Today's Federal tax on earned wages may violate our Constitution.

[johnwk]

The 16th Amendment, like ALL amendments, supercedes Congress.
Since it was ratified by the States as an amendment, it, as an AMENDMENT, AMENDS the Constitution.

The Amendments are the most powerful resource States have to affect Federal change.
You and john just don't like that change. Neither do I, but it's the LAW. LEGALLY.

What "change"? Where is the constitutional amendment repealing, Article 1, Section 9, Clause 4 which states: “No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.”?

 

[Snowball]

What "change"? Where is the constitutional amendment repealing, Article 1, Section 9, Clause 4 which states: “No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.”?

Sixteenth Amendment

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.

THAT IS THE LAW.

If you want to get rid of it, you need ANOTHER AMENDMENT.

 

[johnwk]

Sixteenth Amendment

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.

THAT IS THE LAW.

And? Where have I suggested the Sixteenth Amendment is not the law? Did I not write the following in the OP?

For the record, let us all acknowledge that the Sixteenth Amendment is part of our Constitution, and it declares:

”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.”

What does you post have to do with what I wrote?

JWK

Why have a written constitution, approved by the people, if those who it is meant to control are free to make it mean whatever they wish it to mean?

 

[Snowball]

And? Where have I suggested the Sixteenth Amendment is not the law? Did I not write the following in the OP?




What does you post have to do with what I wrote?

JWK

Why have a written constitution, approved by the people, if those who it is meant to control are free to make it mean whatever they wish it to mean?

you asked -- "what change?"

So, now you acknowledge the law. Ok. And perhaps you acknowledge that the law changed.

What remains to discuss?

 

[ClaytonB]

The 16th Amendment, like ALL amendments, supercedes Congress.
Since it was ratified by the States as an amendment, it, as an AMENDMENT, AMENDS the Constitution.

Roger that, cowboy!

The Amendments are the most powerful resource States have to affect Federal change.

No, the Constitutional Convention is the most powerful resource that States have. The Federal government was brought into this world by the States and it can be taken back out of this world by them. DC needs to get that through its thick skull. This has nothing to do with lawlessness, anarchy, civil war or any of that noise. It's a point of authority.

You and john just don't like that change. Neither do I, but it's the LAW. LEGALLY.

The problem is deeper than that. We know for a fact that there is a cabal of conspirators in our country that has been subverting this nation and its Constitution, going back to before its founding. The 2020 election-heist is just their latest stunt. The founding of the Federal Reserve in 1913 was Strategic Objective #1 (they had tried two previous times, and failed) -- the constitutional prohibition against implementing a direct, unapportioned tax was the dam that was holding it back. Once that obstacle was taken out of the way, the Fed was successfully founded and the US Government then launched a century of total, global war (funded by infinity-cash from the Fed) with the singular aim and objective of bringing about the Beast World Order tyranny we see descending upon our world today. You can bury your head in the sand, if you want, but the facts are so clear as to require no elaboration.

The passage of the 16th amendment was wholly political. There was no widespread outcry from the American public for a national income tax. To argue the opposite case, you need to show when/where the man-on-the-street was clamoring for a national income-tax and what problems in their personal lives they were saying would be solved by this. Of course, there is no such historical evidence, because nothing like that ever happened. NO ordinary Americans were calling for a national income-tax. The fact that a super-majority of States is required to ratify an Amendment makes the case of the Establishment-apologists that much harder -- amendments have typically passed in response to a national crisis or political emergency that created a popular outcry which fueled the votes needed to create that super-majority and modify the Constitution. While it is true that the conspirators expertly played the procedural chess-moves required to usher through the 16th Amendment, there was no national outcry that this was a response to. So, we have this extraordinary measure implemented in the absence of any great emergency or political outcry; there was not even a sweeping popular movement whipped up through propaganda. The Amendment was passed quietly and appears (from lack of a better explanation) to have been facilitated by plain, old-fashioned palm-greasing and bribery.

So, no, I don't accept some kind of technical, procedural "win" that was scored by the Cabal 110 years ago as a sufficient basis for overturning the Constitution on one of its core founding principles, that is, no taxation without representation. And if we're really going to make that kind of argument, then we can go back to the Boston Tea Party... no half-ass January 6th bullshit this time, a real Con-con led by the 13-founding-colonies to strip the Feds naked and force them to account for themselves without running for shelter in their bought-and-paid-for special-pleading tax-courts, DoJ, SCOTUS, etc. If the Clowns want to make this a question of force, the people win. We The People created the Federal government, not the other way around. The arrogant prince has forgotten his place in the King's household. No one is indispensable. Absolutely no one. We The People have the power to call a constitutional-convention, to convene grand juries, to appoint special prosecutors, and to bring charges against Feds in State courts during an interregnum while the Federal government is re-constituted. This is not a game.

