Compensation for Services

[grixit]

I'm still waiting for a tp to argue that they have no "salary" because they weren't actually given salt. Or no "wages" because no one made a pledge.

[rachel]

Stratton's: Since there had been no individual income tax law since Pollock, and since the context is the corporate tax of 1909, it clearly refers to the earnings corporations receive by working, and to some extent exhausting, the brain and hand.

No, that is NOT what the quotation is about.

Too bad you didn't bother to read the case, but simply rationalized from the hip.

Lucas: The same paragraph you quote contextualizes the tax as actually on "the net income of every individual including 'income derived from wages'", and further implies that its subject is income when denying that it taxes "only income beneficially received". Since the same paragraph speaks of taxing income and taxing salaries, it cuts both ways and can support either position.

If you begin with the assumption that income and salaries are different things, then it is possible to ignore the plain words of the court (and the plain holding of the court, which upheld a tax on salaries) and find some meaning that is not there. However, if you begin without any preconceived notions, the meaning of the decision is unmistakeable.

And I'm surprised you didn't harp on the fact that Mr. Earl was a corporate officer, even though section 3401(c) did not exist in 1922.

Smith (for my notes, the full cite is 324 US 177, 181): The benefit conferred as compensation was stock options, and Smith was taxed on the gain from that compensation (which, being derived from stock, was calculated as price difference). Smith was NOT taxed on the full price received for the stock as if it was ALL income. And just as he was only taxed on the gain portion of his stock compensation, the tax law also requires that he be only taxed on the gain portion of his normal pay. So, though they literally said to "include in taxable income" the whole "benefit", what they actually did was to include in taxable income only the gain. This suggests they mean, in context, "include in calculation of taxable income", which is not a synecdoche but a metonymy.

Smith was not taxed on the value of stock he purchased with money he already had. Now if you can find a case in which someone paid money for their own labor, you might have something.

Lukhard: Even without the context, it is clear that if one had lost statutory "wages", one would have had gain from their replacement, because "wages" always derive gain.

There is nothing in the decision about "statutory wages."

In fact, the decision is not about taxes at all.

Burke: Of course since Respondents stipulate the settlement awards are gross income (the next sentence after the quote is "See Brief for Respondents 9-10"), the remainder is moot. But to deal with it separately, it simply repeats that income means accessions to wealth within Congressional taxing power. By the Banana v Fruit principle, "any 'accessio[n] to wealth'" is automatically limited to the taxing power of Congress anyway, even if it were not explicitly stated. So this case also cuts both ways. And of course wages are taxable, and the TVA is hardly a private workplace.

Which demonstrates that you can always substitute your preconceived notions in place of the reasoning of the court regardless of what the court says.

O'Gilvie: I must be missing the point of these cites, because this one just says damages are excluded from taxation even though "wages" are taxed. The exclusion of some compensation from taxation (if it were otherwise taxable) says nothing to me about what other compensation is taxed (besides "wages").

Wages are taxed. That's the point. The court is simply confirming that, were it not for the section 104 exclusion, the amounts paid for lost wages would have been taxed as wages.

Kaiser: This one upholds a jury finding that strike benefits were a nontaxable gift even though "wages" are gross income. Sounds fine; but there are almost too many negatives to follow Dan's logic here. Since wages are income, I suppose one might infer from this snippet that compensation in lieu of wages is also income. I don't know about that, because that's not the kind of compensation we're talking about. I do know that compensation which is pay for work and not statutory "wages" (or otherwise reported to be "income") does not derive income.

The opinion is not about "statutory wages."

Reading: In TC the taxpayers did not seem to dispute reports of "self-employment income", and seemed to claim deductions which could only be made if Constitutional "income" had been received; so TC is free to conclude it was income. And since TC applies only to the taxpayer and year, when they say "one's gain" it only applies to Reading's gain, and the 8th Circuit adopting this "well reasoned" decision does not extend that application to anyone else. So Reading's gain might well be, because of his admissions, the entire amount for sale of labor without reductions.

All you seem to be saying is that you feel free to ignore what a court says whenever it suits you.

Denison: The courts which state that wages are income have been cited so many times that to bring more of them would be superfluous to the point of danger.

And yet you still don't seem to get the point.

Funk: Yes, compensation is Constitutionally subject to income tax without apportionment. Yes, 61(a) and its statutory background say that sources of income include compensation. Yes, income includes compensation among its sources, which is the only kind of inclusion that can operate given 61(a) and its statutes. And yes, wages are income.

