Jenny Beth Martin repeats the big myth, pushes useless remedy!

4/23/14 | johnwk

[JOHN W K]

SEE: Amending an Amendment
By Jenny Beth Martin
April 23, 2014, 5 a.m.

Jenny asserts in her article that the 16th Amendment “gave Congress the authority to collect income tax beginning in 1913”. She goes on to write:


We agree with the millions of Americans who seek fundamental reform to make taxes fairer and flatter, grow jobs and the economy, and put an end to abuses of power by the Internal Revenue Service. However, serious consideration of fundamental tax reform won’t happen until Congress’s constitutional authority to levy an income tax and fund the IRS is removed. That’s why we’re supporting Oklahoma Republican Rep. Jim Bridenstine’s amendment to repeal the 16th Amendment.

Read the 16th Amendment and you will find no mention of “income tax” as Jenny asserts. In fact the first so called “income tax” is found in An Act to provide increased Revenue from Imports, to pay interest on the Public Debt, and for other Purposes. The phrase “income tax” is found in the margin dealing with Section 49 of the Act. SECTION 49 of the Act reads as follows:

Sec. 49. And be it further enacted, That on and after the first day of January next, there shall be levied, collected, and paid upon the annual income of every person residing in the United States, whether such income is derived from any kind of property, or from any profession, trade, employment or vocation carried on in the United States or elsewhere, or from any other source whatever, if such annual income exceeds the sum of eight hundred dollars, a tax of three percentum on the amount of such excess over eight hundred dollars...

This income tax was later tested in the Supreme Court and was upheld as being constitutional in SPRINGER v. U S, 102 U.S. 586 (1880). Among other arguments, the argument that the tax was direct and required an apportionment did not carry.

So, Jenny’s comment that the 16th Amendment “gave Congress the authority to collect income tax beginning in 1913” is flat wrong. What the 16th Amendment actually did was simply confirm that Congress had power to lay and collect taxes calculated from incomes without having to apportion the tax, which is a power possessed from the very beginning, when our Constitution was ratified!


Jenny’s continued support of Representative Bridenstine’s proposal would not end, e.g., excise taxes being levied upon the privilege of being a corporation, which may then be calculated from profits and gains earned under the corporate charter. This occurred under the Corporate Excise Tax of 1909, prior to the adoption of the 16th Amendment, and the tax was upheld in FLINT v. STONE TRACY CO., 220 U.S. 107 (1911). The Court found the tax did not have to be apportioned and the Court explained the tax was not laid upon corporate profits, but rather on the “privilege” of earning income under a government granted corporate charter which made the tax indirect and not requiring an apportionment.
The court stated:

The tax under consideration, as we have construed the statute, may be described as an excise upon the particular privilege of doing business in a corporate capacity, i.e., with the advantages which arise from corporate or quasi corporate organization; or, when applied to insurance companies, for doing the business of such companies. 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 business is not done in the manner described in the statute, no tax is payable.

Under Representative Bridenstine’s proposal, Congress would retain power to lay countless "excise taxes" on occupations and then calculated the amount of tax to be collected from earnings made under the occupations hit with an excise tax. In other words, all the miseries now suffered under the current taxing of "incomes" would remain, under the power to lay and collect excise taxes and duties which are then calculated from profits, gains and other "incomes".



Why on earth is Jenny Beth Martin of Tea Party Patriots still promoting Representative Bridenstine’s useless amendment? Why is Jenny not asking Representative Bridenstine to change the wording of his proposal to actually end all taxes calculated from “incomes”, e.g.?


House/Senate Joint Resolution

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the sixteenth article of amendment and end taxes calculated from profits, gains, salaries and other “incomes”.

Section 1: The sixteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Section 2: Congress is henceforth forbidden to lay ``any`` tax or burden calculated from profits, gains, interest, salaries, wages, tips, inheritances or any other lawfully realized money.

Section 3: This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by three fourths of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission thereof to the States by the Congress.

BTW, my repeated attempts to contact Jenny on this issue suspiciously go unanswered by her.

JWK


“Honest money and honest taxation, the Key to America’s future Prosperity“ ___ from “Prosperity Restored by the State Rate Tax Plan”, no longer in print.