Repeal the 16th Amendment

worldnetdaily.com ^ | 11/20/02 | Ilana Mercer

[winner45]

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Wednesday, November 20, 2002

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Repeal the abominable 16th Amendment!

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Posted: November 20, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Ilana Mercer

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© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

"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."
–The 16th Amendment

What are we to make of the idea Washington is floating of replacing tax on income with a national sales tax? The Cato Institute has described it as "simpler, more efficient, pro-growth and fairer to taxpayers." And I must be missing something because I thought we already paid taxes on products and services. In addition to states where a sales tax already exists, sizeable portions of the prices we pay are taxes. The quandary as to whether an indirect consumption tax is better than taxes on income masks what's probably in the offing.

Once a tax is pushed through it seldom disappears. Last I looked, government at all levels was consuming approximately 47 percent of the national income and growing. A reversal of the trend is almost unheard of among developed nations. To keep the State in style, consumption taxes will have to go through the roof. On the plus side, the consumer can opt out, something he can't do with a tax on income. On the downside, should he "choose" not to purchase, the consumer may starve or be destined to a rather austere life.

In all likelihood, "tax reform" will leave us with the income tax in addition to more consumption taxes. Hopes realistically must be much more modest. Let the idea of a tax reform, for once, engender a discussion about First Principles, the kind Americans of the 19th century had and were capable of having.

However contemptible taxes on consumption are, Frank Chodorov insisted that taxes on income and inheritance were "different in principle from all other taxes." In the seminal work, "The Income Tax: Root of all Evil," he elaborates:

The government says to the citizen: "Your earnings are not exclusively your own; we have a claim on them, and our claim precedes yours; we will allow you to keep some of it, because we recognize your need, not your right; but whatever we grant you for yourself is for us to decide."

Fundamentally, taxes on income imply a complete denial of private property, which is what socialism is in all its permutations; it rejects man's absolute and natural right to his property and vests property rights in the political establishment. The 16th Amendment did just that. When they incorporated the Amendment into the Constitution, Americans said a resounding "yes" to socialism.

Make no mistake: What's staving off communism is not the Constitution. If it so chooses, Congress has constitutional imprimatur to raise taxes to 100 percent of income, an odd thing considering the Declaration of Independence vests the source of man's rights in the Creator, not in government.

Philosopher Ayn Rand explained the source of man's rights with reference to man's nature. "Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his survival," she wrote in "Atlas Shrugged." Be it the nature of man or divine law, "congressional law" is never the source of man's rights – it is merely entrusted with protecting the rights with which man is imbued.

This, the 16th Amendment corrupted.

In order to survive, man must – and it is in his nature to – transform the resources around him by mixing his labor with them and making them his own. Man's labor and his property are extensions of himself. As Chodorov elucidates, the right of ownership is an extension of the right to life. If ownership is not an absolute right but is instead subject to the vagaries of majority vote, then so is the right to life.

Statists will always counter by claiming that if not for the State, man would be unable to produce. Poppycock! Production predates government predation. Government doesn't produce wealth – it only consumes it. What, pray tell, would government have fed off if man were not hard at work well before the advent of the bureaucracy? That's like saying that the tick created the dog! As usual, the statists have it topsy-turvy. First came man – he is the basic unit of society, without which there can be no society. And without man's labor there is no wealth for government to siphon.

However you slice it, there is no moral difference between a lone burglar who steals stuff he doesn't own and an "organized society" that does the same. In a just society, the moral strictures that apply to the individual must also apply to the collective. A society founded on natural rights must not finesse theft.

The Founders intended for government to safeguard man's natural rights. The 16th Amendment gave government a limitless lien on a man's property and, by extension, on his life. The Amendment turned government into the almighty source – rather than the protector – of man's rights and Americans into indentured slaves.

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To learn more about Ilana Mercer, visit her website, where she now has a special new feature for your comments.

[BaBaStooey]

well, some people claim Ohio wasn't actually a state until 1953, because the US COngress never actually made them one in 1803. And, because Ohio was one of the states to ratify the amendment, blah, blah,

Then was Taft never President? What about the elections and Ohio's electoral votes and votes by Ohio representatives and senators in Congress? what a legal headache.

When they passed the thing as part of Ohio's 150th anniversary in 1953, they set it all retroactive to 1803. Thus, making all argument null and void anyway. I guess.