Compensation for services is the income itself, not a "source" of income.

Is it probable that every one of these judges kept the constitutional meaning of income firmly in mind while writing every sentence about income? Not hardly. Many of them were probably confused to slight or serious degrees, and may have believed that income was more expansive than I claim.

So in the tens of thousands of cases that have upheld the imposition of income taxes on "work for pay," the judge was "confused" in every case?

Has there EVER been a judge who was not "confused"? Has there ever been one judge in any case in the history of the United States who has ever held that "work for pay" is not "income" that may be taxed by Congress?

Even if you are somehow able to explain away the tens of thousands of cases in which judges have issued rulings that squarely contradict you, you are still left with the uncomfortable fact that one judge in the history of the United States has ever agreed with you.

That's like believing you can hit a home run even though you have been playing baseball for 20 years and have yet to get a hit.

But a judicial intent that transgresses the Constitution is null by operation.

Which means you want to use one lie (Congress cannot tax "work for pay") in order to support your original lie (that "work for pay" is not included in gross income).

In fact, since it's definite that judges err frequently (proven every time one is overturned), it's unquestionable that some judges have erred without being overturned, even in the USSC. So even if you find your silver-bullet cite (let's say Chamberlain v Krysztof or US v Hendrickson), one that makes a statement I see no way to agree with, it's just an academic exercise, as it will only show that an unconstitutional intent rests somewhere, either with me or with the judge, without answering which. In such a rarefied case every man can only review and follow truth and logic, which will resolve every dispute if patiently applied.

You are very close to admitting both your obstinateness and your anarchy.

Hey Danny,
Would you please recite where "service" is defined in Subtitle C for the purpose of taxation?
Are you going to now argue that "service" is work for pay, but not in defined gross income like you were earlier?

[rachel]

Quixote is correct. I don't answer nonsense questions from illiterate lunatics. I will say though that whether or not you have a social security number has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether your wages are subject to the income tax. As I said previously on another thread if you provide any services of any kind for another person (including but not limited to a business) and are compensated for those services (in money or anything else of value) that compensation, whether you call it wages or not, is income for purposes of the federal income tax.

"Services" is based on "employment" for Social Security purposes and has everything to do with a ssn as I am not allowed to get an ITIN. I asked and that was the answer I received from the IRS.
The term "wage" of both 3121 and 3401 revolves around "service" found in the term "employment" of Social Security.
If you would just read 3401(a) and not just say you did, you and any third grader can see those who are not included in 3121(b) "employment" are also exempt from making 3401(a) wages for the deduction of 3402 withholdings for the offset of the section 1 federal income tax.
Those who are exempt from withholding earn "cash" which 3401(a) says is not taxable.

The only illiterate lunatic I see is you trying to fit square pegs into round holes.

[Quixote]

The only illiterate lunatic I see is you trying to fit square pegs into round holes.

Let's help Rachel find a new metaphor. How about "trying to fit pickles into an olive jar". I have no idea what that means, but that shouldn't be a problem in a Rachel post.

[Florida]

Quixote is correct. I don't answer nonsense questions from illiterate lunatics. I will say though that whether or not you have a social security number has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether your wages are subject to the income tax. As I said previously on another thread if you provide any services of any kind for another person (including but not limited to a business) and are compensated for those services (in money or anything else of value) that compensation, whether you call it wages or not, is income for purposes of the federal income tax.

"Services" is based on "employment" for Social Security purposes and has everything to do with a ssn as I am not allowed to get an ITIN. I asked and that was the answer I received from the IRS.
The term "wage" of both 3121 and 3401 revolves around "service" found in the term "employment" of Social Security.
If you would just read 3401(a) and not just say you did, you and any third grader can see those who are not included in 3121(b) "employment" are also exempt from making 3401(a) wages for the deduction of 3402 withholdings for the offset of the section 1 federal income tax.
Those who are exempt from withholding earn "cash" which 3401(a) says is not taxable.

The only illiterate lunatic I see is you trying to fit square pegs into round holes.

Anyone can see that unemployment is not within wages due to service and the obvious defintion of gross income not being in unity with the alternate aspect of taxable income.

Heh. Now who's cramming pickles in round jars.

[John J. Bulten]

Banjo, "Springer made out the necessary statement .... that the net income received by Springer for the year 1865, and subject to taxation, amounted to $50,798." So you're right, because of his self-assessment, determining the sources didn't matter at all. By the way, the operative law was 13 Stat at 479, 3/3/1865, which describes the subjects of taxation in amending section 116 as "the annual gains, profits, and income of every person residing in the United States, or of any citizen of the United States residing abroad, whether derived from any kind of property, rents, interests, dividends, or salaries, or from any profession, trade, employment, or vocation, carried on in the United States or elsewhere, or from any other source whatever". As always, income is derived from something.

