A tax is for the purpose of raising revenue. It’s not a tax, it’s a fine. A fine is for the purpose of punishing actions. Obamacare outlaws Christianity.
Yet somehow progressive taxation, which punishes higher income earners, is still considered a tax and constitutional.
How has it survived this long when we should have “equal protection” under the law. It boggles my mind the mental gymnastics that had to be used to get around that.
You’re confusing purpose and effect. Roberts need not read minds to determine the purpose of the Obamacare fines; the president was quite adamant in declaring their purpose was not to raise revenue, but to punish a failure to act.
Contrarily, to believe that the purpose of the income tax is to punish people who earn large amounts of income, then you must presume that the government does not want to raise income, since if people complied with what you perceive the wishes of government to be, no-one would pay taxes.