[RockyMtnMan]

Then what was Article I section 10 of the constitution all about?

No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken. (Repealed by the 16th)

[RockyMtnMan]

Further, it seems the 16th gives the fed precisely the power they needed to collect income taxes directly from citizens. Amendment XVI 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 last statement screams of taxation without representation.

[ancient_geezer]

Then what was Article I section 10 of the constitution all about?

Levying property taxes on real estate and slaves, in the same manner as the states did, by collecting them form the owners of such property same as is done today in most states/counties.

Federalist #21:

It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue. ... Impositions of this kind usually fall under the denomination of indirect taxes, and must for a long time constitute the chief part of the revenue raised in this country.

Those of the direct kind, which principally relate to land and buildings, may admit of a rule of apportionment. Either the value of land, or the number of the people, may serve as a standard. The state of agriculture and the populousness of a country have been considered as nearly connected with each other. And, as a rule, for the purpose intended, numbers, in the view of simplicity and certainty, are entitled to a preference.

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As was also pointed out by the first Supreme Court, where 3 of four of the judges ruling on the case were Delegates to the Constitututional Convention:

Hylton v. United States(1796), 3 U.S. 171

"A general power is given to Congress, to lay and collect taxes, of every kind or nature, without any restraint, except only on exports; but two rules are prescribed for their government, namely, uniformity and apportionment: Three kinds of taxes, to wit, duties, imposts, and excises by the first rule, and capitation, or other direct taxes, by the second rule. "

"the present Constitution was particularly intended to affect individuals, and not states, except in particular cases specified: And this is the leading distinction between the articles of Confederation and the present Constitution."

"Uniformity is an instant operation on individuals, without the intervention of assessments, or any regard to states,"

"[T]he DIRECT TAXES contemplated by the Constitution, are only two, to wit, A CAPITATION OR POLL TAX, simply, without regard to property, profession, or any other circumstance; and a tax on LAND."

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Check out he hyperlinks I have provided, they go to the transcripts of the early papers and Debates in regard to the Constitution and our early government. There is a wealth of information there. There seems to be alot of myth and misinformation floating around as to what the Constitution really is about. I highly suggest the study it is eye opening once one get into what the founder really had to say and did back then.

[ancient_geezer]

Further, it seems the 16th gives the fed precisely the power they needed to collect income taxes directly from citizens.

The National government has always had that authority as regards trades, occupations, professions and employments.

Springer v. United States(1880), 102 U.S. 586

"The central and controlling question in this case is whether the tax which was levied on the income, gains, and profits of the plaintiff in error, as set forth in the record, and by pretended virtue of the acts of Congress and parts of acts therein mentioned, is a direct tax."

"Our conclusions are, that direct taxes, within the meaning of the Constitution, are only capitation taxes, as expressed in that instrument, and taxes on real estate; and that the tax of which the plaintiff in error complains is within the category of an excise or duty."

"[W]henever the government has imposed a tax which it recognized as a direct tax, it has never been applied to any objects but real estate and slaves."

"If the laws here in question involved any wrong or unnecessary harshness, it was for Congress, or the people who make congresses, to see that the evil was corrected.
The remedy does not lie with the judicial branch of the government."

Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co.(1916), 240 U.S. 103:

• "the provisions of the 16th 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, and being placed in the category of direct taxation subject to apportionment"

The 16th merely make it clear that the National Government to lay collect taxes on the income from real and personal property to overcome the Pollock decision that rents, dividends and interest were attached to the property that produced them and could not be taxed against the owner thereof, it however did not prevent taxes from being laid on employmees nor fror being collected from payers of rents, wages etc.

Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company, 157 U.S. 429 (1895)

• "The people of the United States constitute one nation, under one government, and this government, within the scope of the powers with which it is invested, is supreme."

• "Without the States in union, there could be no such political body as the United States. Both the States and the United States existed before the Constitution. The people, through that instrument[the Constitution], established a more perfect union by substituting a national government, acting, with ample power, directly upon the citizens, instead of the confederate government, which acted with powers, greatly restricted, only upon the States."

POLLOCK v. FARMERS' LOAN & TRUST CO., 158 U.S. 601 (1895):

• "We have considered the act only in respect of the tax on income derived from real estate, and from invested personal property, and have not commented on so much of it as bears on gains or profits from business, privileges, or employments, in view of the instances in which taxation on business, privileges, or employments has assumed the guise of an excise tax and been sustained as such."

