitutionally insane, this statement should be Exhibit A.

To quote it is to refute it.

No, I take that back. To quote it is to ridicule it.

It's like what Tom Paxton said about the New York Daily News in the 1960s. You don't have to parody it, just quote it.

[SteveSy]

Steve, for whatever reason, you are by all accounts a dedicated opponent to the status quo in terms of the extant taxation system.

But at some point the "so what" light comes on.

Your arguments are, while diligent and voluminous, unconvincing to a body of what appears to be authorities who have significant credentials as well as the lay audience, which in tax matters I join.

I respect your dedication and resolve but one has to wonder why you don't devote your energy toward trying to steer the ship as opposed to demanding everyone else accept your theory that the ship doesn't exist?

Well, I guess I think the first step in anyone realizing a system needs to be changed is to understand the system as it stands is wrong. If people thought it might not have been designed this way by the people who created the constitution then they might fight harder to change it. Many people just take the position, well there's nothing I can do about it we gave them this power from the beginning so I'll do nothing.

Besides very little of my energy is directed here..... Maybe several hours on the weekends and a few hours during the week. I always hope something new will pop up giving me more things to consider from a historical perspective.

I guess my question to your group is, why not just ignore me. Let me post my rebuttal and leave it at that. Instead they go on and on...why? Is it because they are afraid someone, other than the regulars, reading this board might think my arguments are believable?

btw, I'm not demanding anything of you.....I'm simply expressing my opinion, you can take it or leave it. It's not like I'm going to convince you or any regular on this board I'm right.

[LPC]

Well, I guess I think the first step in anyone realizing a system needs to be changed is to understand the system as it stands is wrong.

Here's where Sybil works himself up into a new attack on the windmills.

[Famspear]

SteveSy wrote:

So please quote me anyone during or shortly after the ratification of the constitution that said so. If it was so widely known surely you can find someone, anyone saying so.

Here, I'll start off by quoting a few people I know that said otherwise, you are welcome to post a quote from someone arguing these people were wrong:

While this doesn't say that income taxes are direct taxes it makes it clear a general tax on earnings isn't a indirect tax.

Sorry, Steve, I’m talking about the law. Not the Elliott Debates, not Gallatin, and not something someone wrote “during or shortly after the ratification of the constitution”. Constitutions are not ratified in the Elliott Debates or by Gallatin, etc., etc. Statements that somebody made at the time of ratification are interesting. These sources, however, are examples of what we call Secondary Authority. To determine the meanings of terms in the Constitution, we do not look first to the verbiage from the Elliott Debates or Gallatin (although they could of course be considered and even cited in court cases). Under the U.S. legal system, we first look to Primary Authority. Court decisions are Primary Authority, and court decisions (and even, probably, obiter dicta) will be more authoritative than Secondary Authority, including the Elliott Debates, etc., and will also be more authoritative than your arguments.

And on the Hylton case, you yourself provided this quote:

Indirect taxes are circuitous modes of reaching the revenue of individuals, who generally live according to their income.

(bolding added).

How did you think that we would interpret that statement (and the material in which it is found) as a statement that a tax on the earnings of a McDonalds worker is a “capitation”?

I and the rest of us do not need to cite any more court cases to you. We’ve already cited the dicta in Pollock for the point that an income tax on employments is an excise, an indirect tax. You can dance around that language and re-interpret it and split hairs all you want, but you can’t escape the point that the most of the rest of us here are basing our positions on court cases, not Elliott Debates or Gallatin for heaven’s sake. The law is what the courts rule the law to be, not what you argue someone intended by something in the Elliott Debates.

Further, when we do cite Secondary Authority, such as the Elliott Debates, or Black’s Law Dictionary, or a legal encyclopedia, or a law review article, or a treatise by a law professor, we do so in a proper manner and we know whereof we speak. We know how to use Secondary Authority.

No one is sidestepping any issues here except you, Steve. By rejecting court cases, by arguing that the decisions (and the dicta) in court opinions mean something other than what the courts have uniformly said they mean, by trying to substitute Secondary Authority where Primary Authority is needed, by arguing that the Secondary Authority means something other than what it says, and by trying to decide for yourself what the law is, you present a totally unpersuasive argument.

