The Supreme Court case seeking to shut down wealth taxes before they even exist
The Supreme Court case seeking to shut down wealth taxes before they even exist
A SCOTUS case aiming to protect rich people from taxes could lead to chaos for the federal government’s finances.
The plaintiffs’ arguments in Moore v. United States have little basis in law — unless you think that a list of long-ago-discarded laissez-faire decisions from the early 20th century remain good law. And a decision favoring these plaintiffs could blow a huge hole in the federal budget. While no Warren-style wealth tax is on the books, the Moore plaintiffs do challenge an existing tax that is expected to raise $340 billion over the course of a decade.
But Republicans also hold six seats on the nation’s highest Court, so there is some risk that a majority of the justices will accept the plaintiffs’ dubious legal arguments. And if they do so, they could do considerable damage to the government’s ability to fund itself.
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there's literally a constitutional amendment saying congress can issue taxes however they want. The supreme court is so full of its own shit they think they can rewrite every law they don't like.
That's why they've been stacking the courts with conservative activists for so long, so they could get a majority that would go along with these paper-thin justifications for completely changing our society from the top down.
Well said.
The stated goal of "originalism" is to read the Constitution without interpretation.
Which would be bad enough, since it was written by a bunch of slavers without any input from women whatsoever.
But in reality it is impossible to read something (especially law) without interpretation; they simply start with the desired conclusion and look for any historical justification no matter how implausible.
But in reality it is impossible to read something (especially law) without interpretation
Some people might see that as a challenge, so I'd state it even more bluntly: reading is interpretation. Reading without interpretation is not just impossible; it's an oxymoron.
I would hope every single high school graduate could remember the simple pictograph of how communication works:
- Person A has an idea -
- Person A encodes the idea and transmits it -
- Person B receives the transmission and decodes it -
- Person B has the idea-
- Reverse the process for feedback and confirmation of idea -
That encoding bit is pretty important...
So cool, because this is also how tcp/ip works.
What amendment is that? Because the 16A doesn't say that - and neither does the core document, which is why we needed the 16A.
Which amendment is that? Because the sixteenth amendment very specifically mentions taxes on income, not wealth.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Article 1, section 8:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises […]
Given that the 16th Amendment exists expressly in order to establish a federal income tax, it's probably safe to say that this has not been understood as an unlimited power of taxation.
Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Company is the relevant SCOTUS case, if you're curious. The tl;dr is that Article I, Section 9:
No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
states that revenues raised by a "direct tax", which includes income taxes, from a given state must be proportional to that state's population relative to the rest of the country. Income isn't evenly distributed among the states, so income taxes violate this provision. That's why the 16th amendment specifically exempts income taxes from that requirement:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on income, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
The basic idea was that, if Congress needed to raise a bunch of money for some large project, they can't go targeting specific states for it.
The Supreme Court in Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co. added that the "Sixteenth Amendment conferred no new power of taxation but simply prohibited the previous complete and plenary power of income taxation possessed by Congress from the beginning from being taken out of the category of indirect taxation to which it inherently belonged." 240 U.S. 112 (1916).[30]
That effect was reaffirmed in Bowers v. Kerbaugh-Empire Co., 271 U.S. 170 (1926), in which the Supreme Court reviewed Pollock, the Corporation Excise Tax Act of 1909, and the Sixteenth Amendment. The Court concluded, "It was not the purpose or effect of that amendment to bring any new subject within the taxing power. Congress already had power to tax all incomes."
The Sixteenth Amendment exists not because of the limitations imposed by Pollock v. Farmers, but because Congress was concerned that the Supreme Court might strike down further income tax laws even though they were within the powers conferred by Article 1. Congress thought the Supreme Court had gone too far (and they likely did) and wasn't sure how far they would go so they took it out of the Supreme Court's hands.
Funnily enough you're talking about circular logic. One is saying congress has the expressed right to tax and cannot be limited by the Supreme Court. Now you're saying the Supreme Court has already limited congresses power to tax..
Er, no?
I'm saying that the Constitution, Article I Section 9, imposes a limit on Congress's ability to issue taxes. The Sixteenth Amendment was passed to specifically exempt income taxes from that limit, which is what authorized the federal income tax. There is a very real legal argument that a wealth tax, which is a fundamentally different kind of tax, does not fall under the Sixteenth Amendment exemption and thus is constitutionally restricted.
I might not have explained that super clearly, so genuinely, feel free to ask if I was confusing at all.
Not an amendment.
Yeah, because before we only had wealth taxes. We had to add income.
This is also false. A quick glance at Wikipedia suggests that tariffs were a prime revenue source for the federal government.
...How do you obtain wealth without income?
I assume that's kindof the issue here. The wealth can't of come from nowhere. It's just 2nd grader loopholes.
There's a very meaningful difference. Wealth is a function of the value of your stuff, which is determined by other people at large, not you, while $20 is $20, always.
A family who bought a rundown brownstone building in Brooklyn back in the 70s is now extremely wealthy, completely independent of income. Wealth can be obtained by other people simply deciding that your stuff is now more valuable than it was before, whether that be property, art, company shares, resources, or anything else. Money obtained by selling stuff generally is treated very differently than income, usually under capital gains taxes.