'Income' has been taken to mean the same thing as used in the Corporation
Excise Tax Act of 1909, in the
Sixteenth Amendment, and in the
various revenue acts subsequently passed. Southern Pacific Co.
v. Lowe; Merchants' L. & T. Co. v. Smietanka.
Bowers v. Kerbaugh-Empire Co. 271 U.S. 170 (1926)
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The Sixteenth Amendment meaning of income
is the same as the 1909 Tax Act
meaning of income subject
only to minor modifications by the Supreme Court.
The Corporation Excise Tax Act of August 5, 1909,
...
[A] definition of the word 'income' was so necessary in its
administration ...
In Hays v. Gauley Mountain Coal Co. ... In United States v. Cleveland,
Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Co. ...
It is obvious that ... if the word 'income' has the same meaning in the Income Tax Act of 1913
that it had in the Corporation Excise
Tax Act of
1909, and that it
has the same scope of meaning was in effect decided in Southern Pacific
Co. v. Lowe, where ... there was no difference in its meaning as
used in the act of 1909 and in
the Income Tax Act of 1913.
There can be no doubt that the word must be
given the same meaning and content in the Income Tax Acts of 1916 and 1917
that it had in the act of 1913.
When to this we add that in Eisner v. Macomber, supra, a case arising under the same Income Tax Act of 1916 ... the
definition of 'income' which
was applied was adopted ... arising under the Corporation Excise Tax Act of 1909,
... there would seem to be no room to doubt that the word must be given the same
meaning in all of the Income Tax Acts of Congress that was given to it
in the Corporation Excise Tax Act, and that what that meaning is
has now become definitely settled by decisions of this Court.
Merchants’ Loan & Trust Co. v. Smietanka, 255 U.S. 509 (1921)
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[T]he word [income] must be given the same
meaning in all of the Income Tax Acts of Congress that was given to it
in the Corporation Excise Tax Act [of 1909].
No if's, and's or but's. The
issue is settled.
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