Quixote, I explained on the previous thread a very simple way to demonstrate zero or negative annual change in net worth without breaking GAAP or IRC. In finding such annual change in net worth (which corresponds to GAAP income), I have indeed deducted personal expenses from pay prior to calculating income. (But it's probably academic, because even if I decided to show GAAP income it would not thereby have a federal nexus and be 16th Amendment income.) Now, what I denied is the deductibility of personal expenses from income after it's been calculated. What in GAAP or IRC would vitiate the accuracy of my income calculation?

Dan,
- I did review Stratton's.
- I do begin with Constitutional preconceived notions. You don't?
- Right, Lukhard does not specify whether statutory or common "wages", so cuts both ways.
- Compensation is not income, since the Revenue Act of 1938, behind 61(a), refers to "income derived from ... compensation".
- No cases impose income taxes on work for pay in itself.
- I've already cited numerous cases that show work for pay cannot be (indirectly) taxed by Congress.
- Work for pay is "included" in gross income in the 61(a) sense of being included in sources of gross income.
- Try thearchy.

Caligari, Hylton was amended by Pollock and Brushaber. When the smoke cleared, my other cites (starting with Murdock and Drexel) demonstrated that the Constitutional right to work (within right to property) was not taxable without apportionment. Steward v Davis, an FDR-sensitive rationalization, did not hold pay for work a subject of excise; it held that an excise could "reach" pay for work, which, in context, can be reached by taxing excisable attachments.

[jg]

I've already cited numerous cases that show work for pay cannot be (indirectly) taxed by Congress.

Sorry, but you have not (or I missed it when you did). Care to give just one cite that says what you claim?

Or is this just another word game because you will now claim that only income derived from work for pay can be (indirectly) taxed by Congress?

[rachel]

Quixote is correct. I don't answer nonsense questions from illiterate lunatics. I will say though that whether or not you have a social security number has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether your wages are subject to the income tax. As I said previously on another thread if you provide any services of any kind for another person (including but not limited to a business) and are compensated for those services (in money or anything else of value) that compensation, whether you call it wages or not, is income for purposes of the federal income tax.

"Services" is based on "employment" for Social Security purposes and has everything to do with a ssn as I am not allowed to get an ITIN. I asked and that was the answer I received from the IRS.
The term "wage" of both 3121 and 3401 revolves around "service" found in the term "employment" of Social Security.
If you would just read 3401(a) and not just say you did, you and any third grader can see those who are not included in 3121(b) "employment" are also exempt from making 3401(a) wages for the deduction of 3402 withholdings for the offset of the section 1 federal income tax.
Those who are exempt from withholding earn "cash" which 3401(a) says is not taxable.

The only illiterate lunatic I see is you trying to fit square pegs into round holes.

Anyone can see that unemployment is not within wages due to service and the obvious defintion of gross income not being in unity with the alternate aspect of taxable income.

Heh. Now who's cramming pickles in round jars.

Unemployment is derived "wages" from Social Security.
You have to be statutorily 3121(b) "employed" to get unemployment compensation.
"Unemployment" is a benefit from being statutorily 3121(b) "employed".
IDIOT!

[Cpt Banjo]

Banjo, "Springer made out the necessary statement .... that the net income received by Springer for the year 1865, and subject to taxation, amounted to $50,798." So you're right, because of his self-assessment, determining the sources didn't matter at all.

Bulten, you're pathetic. Self-assessment has nothing whatsoever to do with whether a tax on pay for work is a direct tax that needs to be apportioned under the Constitution. By the way, no court in the history of the country has ever held that such a tax is a direct tax.

Caligari, Hylton was amended by Pollock and Brushaber. When the smoke cleared, my other cites (starting with Murdock and Drexel) demonstrated that the Constitutional right to work (within right to property) was not taxable without apportionment.

More intellectually bankrupt garbage. The Bromley and Fernandez decisions make it clear to all but the most obtuse tax deniers (that's you, Bulten) that the receipt of income may be taxed by an excise.

[Florida]

What in GAAP or IRC would vitiate the accuracy of my income calculation?

tonight's jar jar award goes to johnny boy bulten, who knows nada about GAAP or the IRC, but nonetheless can string the two words together in a single sentence with the word "vitiate."