• "If that[rents from land] be stricken out, and also the income from all invested personal property, bonds, stocks, investments of all kinds, it is obvious that by a r the largest part of the anticipated revenue would be eliminated, and this would leave the burden of the tax to be borne by professions, trades, employments, or vocations; and in that way what was intended as a tax on capital would remain, in substance, a tax on occupations and labor. We cannot believe that such was the intention of congress."

• "We do not mean to say that an act laying by apportionment a direct tax on all real estate and personal property, or the income thereof, might not also lay excise taxes on business, privileges, employments, and vocations. "

• Our conclusions may therefore be summed up as follows:

  First. We adhere to the opinion already announced,-that, taxes on real estate being indisputably direct taxes, taxes on the rents or income of real estate are equally direct taxes.

  Second. We are of opinion that taxes on personal property, or on the income of personal property, are likewise direct taxes.

  Third. The tax imposed by sections 27 to 37, inclusive, of the act of 1894, so far as it falls on the income of real estate, and of personal property, being a direct tax, within the meaning of the constitution, and therefore unconstitutional and void, because not apportioned according to representation, all those sections, constituting one entire scheme of taxation, are necessarily invalid.

• Mr. Justice WHITE, dissenting.

  16. The injustice of the conclusion points to the error of adopting it. It takes invested wealth, and reads it into the constitution as a favored and protected class of property, which cannot be taxed without apportionment, while it leaves the occupation of the minister, the doctor, the professor, the lawyer, the inventor, the author, the merchant, the mechanic, and all other forms of industry upon which the prosperity of a people must depend, subject to taxation without that condition.

[ancient_geezer]

That last statement screams of taxation without representation.

How is that? Those who pay taxes are the same as those who can vote. What does census & enumeration have to do with that other than to establish the proportion of representation in each state.

The real issue now day is not "taxation without representation" as everyone has the opertunity to vote.

Rather the issue now days is more of representation without taxation.

Milton Friedman as quoted by Northwest Florida Daily News, 10-16-2000:

• "If we're to have an income tax, it's a good thing for everyone to pay at least a nominal amount," he said. "If non-taxpayers become a majority in society, what would restrain them from voting for ever higher taxes on others?"

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Walter Williams, World Net Daily, 10-25-2000

According to the most recent U.S. Treasury Department figures, in 1997 the top 1 percent of income-earners (those with income of $250,000 and higher) paid 33 percent of all federal income taxes. The top 5 percent of income-earners ($108,000 and over) paid 52 percent, and the top 50 percent ($36,000 and over) paid 96 percent of income taxes. Guess what the bottom 50 percent of income earners paid?

If you're among those who pay little or no federal income taxes, what do you care about tax cuts? Moreover, if you think tax cuts pose a threat to government handout programs, you might be openly hostile and support Al Gore's silly "risky scheme" talk. So many Americans paying little or no federal taxes makes for a natural spending constituency. It's like me in the restaurant: What do I care about extravagance if you're footing the bill?

To remove taxation of the individual, is to remove the goad which assures accountability of government to the electorate. Federal tax rates are high because a majority of the electorate do not share proportionately in the burden their demand for largesse imposes on the minority of citizens.

The siren call for representation without taxation is the formula that got us where we are at today. The ability to hide or disguise taxation from the view of large sectors of the electorate allows the Congress to get away with the creation of the evergrowing monster that it fosters.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
-George Bernard Shaw

Liberty and freedom have a price, responsibility. If that price is avoided there are no brakes on the growth of government, the ultimate result is the end of freedom through creeping socialism.

Right now the bottom 60% perceive little to no "Individual Income Tax" burden,(in many cases even a handout) and 70% of the voting public clamors for more from government looking for the top 40% of income earners/producers to foot the bill. That perception continues to grow ever stronger by eliminating even more participants from the Federal Individual Income Tax rolls as proposed in the tax reduction proposals through changes in personal exemption limits and other mechanisms such as the EITC.

[RockyMtnMan]

How is that? Those who pay taxes are the same as those who can vote. What does census & enumeration have to do with that other than to establish the proportion of representation in each state.

16/17 year olds do not vote but they work, although 99.9% of them do not make enough money to be taxed.

Just because you vote doesn't mean your candidate cares about your interests. The tax system should inherently force legislaters to reduce taxes because it's in the best interest of the voters. Instead special interests get tax breaks because they donated a bunch of money to their representatives, in which everyone else foots the bill.