 

[Snowball]

No, the Constitutional Convention is the most powerful resources that States have.

A power that's never been used, and is STILL DELIMITED by it's collective majoritarian requirement.
Therefore it is NOT a State power individually but rather only in the COLLECTIVE and expressed as a 2/3 Majority.

So, no, I don't accept some kind of technical, procedural "win" that was scored by the Cabal 110 years ago as a sufficient basis for overturning the Constitution on one of its core founding principles, that is, no taxation without representation.

"No taxation without representation" has always been a scam. Our ancestors WERE REPRESENTED. We just don't like what their representatives APPROVED.

 

[ClaytonB]

You and john just don't like that change. Neither do I, but it's the LAW. LEGALLY.

Also, as to the accusation of special-pleading that Establishment-apologists always roll out whenever the working-man raises the question of whether the US national income-tax is truly Constitutional, this is a pernicious change-of-subject. The Establishment are the privileged class... because they are privileged and politically well-connected, they live off the largess of the public purse. That the working-man is paying into that public-purse and they are withdrawing from it does not reduce the working-man's political right to question the validity of the system, quite the opposite, those who are the beneficiaries of the status-quo system are the ones who are much more biased by the benefits they receive from it, and stand to lose if it is changed:



While I stand to benefit a little if my income is not directly taxed by the Federal government, the Establishment apologists stand to lose much more than I stand to gain, that is, their vested-interests in this discussion which would bias/distort their perspective are vastly larger than my own. So, they should not raise the "you just don't want to pay taxes" red-herring in order to accuse dissenters of special-pleading, because that will snap back in their face a thousand times over.

In all likelihood, I've paid most of the taxes that I will ever pay in my working life. I stand to gain very little from changing the national tax system. However, my children are just starting out their working lives. 100 years ago, a typical American was paying something on the order of 2-5% taxes, all told, whether through sales taxes, income taxes, whether State or Federal. Today, just 100 short years later, the typical American just starting out in their working life is easily paying ten times the rate that our great-grandparents were paying, and why? We have modern technology, we have the Internet, we have AI, we have all of these modern developments that should have driven down the costs of all aspects of life, especially those related to public infrastructure but, instead, we have been on a trajectory where the State is taking an ever-larger share of our real product, year-by-year. So where the promise of technological progress was that the common man, the typical household would become more and more wealthy as a byproduct of the overflowing abundance made possible through technology, what has actually happened instead is that more and more of the real product of the nation is captured by the welfare-warfare state and literally set fire in the desert overseas, or squandered on doomed, short-lived public-works projects like Pruitt-Igoe. In a nation where probably less than 10% of households could scrape together $100,000 in a life-crisis situation, we have dozens of billions of dollars flowing overseas to Ukraine and everywhere else in the world like money grows on trees. This insanity has been facilitated by the central bank, and the central bank was made possible only by national taxation without representation, established by the wholly-political 16th Amendment.

It appears that I was born at the very last generation to at least break-even in this insane, century-long social-engineering project. My children are almost certainly facing a lifetime of destitution and dispossession. So, I don't want to hear it with this "you just want lower taxes" BS. While I would not turn down lower taxes, my primary motivation has nothing to do with the relatively minor benefit that elimination of direct national taxation would have on my own remaining paychecks until retirement. The Establishment-apologists, however, keep raking in those comfy 6-figure MIC-lobbyist salaries while the US MIC blows up the sunshine in deserts all around the world....

 

[Snowball]

This insanity has been facilitated by the central bank, and the central bank was made possible only by national taxation without representation, established by the wholly-political 16th Amendment.

I have to repeat myself. C+P from Post #26..

"No taxation without representation" has always been a scam. Our ancestors WERE REPRESENTED. We just don't like what their representatives APPROVED.

It was made possible WITH Representation. That IS the problem. Representation IS the problem. It is WHY we are HERE.

 

[Sonny Tufts]

So, a few characteristics of an indirect tax are, it is voluntarily paid during the taxpayer’s consumption, and safe because no man is obliged to consume more than he pleases, and such a tax are costs added by government to things which individuals are free to acquired or reject, while direct taxes are those which are assessed to the individual by government, are oppressive, and not avoidable.