Steve, go look for a Federal court case where an individual argued that the Federal income tax on his or her earnings was a “capitation” and that the tax was unconstitutional, and the court upheld that argument.

Hint: This is would be a fool’s errand, Steve. There is no such case.

[jg]

So please quote me anyone during or shortly after the ratification of the constitution that said so.

CARRIAGE TAX1 February 24, 1795.
From
http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_ ... &Itemid=27

What is the distinction between direct and indirect taxes? It is a matter of regret that terms so uncertain and vague in so important a point are to be found in the Constitution. We shall seek in vain for any antecedent settled legal meaning to the respective terms—there is none.

...

The only known source of the distinction between direct and indirect taxes is in the doctrine of the French Economists—Locke and other speculative writers—who affirm that all taxes fall ultimately upon land, and are paid out of its produce, whether laid immediately upon itself, or upon any other thing. Hence, taxes upon lands are in that system called direct taxes; those on all other articles indirect taxes.

According to this, land taxes only would be direct taxes, but it is apparent that something more was intended by the Constitution. In one case, a capitation is spoken of as a direct tax.

But how is the meaning of the Constitution to be determined? It has been affirmed, and so it will be found, that there is no general principle which can indicate the boundary between the two. That boundary, then, must be fixed by a species of arbitration, and ought to be such as will involve neither absurdity nor inconvenience.

The following are presumed to be the only direct taxes.

Capitation or poll taxes.

Taxes on lands and buildings.

General assessments, whether on the whole property of individuals, or on their whole real or personal estate; all else must of necessity be considered as indirect taxes.

To apply a rule of apportionment according to numbers to taxes of the above description, has some rationale in it; but to extend an apportionment of that kind to other cases, would, in many instances, produce, as has been seen, preposterous consequences, and would greatly embarrass the operations of the government. Nothing could be more capricious or outré, than the application of quotas in such cases.

So, your assertion that income taxes would have been considered as direct taxes is an opinion without support, despite your insistence that it was so. Oh, but you must think you are more adept now than Hamilton was then at discerning the legal meaning of the terms at that time.

Of course, you will now proceed to claim that an income tax is a general assessment or otherwise try to make what he wrote not to mean what was written.

Then, you will return to ignoring this and eventually again claim that no one that was present when the Constitution was written said that the income tax was an indirect tax.

I have lost track of how many times this has already occurred.

Your inability to accept evidence is not a fault of the evidence.

[grixit]

Do you think the courts will be impressed by Steve's rolling on the ground kicking and screaming, or sill he have to hold his breath until he turns blue?

[notorial dissent]

Steve, your problem, is that while your interpretation may in fact be in agreement with the original authors, or at least the original commentators, that interpretation is NOT what was ultimately written and passed. Our system of law requires the courts to go by what the laws passed say, not what Stevie or anyone else wants them to say or believes they say. When law is written vaguely, or poorly, it leaves itself open and vulnerable to interpretation by the courts. If, as you claim they had intended to exempt common wages, that could have easily been done, it wasn’t, in fact the exact opposite was done, the phrase “collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived” is quite specific and quite general. It gives the Congress to tax incomes from WHATEVER source. That is very specific in that it does not exclude anything, and general in that it doesn’t define income specifically.

Whether or not the authors intended to tax common wages is a dead horse you can continue to flog at your own leisure. The fact remains that what they wrote, passed and agreed to says otherwise. The actual wording of the amendment disagrees with your interpretation, as have 95 years of court decision. Do you begin to see a picture here Steve and a recurring theme in your life, both for the long haul, as well as short term?

[Duke2Earl]

I guess my question to your group is, why not just ignore me. Let me post my rebuttal and leave it at that. Instead they go on and on...why? Is it because they are afraid someone, other than the regulars, reading this board might think my arguments are believable?

Actually, it is truly amazing how much you fail to understand about law, history and damn near everything. In this particular case what you fail to understand (after thousands of posts) is that the very purpose of this board is to debunk insane crap such as the manure you spread.