Bravo! Bravo!

[LPC]

tonight's jar jar award goes to johnny boy bulten,

Wow! You nailed it. "Jar-Jar" fits him to a T.

[Nikki]

It's odd how TPs never mention which version of GAAP they rely on: Construction, Retail, Banking, etc.

John's only GAAP is that which exists between hie EAARS.

[LPC]

- Compensation is not income, since the Revenue Act of 1938, behind 61(a), refers to "income derived from ... compensation".

The claim that your argument is only slightly less silly under a superseded statute is hardly persuasive.

- No cases impose income taxes on work for pay in itself.

Wrong. See United States v. Hendrickson, 2:06-cv-11753 (U.S.D.C. E.D.Mich. 5/2/2007). The defendant clearly stated that he had a "common work-for-pay agreement with the company Personnel Management, Inc." (Document #4, Exhibit A, page 1, filed 4/2/2006), that he had "common, private-sector earnings" that were not "wages as defined by section 3401(a)" (Id., page 3), and that he was a "private-sector, non-federally-connected individual" (Document #13, page 13, filed 9/7/2006).

And the court ruled against the defendant, finding that:

"During 2002 and 2003, Defendant Peter Hendrickson was employed by Personnel Management, Inc., and earned wages of $58,965 and $60,608, respectively, during those years." (Amended Order dated 5/2/2007, Document #34, par. 3, page 2.)

"Defendants’ 2002 Form 1040 tax return, which was filed with the IRS in August of 2003, falsely reported “zero” wages on line 7." (Id., par. 6, page 3.)

"Defendants’ 2003 Form 1040 tax return falsely reported “zero” wages on line 7." (Id., par. 13, page 4.)

"Defendant Peter Hendrickson was an employee of Personnel Management, Inc. in 2002 and 2003 within the meaning of IRC
§ 3401(c). Defendant Peter Hendrickson’s employer properly withheld federal income and employment taxes from his wages." (Id., par. 19, page 6.)

You can claim that the court was wrong if you like, but you can't claim that the court did not hold that Hendrickson received "wages" subject to tax, and you can't claim that the court's ruling is not contrary to your arguments.

- I've already cited numerous cases that show work for pay cannot be (indirectly) taxed by Congress.

No, you haven't. You've cited a few cases from which you *think* you can *infer* that Congress cannot tax work for pay. But you can't find even ONE case in the history of the United States in which any judge ever said such a thing, or even any case in which there is any reason to believe that the judge ever thought such a thing.

All you have a string of inferences, and your inferences are contradicted by actual statements and actual holdings in innumerable other decisions.

- Work for pay is "included" in gross income in the 61(a) sense of being included in sources of gross income.

Which is contrary to both the plain language of section 61(a) and common sense.

You have claimed that the list of "items" in section 61(a) includes both kinds of income and kinds of sources of income, but that's not what the statute says, and it makes no sense. The statute clearly distinguishes between (a) incomes and (b) sources or activities from which income is derived. Compare, for example, section 61(a)(1) ("Compensation for services, include fees, commissions, fringe benefits, and similar items"), section 61(a)(2) ("Gross income derived from business"), and section 61(a)(3) ("Gains derived from dealings in property"). Congress clearly knew how to distinguish between (a) kinds of income, (b) sources of income, and (c) activities resulting in income, and did so.

[Blackbeard]

What in GAAP or IRC would vitiate the accuracy of my income calculation?

tonight's jar jar award goes to johnny boy bulten, who knows nada about GAAP or the IRC, but nonetheless can string the two words together in a single sentence with the word "vitiate."



Bravo! Bravo!

Mee-sa having noooo income!

[natty]

I'm still looking for the law that says compensation derives positive income even when unlinked to any taxable activity.

That is because you have assumed the premise in error that "the income tax" means a tax imposed on some activity measured by income as opposed to a tax imposed simply on INCOME.

So you search in vain for the "activity" while it stares you in the face because INCOME by definiton integrates the activity. That activity being the REALIZATION OR DERIVATION OF GAIN.

You can work all day long and never owe an income tax. It is only when you get paid for your work do you realize a gain and owe the tax.

Your argument, like all arguments by tax denier nutjobs, never rises above the level of sematics.