The bottom line is, the poster who pretends a tax on earned wages is not a direct tax which requires apportionment defies the very words of those who framed our Constitution and participated in its ratification debates.

The question is, why are there so many who pretend that the bread which working people earn when selling the property each has in their own labor, is not a direct tax and requires an apportionment?

Cherry picking quotes again, are you? Ellsworth doesn’t speak for all of the Founders.

The Springer opinion delved into the history of the direct tax clause:

It does not appear that an attempt was made by any one [at the constitutional convention] to define the exact meaning of the language employed [the term “direct taxes”].

In the twenty-first number of the Federalist, Alexander Hamilton, speaking of taxes generally, said:

"Those of the direct kind, which principally relate to land and buildings, may admit of a rule of apportionment. Either the value of the land or the number of the people may serve as a standard."

The thirty-sixth number of that work, by the same author, is devoted to the subject of internal taxes. It is there said, "They may be subdivided into those of the direct and those of the indirect kind." In this connection land taxes and poll taxes are discussed. The former are commended and the latter are condemned. Nothing is said of any other direct tax. In neither case is there a definition given or attempted of the phrase "direct tax."…

Hamilton left behind him a series of legal briefs, and among them one entitled "Carriage tax." See vol. vii. p. 848, of his works. This paper was evidently prepared with a view to the Hylton case, in which he appeared as one of the counsel for the United States. In it he says:
"What is the distinction between direct and indirect taxes? It is a matter of regret that terms so uncertain and vague in so important a point are to be found in the Constitution. We shall seek in vain for any antecedent settled legal meaning to the respective terms. There is none. We shall be as much at a loss to find any disposition of either which can satisfactorily determine the point."

There being many carriages in some of the states, and very few in others, he points out the preposterous consequences if such a tax be laid and collected on the principle of apportionment instead of the rule of uniformity. He insists that if the tax there in question was a direct tax, so would be a tax on ships, according to their tonnage. He suggests that the boundary line between direct and indirect taxes be settled by "a species of arbitration," and that direct taxes be held to be only "capitation or poll taxes, and taxes on lands and buildings, and general assessments, whether on the whole property of individuals or on their whole real or personal estate. All else must, of necessity, be considered as indirect taxes."

Then there’s the Report on Direct Taxes that Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott, Jr. prepared in 1796. It surveyed the various types of taxes levied by the states and noted that many of them imposed taxes on the profits of professions, merchants, and manufacturers. Regarding these taxes, the report stated, “It is presumed, that taxes of this nature cannot be considered as of that description which the constitution requires to be apportioned among the States.”
https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsp&fileName=009/llsp009.db&recNum=443

Look, there is no consensus on the historical meaning of “direct tax” as used in the Constitution. I could cite a boatload of articles by law professors whose opinions on this issue range all over the place, but I doubt very much that you would ever read any of them (except maybe those by Eric Jensen). The plain fact is that beginning with the Hylton case in 1796 SCOTUS has limited direct taxes to capitations and taxes on the ownership of property.* It has rejected avoidability as the defining characteristic of an indirect tax and has rejected the claim that a tax on pay-for-work is a direct tax.

*For what it’s worth, I think Hylton was wrongly decided. The carriage tax in that case looks suspiciously like a property tax. Moreover, I think the Court blew it in the Obamacare case in not holding the individual mandate was a direct tax. But I don’t delude myself by ignoring the cases and pretending that my view of what the law should be is what the law really is.

 

[ClaytonB]

I have to repeat myself. C+P from Post #26..

"No taxation without representation" has always been a scam. Our ancestors WERE REPRESENTED. We just don't like what their representatives APPROVED.

It was made possible WITH Representation. That IS the problem. Representation IS the problem. It is WHY we are HERE.

Yes, you can bury your head in the sand and pretend there hasn't been a Cabal infiltrating this country from before day one. If you want to assert that the 16th Amendment was the product of representation of the American people, please show the historical evidence of the mass public outcry that created the super-majority required to pass that amendment. What was the crisis? What was happening in the US from 1911 to 1913 that was causing main-street Americans to cry out for a direct, unapportioned national income tax?

The Cabal's retort is, "We played the right chess-moves and we won through technicality, but a win is a win." But that's a two-way street... if we want to get that technical, we can call a Con-con, dissolve the Federal government, convene grand juries, appoint special-prosecutors, and start filing charges against all Federal crooks in State courts, while we re-constitute our national government. Yep, that's a question of distributed coordination and political force. But if the Cabal wants to make this a contest of force, then let it be so. We The People will win that contest!