The proportion of representation is key to applying pressure at the federal level to change tax policy. Under the current income tax system there is no incentive for our "representatives" to actually represent us. Instead they fight for their pet projects which we ultimately have to fund without regard to our interests.

Tax reduction/curbing government spending is in everyones best interest, majority and minority alike, then why do our legislators fail us in this regard?

[ancient_geezer]

16/17 year olds do not vote but they work, although 99.9% of them do not make enough money to be taxed.

So they work. Are you now proposing we provide the vote to children as well?

Tax reduction/curbing government spending is in everyones best interest, majority and minority alike, then why do our legislators fail us in this regard?

 

Simple, those receiving the greatest portion of largess and least perceive the tax burden, outvote those who pay for the largess under the current system of bracketed taxes.

Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813). Scottish jurist and historian:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

Go to a single rate, single stage, visible Retail Sales Tax where everyone participates in the tax system where all individuals perceive the cost of government in proportion to there benefit from the economy there will be a greater push for change the representation in Congress.

Without universal participation and the ability for government to hide substantial portions of the real tax burdens from view we can just expect more of the same old shell games.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
-George Bernard Shaw

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You want to see change, then work for the conditions that will encourage that change. Guaranteed we will not see and amendment to repeal the 16th and prohibit income taxes until we have a viable alternative in place, and the income tax statutes gone.

Support the enactment of the bills before congress that would actually move in the direction to achieve that.

Billy Tauzin offers one solution, a 15% retail sales tax that replaces all income taxes but doesn't touch SS/Mediscare payroll taxes, that comes close to meeting the essentials of what it takes to reverse trend?:

H.R.2717
Sponsor: Rep Tauzin, W. J. (Billy)(introduced 8/2/2001)
Title: To promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity for families by repealing the income tax, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.

John Linder (R Texas) offers a more comprehensive bill to kill all income and payroll taxes outright, and provide a revenue neutral replacement:

H.R.2525
SPONSOR: Rep Linder, John (introduced 07/17/2001)
A bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.
Refer: http://www.fairtax.org & http://www.salestax.org
See Also: Fairtax FAQ (NSBU)

Other bills, moving in the proper direction are:

To get the ball rolling and focus Congress Critter's attention:

H.R.2714
Sponsor: Rep Largent, Steve(introduced 8/2/2001)
Title: To terminate the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.
A bill to prohibit he imposition of any tax by the Internal Revenue Code: (1) for any taxable year beginning after December 31, 2005.

To sunset some agencies we don't need and rein in their expenditures:

H.R.2373
Sponsor: Rep Brady, Kevin(introduced 6/28/2001)
Title: To provide for the periodic review of the efficiency and public need for Federal agencies, to establish a Commission for the purpose of reviewing the efficiency and public need of such agencies, and to provide for the abolishment of agencies for which a public need does not exist.

Modification then enact and ratify:

H.J.RES.45
Sponsor: (introduced 4/25/2001)
Latest Major Action: 5/9/2001 Referred to House subcommitte.
Title: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relative to abolishing personal income, estate, and gift taxes and prohibiting the Untied States Government from engaging in the business in competition with its citizens.

(Modified to prohibit all income, payroll, gift estate taxes as HR2525 calls for, or we will see European VAT style hidden taxes along with payroll excises to take over in the place of the of the current individual income tax(i.e. personal income tax) that Ron Paul amendment prohibits.)

And to keep em reminded that there is indeed a Constitution to pay attention to:

H.R.175
Sponsor: (introduced 1/3/2001)
Latest Major Action: 2/12/2001 Referred to House subcommittee
Title: To require Congress to specify the source of authority under the United States Constitution for the enactment of laws, and for other purposes.

[RockyMtnMan]

So they work. Are you now proposing we provide the vote to children as well?

Not at all, although I would propose a redefinition of child in this day and age (to me Clinton was a child, whiney, spoiled, and hormone filled!).

Thank you for the comprehensive HB info, obviously you have an interest in tax reform.

[Dr.Deth]

Who guards the guards the hen house?

Who watches the watchmen?

[al_possum39]

The distinction between the direct tax and indirect tax being in regard to who pays the tax, the owner(direct), or the the purchaser(indirect) of service, goods, real or personal property.