[John J. Bulten]

JG, I began the predecessor to this thread with the cites you requested (below). Butchers puts the whole argument together, particularly in reaffirming that right to work in itself is inalienable: how could an inalienable right ever be alienable by indirect or unapportioned taxation? Meyer and Coppage repeat that right to work is Constitutionally guaranteed, and Murdock, Frost, and Drexel affirm the nontaxability (i.e., indirect or unapportioned) of Constitutionally guaranteed rights, with some overlap among these cases. (Of course those rights could be taxed directly by apportionment, which does not alienate them because it operates on the states rather than the people.) But all Constitutional income is taxable indirectly, including income derived from pay for work should there be any.

Banjo, in fact, Springer itself has nothing directly to do with whether a tax on pay for work is a direct tax, because as I said, it was a tax on income derived from pay for work. Since Springer stipulated that the amount was income, the Court's developing doctrine at this point was merely that income tax is an indirect tax. So yes, income itself may be excised; and yes, no court I know of has used the words "direct tax" on this topic. In the cites below the key words are "liberty thus guaranteed", "right granted by the federal constitution", "freedoms", "inalienable right", and "jurisdiction of which the states have never parted with"; and "tax ... would be unconstitutional", "so-called tax", "may not charge", "power ... not unlimited", "may not ... require the relinquishment of constitutional rights", "break down all constitutional limitation". That's direct enough for me.

Dan, would you please cite what statute superseded the meaning of Revenue Act of 1938 section 22(a)? The 1939 and 1954 IRCs admitted the codified meaning did not change the statutory meaning. Unless you have a superseding cross-reference which removes that meaning, the meaning of 61(a) today IS the meaning of 22(a) then, regardless of verbal consolidation. That consolidation may omit the words "income derived from compensation", but that statutory language (or any superseding successor) is still binding.

In US v Hendrickson, the court rejected or vitiated each of Hendrickson's claims by declaring he earned "wages". She did not thereby tax pay for work in itself, but the statutory nexus which is associated with "wages", which the US had to import in spite of Hendrickson's testimony. The court's ruling is not contrary to my point that no cases impose income taxes on work for pay in itself. Nice try.

9. Right to liberty (i.e., lawful liberty) is a Constitutional right jurisdictionally reserved to the people. "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." —Thomas Jefferson et al., 1776 (Declaration) "Nor shall any person ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law .... The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." —Congress, 1789 (5th and 10th Amendments) "Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." —Congress, 1866 (14th Amendment)

10. Right to common work is part of right to liberty. "The liberty thus guaranteed ... denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life ...." —Justice James McReynolds, 1923 (Meyer v Nebraska, 262 US 390, 399) "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 ... of personal employment, by which labor and other services are exchanged for money or other forms of property." —Justice Mahlon Pitney, 1915 (Coppage v Kansas, 236 US 1, 14)

11. Congress cannot tax, in themselves, Constitutional rights jurisdictionally reserved (i.e., reserved to the people). "The first amendment, which the Fourteenth makes applicable to the states, declares that 'Congress shall make no law ....' It could hardly be denied that a tax laid specifically on the exercise of those freedoms would be unconstitutional .... A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the federal constitution." —Justice William Douglas, 1943 (Jones v Opelika, Murdock v Pennsylvania, 319 US 105, 108, 113) "The power of the state in that respect is not unlimited, and one of the limitations is that it may not impose conditions which require the relinquishment of constitutional rights." —Justice George Sutherland, 1926 (Frost v California, 271 US 583, 593, 594) "To take over to its control any one of the great number of subjects of public interest, jurisdiction of which the states have never parted with, ... by a so-called tax ... would be to break down all constitutional limitation of the powers of Congress." —Chief Justice William Taft, 1922 (Bailey v Drexel, 259 US 20, 38)

12. Given 9-11, it follows that: Congress (i.e., by income tax) cannot tax common work, in itself. "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.' ... The right to follow any of the common occupations of life is an inalienable right, it was formulated as such under the phrase 'pursuit of happiness' in the declaration of independence." —Justice Samuel Miller, 1884 (Butchers v Crescent 111 US 746, 757, 762, quoting Adam Smith)

13. Given 4 (not every payment, in itself, is income), 8 (income tax taxes activity done for income), and 12 (income tax cannot tax common work, in itself), it follows that: income tax cannot tax common work done for payment, in itself. If it ever did, it would be not income tax but direct tax, and a capitation in Smith's view. "All subjects over which the sovereign power of a state extends, are objects of taxation; but those over which it does not extend, are, upon the soundest principles, exempt from taxation. This proposition may almost be pronounced self-evident. The sovereignty of a state extends to everything which exists by its own authority, or is introduced by its permission." —Chief Justice John Marshall, 1819 (McCulloch v Maryland, 17 US 316, 427, 429) "The capitation which has been levied in France ... rated ... the lower orders of people, according to what is supposed to be their fortune, by an assessment which varies from year to year .... Serjeants, attorneys, and proctors at law ... in the first poll-tax were assessed at three shillings in the pound of their supposed income." —Adam Smith, 1776 (Wealth of Nations 5.2.4)