 

[johnwk]

you asked -- "what change?"

So, now you acknowledge the law. Ok. And perhaps you acknowledge that the law changed.

What remains to discuss?

What I acknowledged was the wording of the Sixteenth Amendment as being the law.

And now you ask "What remains to discuss?" I stated that in the title of the thread "Today's Federal tax on earned wages may violate our Constitution", and in the OP:

Seems relatively obvious when considering the above stated FACTS, the contention made by some that today's federal tax on a working person's earned wages may very well violate our federal constitution and has great merit for the following reasons:


Today's federal tax on earned wages is not in harmony with the original objective of adopting the Sixteenth Amendment which was to allow for a federal tax on “unearned” incomes [stocks, bonds, etc.] as can be contrasted from “earned” wages.


Today’s federal tax on a working person’s earned wages takes the form of a direct tax, is not being apportioned, and thus violates the constitutional protection requiring direct taxes to be apportioned.


Finally, and in respect of the Sixteenth Amendment and calculating today’s federal tax on earned wages “ . . . 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. Congress cannot by any definition it may adopt conclude the matter, since it cannot by legislation alter the Constitution, from which alone it derives its power to legislate, and within whose limitations alone that power can be lawfully exercised.” EISNER v. MACOMBER , 252 U.S. 189 (1920)


Today’s federal tax on earned wages does not follow the set rules laid out in EISNER V. MACOMBER to calculate and distinguish what portion, if any, of a working person’s earn wages falls within the definition of “incomes” as the term is used in the Sixteenth Amendment.

 

[Snowball]

Yes, you can bury your head in the sand and pretend there hasn't been a Cabal infiltrating this country from before day one. If you want to assert that the 16th Amendment was the product of representation of the American people, please show the historical evidence of the mass public outcry that created the super-majority required to pass that amendment. What was the crisis? What was happening in the US from 1911 to 1913 that was causing main-street Americans to cry out for a direct, unapportioned national income tax?

The Cabal's retort is, "We played the right chess-moves and we won through technicality, but a win is a win." But that's a two-way street... if we want to get that technical, we can call a Con-con, dissolve the Federal government, convene grand juries, appoint special-prosecutors, and start filing charges against all Federal crooks in State courts, while we re-constitute our national government. Yep, that's a question of distributed coordination and political force. But if the Cabal wants to make this a contest of force, then let it be so. We The People will win that contest!

The people birthed the Cabal, and the Cabal is birthing the people. It was always a plot. A plot against Altar, Throne and Hearth. We are late in the progress it has made.. and it is coming for the person last - after it was done with the Church, the King, and the Family... it's coming for our very humanity.

 

[Snowball]

What I acknowledged was the wording of the Sixteenth Amendment as being the law.

And now you ask "What remains to discuss?" I stated that in the title of the thread "Today's Federal tax on earned wages may violate our Constitution", and in the OP:

It doesn't violate the Constitution. The Constitution MADE IT HAPPEN.

 

[johnwk]

It doesn't violate the Constitution. The Constitution MADE IT HAPPEN.

How do you arrive at that conclusion?


Today's federal tax on earned wages is not in harmony with the original objective of adopting the Sixteenth Amendment which was to allow for a federal tax on “unearned” incomes [stocks, bonds, etc.] as can be contrasted from “earned” wages.


Today’s federal tax on a working person’s earned wages takes the form of a direct tax, is not being apportioned, and thus violates the constitutional protection requiring direct taxes to be apportioned.


Finally, and in respect of the Sixteenth Amendment and calculating today’s federal tax on earned wages “ . . . 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. Congress cannot by any definition it may adopt conclude the matter, since it cannot by legislation alter the Constitution, from which alone it derives its power to legislate, and within whose limitations alone that power can be lawfully exercised.” EISNER v. MACOMBER , 252 U.S. 189 (1920)


Today’s federal tax on earned wages does not follow the set rules laid out in EISNER V. MACOMBER to calculate and distinguish what portion, if any, of a working person’s earn wages falls within the definition of “incomes” as the term is used in the Sixteenth Amendment.

 

[Snowball]

How do you arrive at that conclusion?


Today's federal tax on earned wages is not in harmony with the original objective of adopting the Sixteenth Amendment which was to allow for a federal tax on “unearned” incomes [stocks, bonds, etc.] as can be contrasted from “earned” wages.