It seems that, by this definition, the employer would have to pay the income tax for it to be considered indirect and if the employee pays it then it is a direct tax.

[ancient_geezer]

It's the event or exchange(i.e. activity) that is taxed, as opposed to the property, that makes it indirect.

Sale of anything, constitutes commerce. Either side can be taxed, (e.g. Duty paid by the seller, excise paid by the purchaser of (goods, property, labor or service).

Charles C. Stewart Machine Co. v. Davis (1937), 301 U.S. 548:

• The tax, which is described in the statute as an excise, is laid with uniformity throughout the United States as a duty, an impost, or an excise upon the relation of employment.

• "But natural rights, so called, are as much subject to taxation as rights of lesser importance. An excise is not limited to vocations or activities that may be prohibited altogether. It is not limited to those that are the outcome of a franchise. It extends to vocations or activities pursued as of common right."

• Employment is a business relation, if not itself a business. It is a relation without which business could seldom be carried on effectively. The power to tax the activities and relations that constitute a calling considered as a unit is the power to tax any of them. The whole includes the parts. Nashville, C. & St. L. Ry. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U.S. 249, 267 , 268 S., 53 S.Ct. 345, 349, 350, 87 A.L.R. 1191

House Congressional Record, March 27, 1943, pg. 2580:

• "The income tax is, therefore, not a tax on income as such. It is an excise tax with respect to certain activities and privileges (the type 3 and 4 taxes) which is measured by reference to the income which they produce. The income is not the subject of the tax; it is the basis for determining the amount of tax."

Even both sides of the transaction can be taxed, as in the FICA.

HELVERING v. DAVIS, 301 U.S. 619 (1937)

• Title VIII(Social Security Act), as we have said, lays two different types of tax, an 'income tax on employees,' and 'an excise tax on employers.' The income tax on employees is measured by wages paid during the calendar year. Section 801 [26 USC 3101]. The excise tax on the employer [26 USC 3111] is to be paid 'with respect to having individuals in his employ,' and, like the tax on employees, is measured by wages.
• . The proceeds of both taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like internal revenue taxes generally, and are not ear-marked in any way. Section 807(a)[26 USC 3501]. There are penalties for nonpayment. Section 807(c), [26 USC 7203].

The primary factor to distinguish is whether or not property is taxed merely upon the fact of ownership thereof or not. If an exchange or event is involved in transfer of ownership from one person to another, then the tax is deemed indirect as a consequence of being in the stream of commerce.

The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787
(Farrand's Records)
James Mchenry before the Maryland House of Delegates.
Maryland Novr. 29th 1787--
Appendix A, CXLVIa, page 149, S9.

"Convention have also provided against any direct or Capitation Tax but according to an equal proportion among the respective States: This was thought a necessary precaution though it was the idea of every one that government would seldom have recourse to direct Taxation, and that the objects of Commerce would be more than Sufficient to answer the common exigencies of State and should further supplies be necessary, the power of Congress would not be exercised while the respective States would raise those supplies in any other manner more suitable to their own inclinations --"

A LAW DICTIONARY
by John Bouvier, Revised Sixth Edition, 1856:
"COMMERCE, trade, contracts.
The exchange of commodities for commodities; considered in a legal point of view, it consists in the various agreements which have for their object to facilitate the exchange of the products of the earth or industry of man, with an intent to realize a profit. Pard. Dr. Coin. n. 1. In a narrower sense, commerce signifies any reciprocal agreements between two persons, by which one delivers to the other a thing, which the latter accepts, and for which he pays a consideration; if the consideration be money, it is called a sale; if any other thing than money, it is called exchange or barter. Domat, Dr. Pub. liv. 1, tit. 7, s. 1, n. "

As opposed to static ownership of property by a single person or entity to which direct taxes apply.

[al_possum39]

Mr. Justice WHITE, dissenting. 16. The injustice of the conclusion points to the error of adopting it. It takes invested wealth, and reads it into the constitution as a favored and protected class of property, which cannot be taxed without apportionment, while it leaves the occupation of the minister, the doctor, the professor, the lawyer, the inventor, the author, the merchant, the mechanic, and all other forms of industry upon which the prosperity of a people must depend, subject to taxation without that condition.

I agree with this guy. A person sells their services to their employer. What's the difference between that and selling real estate. You may say that the person had to buy that property but, quite often, preparation for an occupation requires a good deal of investment as well.