[Footnote] 11. People's rights being trumped by federal control via tax or penalty was actually only charged in extreme cases, and ordinary taxes have been laid on activities within state or personal jurisdiction; but taxes were not permitted to extend to Constitutional rights except via properly excisable activities connected to those rights. "An excise ... extends to vocations or activities pursued as of common right. What the individual does in the operation of a business is amenable to taxation just as much as what he owns." —Justice Benjamin Cardozo, 1937 (Steward v Davis, 301 US 548, 580, 581) 12. Congress, unlike state governments, is Constitutionally limited in its choice of proper subjects for an income tax.

[John J. Bulten]

That is because you have assumed the premise in error that "the income tax" means a tax imposed on some activity measured by income as opposed to a tax imposed simply on INCOME.

If the subject of the tax was "income as property", meaning the property gained (but only in the year gained), it would be a property tax, which would be direct.

So you search in vain for the "activity" while it stares you in the face because INCOME by definiton integrates the activity. That activity being the REALIZATION OR DERIVATION OF GAIN.

Just as I said! The subject of the tax is the gain activity, that is, "income as activity". I see no other alternative.

You can work all day long and never owe an income tax. It is only when you get paid for your work do you realize a gain and owe the tax.

Yes, if there is a gain, and if the gain is within Congressional jurisdiction to tax.

[natty]

That is because you have assumed the premise in error that "the income tax" means a tax imposed on some activity measured by income as opposed to a tax imposed simply on INCOME.

If the subject of the tax was "income as property", meaning the property gained (but only in the year gained), it would be a property tax, which would be direct.

So you search in vain for the "activity" while it stares you in the face because INCOME by definiton integrates the activity. That activity being the REALIZATION OR DERIVATION OF GAIN.

Just as I said! The subject of the tax is the gain activity, that is, "income as activity". I see no other alternative.

You can work all day long and never owe an income tax. It is only when you get paid for your work do you realize a gain and owe the tax.

Yes, if there is a gain, and if the gain is within Congressional jurisdiction to tax.

Of course, the subject of the tax is INCOME AS GAIN; so we can dispense with the rabbit trail of "income as property".
Furthermore, granted Congress does not have jurisdiction to tax the income of a foreign citizen outside a connection with the United States, we are concerned here with an American living and working in one of the States of the Union. It is a given that Congress' power to tax is concurrent with the States, that is, Congress can tax anything a State can tax.

A variation of "to derive" is a derivative. A derivative is the change of a given variable in relation to another independent variable. So we can state the derivation of income as the increase in wealth over time. If there is an increase, that is a gain.
You go to work in the morning with nothing but the clothes on your back, and at the end of the day you end up with a paycheck. That paycheck is a gain that can not be denied.

[LPC]

If the subject of the tax was "income as property", meaning the property gained (but only in the year gained), it would be a property tax, which would be direct.

Fortunately, the federal income tax does not tax income as property, but taxes income as income and, under the 16th Amendment, taxes on incomes do not need to be apportioned, so whether the tax is "direct" is irrelevant.

Yes, if there is a gain, and if the gain is within Congressional jurisdiction to tax.

Any limitation based on "Congressional jurisdiction to tax" is a figment of your imagination. As has been explained to you repeatedly, Congress has the power to tax any person, property, or activity within the states of the United States (and the District of Columbia).

And every judge in the history of the United States who has ever considered the issue has agreed that Congress has the power to tax wages, salaries, compensation for services, work-for-pay, or any other name you want to give to payments for labor or services.

[Red Cedar PM]

In US v Hendrickson, the court rejected or vitiated each of Hendrickson's claims by declaring he earned "wages". She did not thereby tax pay for work in itself, but the statutory nexus which is associated with "wages", which the US had to import in spite of Hendrickson's testimony. The court's ruling is not contrary to my point that no cases impose income taxes on work for pay in itself. Nice try.

Utter nonsense.

Pete said his "pay for work" was not taxable. The court said his "pay for work" is wages, and is taxable. You can continue down your current path of total self-delusion but bottom line that is what the court decided. Face the facts like a man and quit dancing around the issue.