[Famspear]

This past weekend, SteveSy wrote:

Of course I will concede this [Steve's theory about the law] is just circumstantial. I have nothing written saying "We licensed everyone we thought would pay the income tax in order to avoid an adverse ruling." It just seems logical to me for two reasons. [and then Steve's reasons followed]

In spite of the fact that I disagree with almost everything he has written about tax law, I commend Steve on the approach he took in that particular post. I have pounded Steve unmercifully when he used faulty logic, so it's only fair that I point out where his approach is more coherent -- even if I disagree with his reasoning, and even if I contend his conclusion is incorrect.

Uh-oh, I'm actually commending SteveSy on something he wrote! [Major shift in planetary tectonic plates, earthquakes, smoke, fire and brimstone, dogs and cats living together, etc. . . !!]

[Famspear]

But, Steve, don't let it go to your head! After all, this statement:

A tax on the earnings of a McDonalds worker is a capitation tax, its not an income tax at all.

--was definitely a low point in your Quatloos career, which has been filled with lots of lowpoints.

[BBFlatt]

cap-i-ta-tion (kap'i ta'shen) n. [[L capitatio < L caput, HEAD]] a tax or fee of so much per head; payment per capita: see also POLL TAX
[source: Webster's New World College Dictionary, Third Edition]

So do those who make more money than a fast food worker get taxed more because they have better heads, or more of them?

[Famspear]

Or because they get more........well, you know

Oh, so how does the head tax really work? I mean which one pays .... oh.. don't even go there....

[Paul]

Income doesn't pay the tax...people or businesses do, its who is liable for that tax that makes it direct or indirect. If everyone is liable for a tax then its a head, capitation, tax especially if everyone requires it to survive.

So a tax on a human being for the privilege of selling his produce or the alchohol he distilled from it is a capitation tax because the human being is liable? Extremely sloppy language, or you have gone off the deep end.

And none of that explains why the 16th amendment, by providing that no tax on income has to be apportioned, doesn't make the current income tax constitutional

[Cpt Banjo]

This past weekend, SteveSy wrote:

Of course I will concede this [Steve's theory about the law] is just circumstantial. I have nothing written saying "We licensed everyone we thought would pay the income tax in order to avoid an adverse ruling." It just seems logical to me for two reasons. [and then Steve's reasons followed]

In spite of the fact that I disagree with almost everything he has written about tax law, I commend Steve on the approach he took in that particular post. I have pounded Steve unmercifully when he used faulty logic, so it's only fair that I point out where his approach is more coherent -- even if I disagree with his reasoning, and even if I contend his conclusion is incorrect.

Uh-oh, I'm actually commending SteveSy on something he wrote! [Major shift in planetary tectonic plates, earthquakes, smoke, fire and brimstone, dogs and cats living together, etc. . . !!]

Don't go overboard yet. Had Stevie taken the time to actually read the statute, he'd have found that his theory was nonsense.

[Famspear]

Cpt Banjo wrote:

Don't go overboard yet. Had Stevie taken the time to actually read the statute, he'd have found that his theory was nonsense.

But even if he does read the statute, he would still never actually admit that his theory is nonsense. That's what I like about Steve: his consistency, his predictability!

[SteveSy]

SteveSy wrote:

So please quote me anyone during or shortly after the ratification of the constitution that said so. If it was so widely known surely you can find someone, anyone saying so.

Here, I'll start off by quoting a few people I know that said otherwise, you are welcome to post a quote from someone arguing these people were wrong:

While this doesn't say that income taxes are direct taxes it makes it clear a general tax on earnings isn't a indirect tax.

Sorry, Steve, I’m talking about the law. Not the Elliott Debates, not Gallatin, and not something someone wrote “during or shortly after the ratification of the constitution”. Constitutions are not ratified in the Elliott Debates or by Gallatin, etc., etc. Statements that somebody made at the time of ratification are interesting. These sources, however, are examples of what we call Secondary Authority. To determine the meanings of terms in the Constitution, we do not look first to the verbiage from the Elliott Debates or Gallatin (although they could of course be considered and even cited in court cases). Under the U.S. legal system, we first look to Primary Authority. Court decisions are Primary Authority, and court decisions (and even, probably, obiter dicta) will be more authoritative than Secondary Authority, including the Elliott Debates, etc., and will also be more authoritative than your arguments.

Secondary authority in your eyes because you are member of the herd. The courts interpret the law based on facts. If no facts exist supporting the conclusion then is is nothing but nonsense, much like most of your arguments.