I will agree that a sales tax is an indirect tax but I can't see how the income tax can be an indirect tax. I guess the Congress wasn't real sure either because they included a fix in the sixteenth.

[ancient_geezer]

One might consider that government and law, generally should only apply to interrelationships between person's.

That which has as its subject the lone individual acting in isolation of all others cannot be the subject of a just law.

The need for equal application and protection of law, can only consider two or more persons by the very nature of meaning of the term "equal". Any other construction becomes meaningless.

Under the Constitution, that which impacts persons in plural as in "common defense", or "general welfare" is the subject of national government. All else is beyond the reach of national taxation and must of necessity go through the state or left to the individual by the very wording of the enumerated powers of the Constitution in Article I Section 8 and the 9th & 10th amendments to the Constitution upholding that interpretation.

[al_possum39]

Even both sides of the transaction can be taxed, as in the FICA.

I pay both sides of my fica (self-employed) but then so does everybody else. The employer really doesn't pay any of it.

[ancient_geezer]

What's the difference between that and selling real estate.

None at all, for "selling" real estate is a activity of commerce the activity of exchange being taxable as an "indirect" tax against property involved in that taxable "exchange". Merely holding ones own property for ones own use is not involved in an event nor an exchange with another, thus is not subject to an indirect tax for lack of an "activity" against which a tax may be levied.

Therein lay the distinction between indirect and direct, commerce is taxable under an indirect tax as it invokes relationship between individuals engaged in a taxable "exchange" or "event". Ownership of property not engaged in an "exchange" or "event" between persons is a direct tax on ownership by one person alone.

[al_possum39]

You lost me on your post #54. I'm not sure what you are saying there.
Sorry 'bout that but my wife ain't got no legal education some at all and me; I got that much.

[ancient_geezer]

The employer really doesn't pay any of it.

That's true of any business tax as it all comes out of sales revenues from customers or the business ultimately goes bankrupt.

That having been said however should the FICA tax be repealed the only amount the employee can lawfully get out of the employer is that which is declared as "gross" wage/salary, not gross plus the employer's half of said tax.

It is up to the business and competition to figure on what to do with its half of FICA remittances, whether spend it on growth enhancements, increase employee gross wages, increase investor returns, decrease product prices, or some combination of all of the above. The employee has no particular legal claim, though keeping experienced & valuable employees with a gross wage increase is a reasonable business decision, it is not the only one that can be made.

[al_possum39]

Okay. I think I see what you are saying. A tax on any exchange of property is indirect. So the fix in the sixteenth was unnecessary.

Okay then I was wrong about an amendment being required for the NST.      'preciate the info.

[ancient_geezer]

You lost me on your post #54. I'm not sure what you are saying there.

Actually it's an application of common sense.

Government has no legitimate function except that it supposedly provides protection for the interests of individuals in conducting their relationships, businessness and/or personal.

When a government merely tells an individual what he, in isolation from others may do, that becomes arbitrary and tyranical as opposed to providing "protection" and equal "application" of law.

You cannot apply something (like taxes) "equally", in "common" or "general" without more than one person being involved. Read what article I Section 8 says is the purpose of the power of Congress to lay and collect taxes:

Constitution for the United States of America:

• Article I Section 8: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises,
  to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;

You cannot have debts without two or more persons involved, a debtor and and a lender.

You cannot have a "common" defense unless more than one person is involved.

You cannot provide for "general" welfare, where only an individual is involved.

All three cases involve the interrelationship among two and more persons, not individuals in isolation from others.

Look at all the enumerated powers of Congress, you will discover that they all depend upon activities of multiple persons for the concepts therein to have any meaning.

Law may be quite reasonably imposed upon single individuals as a consequence of their actions in regards others, it however becomes arbitrary and tyrannical when applied to one individual in the exclusion of others. Such laws that apply to an individual specifically without regard to others such as a "bill of attainder" is, for example expressly prohibited under Article I Section 9 of the Constitution.

The extension of that t applies to taxation in that the tax must exist for the purpose of generating revenues to provide for the execution of the Constitutional powers of Congress, (i.e.that which pays debts, provides for common defense, and general welfare.) All else is beyond the bounds of what a tax can be collected for, thus a tax to pay for "individual" benefit is not a proper tax under the Constitution; and law which applies to the individual in isolation from others is not a proper function of national government under the Constitution.