Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

The 16th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, which allows the collection of income tax in its current form was adopted on 3 February 1913.

The First Amendment states:

History

The Wilson - Gorman Tariff Act of 1894 was an attempt to impose a federal income tax of 2% on income over $ 4,000. Of the opponents of the law mocked as "communist ", it is provided by a federal court in question.

In the court case, Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., the Supreme Court in 1895 ruled that the law was unconstitutional. In response to this development and the growing concern of many sections of society, that the richest citizens united too much economic power, this constitutional amendment was passed by Congress and sent to the states. 1913 the Foreign Minister declared Philander Knox that the First Amendment was ratified by the necessary three- fourths majority of the states ( some more states ratified the constitutional amendment later.) In the same year, Congress introduced a new general income tax.

Interpretation of the constitutional amendment

The interpretation of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution by the Supreme Court has evolved over time and adapted to the circumstances. Many disputes about the applicability of the Amendment, come on by reliance on older formulations and tilted decisions.

Earlier decisions

In the case Brushaber vs. Decided Union Pacific Railroad in 1916, the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment prevents the court from, exclude the income tax from the indirect taxes and to integrate them into the category of direct taxation, as in the case of Pollock vs.. Farmer's Loan & Trust Co. happened. All direct taxes must be allocated by Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution. The court further ruled that the constitutional amendment was not retroactive, and found that taxes on the personal property would still have to be regarded as direct taxes.

In the case of Bowers, Collector vs. Kerbaugh - Empire Co. from 1926 referring the judge position:

Modern design

In the court case vs Commissioner. Glenshaw Glass Co. from 1955, the Supreme Court clarified what is meant by a modern interpretation to the concept of income under the 16th Amendment. Income taxes could therefore be levied on things about which the relevant taxpayer had control. According to this definition is any increase in property, whether contained by wages, bonuses, stock sales or profits and winnings, in the definition of income. This will be the case as long as until the Congress a special allowance introduced (such as it exists, for example, for gifts, a heritage, scholarships and alimony ).

Some lower courts have ruled that the First Amendment promotes an illegal collection of direct taxes on income. However, the Supreme Court has consistently emphasized that all income taxes would be counted as indirect taxes.

Issues

Some U.S. citizens who oppose income taxes, claiming that the 16th Amendment was never ratified properly. Appeals, which address the issue of ratification, lead to factors such as differences in capitalization, different terminology and the use of different punctuations in the draft legislation of the various states. Another constantly cited argument is that Ohio was not an American state located in the year 1913, because a notice of Congress revealed that Ohio was first performed as an American state in 1953 (although Ohio sent since 1803, Representatives in Congress and took part in presidential elections ).

Another argument of the critics is that the 16th Amendment, although it has been ratified by valid method, merely the legality of income tax implies, without explicitly addressing them.

The best known representative of the non- ratification claim is Bill Benson, co- author of The Law That Never Was. His arguments were used by the defendants in several lawsuits and rejected in any of the cases. In the trial of U.S. vs. Thomas wrote the following, the 7th Court of Appeals:

38 states have ratified the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, 37 of them sent formal papers to the relevant Minister (Minnesota put the Minister verbally informed ). Only four papers give the exact wording of the 16th Amendment, as Congress passed it, again. The other states refer to errors in punctuation, the different spelling of technical terms and the different capitalization. The text of the law, the Congress has sent to the states, states: The Congress shall have the right to set taxes on any income and raise without a distribution takes place among the various states, and without regard to any census. The text of the law of Illinois included at the place of the word enumeration ( census ) renumeration the word; text of the law of Missouri replaced the word lay by levy. Other states allowed themselves similar blunders.

Federal courts have vocations that were based on the non- ratification assertion rejected.

Swell

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• Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
• Economic history of the United States
• Tax Law (United States)
• Income Tax