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U.S. Federal Income Tax

Subjugation by taxation

Loose Ends

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        There is a set of loose ends that need to be tied up.  On the one hand, we have a passage from the Brushaber case telling us that the 16th Amendment does NOT allow a direct - unapportioned tax.  The case tells us that a Direct - Unapportioned tax;

... would cause one provision of the Constitution to destroy another; that is, they would result in bringing the provisions of the Amendment exempting a direct tax from apportionment into irreconcilable conflict with the general requirement that all direct taxes be apportioned.
Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916)

        This is followed by the Stanton case telling us the same thing, 16th Amendment does NOT allow a direct - unapportioned tax.  The case tells us;

aside from the obvious error of the proposition, intrinsically considered, it manifestly disregards the fact that by the previous ruling it was settled that the provisions of the 16th Amendment conferred no new power of taxation...
Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co, 240 U.S. 103 (1916)

        Two court cases tell us; no new powers of taxation; no direct - unapportioned tax.  On the other hand we have the Eisner court telling us that somehow that rule is different for income.

In order, therefore, that the clauses cited from article 1 of the Constitution (direct taxes must be apportioned) may have proper force and effect, save only as modified by the amendment, and that the latter also may have proper effect, (power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment) it becomes essential to distinguish between what is and what is not 'income,' as the term is there used, and to apply the distinction, as cases arise, according to truth and substance, without regard to form.
Supeme Court: Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189 (1920)

        The Eisner court has recognized the direct taxes must be apportioned rule, and appears to contradict it in the second half of the sentence... Until one reads the following portion of page 2580 of the House Congressional Record dated March 27, 1943.

So the amendment made it possible to bring investment income within the scope of a general income-tax law, but did not change the character of the tax.  It is still fundamentally an excise or duty with respect to the privilege of carrying on any activity or owning any property which produces income.
House Congressional Record 1943

        The "income" tax is an "excise" ("privilege") tax.  The privilege is getting a "return on investment".  As an excise (privilege) tax, the activity is avoidable in one's everyday affairs of life. As such, this excise tax can NOT be a direct tax.  This ties up yet another loose end.  I stated; "In short and in essence, The Sixteenth Amendment acts strictly and solely upon the Supreme Court" based upon the following excerpt:

It is clear on the face of this text that it does not purport to confer power to levy income taxes in a generic sense, -an authority already possessed and never questioned, ...

Indeed, in the light of the history which we have given and of the decision in the Pollock Case, and the ground upon which the ruling in that case was based, there is no escape from the conclusion that the Amendment was drawn for the purpose of doing away for the future with the principle upon which the Pollock Case was decided; ...

Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916)

        That principle was that a tax on a return on invested property was the same as a tax on the invested property itself.  The Pollock court ruled that such a tax was direct.  It was not, since it did not directly burden the property.  The property does not diminish because of the taxation.  Therefore such a tax would have properly fallen in the class of excise taxation.

Flint v. Stone Tracy, 220 U.S. 107 (1911)

The tax under consideration, as we have construed the statute, may be described as an excise upon the particular privilege of doing [privileged activity(ies)]

As was said in the Thomas Case, supra, the requirement to pay such taxes involves the exercise of privileges, and the element of absolute and unavoidable demand is lacking. If [privileged activity] is not done in the manner described ... no tax is payable.

        Absolute and unavoidable demand means it is a tax that can not be legally ducked.  A tax that has absolute and unavoidable demand is a Direct Tax - Subject to the rule of apportionment.  A tax that can be ducked in one's everyday affairs of life with no loss of unalienable rights or enjoyments of such rights, would be an Excise (privilege) Tax - Subject to the rule of uniformity.

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