Today’s federal tax on a working person’s earned wages takes the form of a direct tax, is not being apportioned, and thus violates the constitutional protection requiring direct taxes to be apportioned.


Finally, and in respect of the Sixteenth Amendment and calculating today’s federal tax on earned wages “ . . . 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. Congress cannot by any definition it may adopt conclude the matter, since it cannot by legislation alter the Constitution, from which alone it derives its power to legislate, and within whose limitations alone that power can be lawfully exercised.” EISNER v. MACOMBER , 252 U.S. 189 (1920)


Today’s federal tax on earned wages does not follow the set rules laid out in EISNER V. MACOMBER to calculate and distinguish what portion, if any, of a working person’s earn wages falls within the definition of “incomes” as the term is used in the Sixteenth Amendment.

The only reason for the Eisner ruling was the stock divided was not even really a dividend, and it wasn't income either, it was essentially a forward stock split accomplished by issuing new shares to all.
If there was any real gain in that dividend, including an increase in Macomber's ownership, which didn't happen due to the nature of it, the court would have ruled the other way. So it's totally inapplicable to the 16th Amendment powers. That's the only reason she won, and the only reason she brought the case.

 

[johnwk]

The only reason for the Eisner ruling was the stock divided was not even really a dividend, and it wasn't income either, it was essentially a forward stock split accomplished by issuing new shares to all.
If there was any real gain in that dividend, including an increase in Macomber's ownership, which didn't happen due to the nature of it, the court would have ruled the other way. So it's totally inapplicable to the 16th Amendment powers. That's the only reason she won, and the only reason she brought the case.

Why didn't you answer the question? How do you arrive at the conclusion that the Sixteenth Amendment was intended to allow a tax on earned wages?

Today's federal tax on earned wages is not in harmony with the original objective of adopting the Sixteenth Amendment which was to allow for a federal tax on “unearned” incomes [stocks, bonds, etc.] as can be contrasted from “earned” wages.


Today’s federal tax on a working person’s earned wages takes the form of a direct tax, is not being apportioned, and thus violates the constitutional protection requiring direct taxes to be apportioned.


Finally, and in respect of the Sixteenth Amendment and calculating a federal tax on incomes, “ . . . 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. Congress cannot by any definition it may adopt conclude the matter, since it cannot by legislation alter the Constitution, from which alone it derives its power to legislate, and within whose limitations alone that power can be lawfully exercised.” EISNER v. MACOMBER , 252 U.S. 189 (1920)


So, how did you arrive at the conclusion that the Sixteenth Amendment was intended to allow a tax on earned wages, and that such a tax would not violate the provisions of our Constitution?

.

 

[Snowball]

Why didn't you answer the question? How do you arrive at the conclusion that the Sixteenth Amendment was intended to allow a tax on earned wages?
.

Seriously, do you have a crayon stuck in your brain like Homer Simpson or something? It's what it did. It's what is says.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by the legislature of three-fourths of the several States, shall be valid to all intents and purposes as a part of the Constitution:

"ARTICLE XVI. The Congress shall have the 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."

 

[ClaytonB]

The people birthed the Cabal,

Well, yes, the Antichrist and his Whore are made for each other. But We The People should be a righteous people who follow God and reject the Antichrist's Cabal. And I prefer to believe our Founding Fathers were men of faith and were guided by God, rather than to believe they were trapped in the devil's snares. But maybe I'm just a hopeless optimist...

it's coming for our very humanity.

Exactly, which is why all of this really is biblical in nature. This really is, as Q put it, GOOD AND EVIL. So, all the "technicalities" of how the 16th Amendment was or was not passed are not interesting to me. The only thing that interests me is THE REAL.

Judgment Day is coming.

Many are going to be caught up short, especially the ones who insist on laughing at their imminent Doom...

 

[Sonny Tufts]

Ohio

never

ratified

Even if this were true (and it isn't), 41 other states did. Since only 36 states' ratifications were needed your ignorant claim about Ohio is, like the rest of your posts, garbage.

 

[ClaytonB]

Even if this were true (and it isn't), 41 other states did. Since only 36 states' ratifications were needed your ignorant claim about Ohio is, like the rest of your posts, garbage.

It would falsify the claim that it was ratified in Feb. 1913

Maybe you can help me out on the other thread of discussion -- what was the great national crisis affecting the main-street American in 1911-1913, for which he was raising a nationwide grassroots outcry for a direct, unapportioned, national income tax? I mean, there was a 75% super-majority of Americans who wanted the 16th Amendment to be passed, right?

Right?