Here's something you ought to read and understand...the Elliot debates would fall under th same category.

The opinion of the Federalist has always been considered as of great authority. It is a complete commentary on our Constitution, and is appealed to by all parties in the questions to which that instrument has given birth. Its intrinsic merit entitles it to this high rank, and the part two of its authors performed in framing the Constitution put it very much in their power to explain the views with which it was framed. These essays having been published while the Constitution was before the nation for adoption or rejection, and having been written in answer to objections founded entirely on the extent of its powers, and on its diminution of State sovereignty, are entitled to the more consideration where they [19 U.S. 419] frankly avow that the power objected to is given, and defend it.

-Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. 264 (1821)

And on the Hylton case, you yourself provided this quote:

Indirect taxes are circuitous modes of reaching the revenue of individuals, who generally live according to their income.

(bolding added).

How did you think that we would interpret that statement (and the material in which it is found) as a statement that a tax on the earnings of a McDonalds worker is a “capitation”?

Read the case a little farther and you would see...of course I wouldn't expect you to do anything more than what you do, condemn everything I write based on your preconceived opinion.

I and the rest of us do not need to cite any more court cases to you. We’ve already cited the dicta in Pollock for the point that an income tax on employments is an excise, an indirect tax.

Pollock NEVER said that....this is why its obvious you are not interested in facts or even supporting your position. You must resort to simply making things up, it is after all you can do in the face of overwhelming historical evidence proving you wrong and nothing to prove you right. Except the opinion of a modern court who never took the time or was even interested in getting it right. Those that appointed them chose them specifically for their long held personal opinions.

You can dance around that language and re-interpret it and split hairs all you want, but you can’t escape the point that the most of the rest of us here are basing our positions on court cases, not Elliott Debates or Gallatin for heaven’s sake. The law is what the courts rule the law to be, not what you argue someone intended by something in the Elliott Debates.

The Elliot Debates is where the constitution was hashed out....The constitution provides the power to the court. Just as the government can't override that which gave it its power nor can the courts. You are not more powerful than your maker.

No one is sidestepping any issues here except you, Steve. By rejecting court cases, by arguing that the decisions (and the dicta) in court opinions mean something other than what the courts have uniformly said they mean, by trying to substitute Secondary Authority where Primary Authority is needed, by arguing that the Secondary Authority means something other than what it says, and by trying to decide for yourself what the law is, you present a totally unpersuasive argument.

Not even the IRS concedes the lower circuit courts require them to change their opinion on the law or constitution. They are not any less bound than I am.

Steve, go look for a Federal court case where an individual argued that the Federal income tax on his or her earnings was a “capitation” and that the tax was unconstitutional, and the court upheld that argument.

Go look where anyone won against a government that was doing something illegal on a mass scale.....everyone loses in their court rooms and always will. How many people, or even shareholders, would win civil cases against a large corporation who got to had pick and pay for the arbitrators handling the case.

Just because it's called a government doesn't change how things work. You really try hard to give the impression that because it's government its different than any other organization headed up by people. It's all the same, power and money rule the day and the people running those organizations aren't going to give it up easily or even fairly. They will always look at it from a perspective that benefits them.

I have no respect for someone who punishes people and is willing to ruin lives without even trying to cite anything to back up their position. Show me one single person, any person, during the ratification of the constitution that thought an indirect tax could tax a working man's earnings. It just doesn't frigging exist, yet the exact opposite can be found. Every country that we could have adopted the concept from defines an tax on a person's earnings as a direct tax. So what, does anyone actually believe we created a definition totally opposite of everyone we could have adopted the concept from and not said one word about it in any known document.....Quit smoking crack sir and popping those pills, you must be doing some kind of drugs to even argue such total bullshit. Who cares what some egomaniac said in a black robe, those same type of individuals used to burn people at the stake because they were supposedly witches and ding-dongs like you where cheering them on. They said it, so it must be true......

[Famspear]

SteveSy wrote:

Quit smoking crack sir and popping those pills, you must be doing some kind of drugs to even argue such total bullshit. Who cares what some egomaniac said in a black robe, those same type of individuals used to burn people at the stake because they were supposedly witches[,] and ding-dongs like you where [sic] cheering them on.

Thank you for providing us with still another quaint summation of how you think, Steve.