It grants nothing that didn't exist previously since we had a fully constitutional income taxes on wages, salaries, and business income many times prior to the 16th.
So it did grant something that didn't previous exist.
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 taxes on income from "rents of real property, and returns from investment property" were considered direct taxes.
Not according to usage of the term "direct" in Federalist Papers,
- 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.
nor according to prior law as expessed from the beginning
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."
repeated in the findings of Springer.
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."
Sure looks to me the entire power to tax incomes whatever their source existed from the very beginning long before Pollock ever ruled, in what was clearly an abberation to precident and usage in law.
Pollock inconsistantly created an exception to taxes on income that focused on earnings from property to advantage of certain groups, yet let incomes of all others open to treatment as indirect taxes not requiring apportionment.
Interesting 5/4 ruling, the abberation of which is clearly highlighted in the majority statements, as well as more explictly in the 4 dissents, of Which Justice White nails the core of the error.
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.
U.S. Supreme Court
EISNER v. MACOMBER, 252 U.S. 189 (1920)
The Sixteenth Amendment must be construed in connection with the taxing clauses of the original Constitution and the effect attributed to them before the amendment was adopted. In Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 158 U.S. 601 , 15 Sup. Ct. 912, under the Act of August 27, 1894 (28 Stat. 509, 553, c. 349, 27), it was held that taxes upon rents and profits of real estate and upon returns from investments of personal property were in effect direct taxes upon the property from which such income arose, imposed by reason of ownership; and that Congress could not impose such taxes without apportioning them among the states according to population, as required by article 1, 2, cl. 3, and section 9, cl. 4, of the original Constitution.
Afterwards, and evidently in recognition of the limitation upon the taxing power of Congress thus determined, the Sixteenth Amendment was adopted, in words lucidly expressing the object to be accomplished:
'The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among [252 U.S. 189, 206] the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.'
As repeatedly held, this did not extend the taxing power to new subjects, but merely removed the necessity which otherwise might exist for an apportionment among the states of taxes laid on income. Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. R. Co., 240 U.S. 1 , 17-19, 36 Sup. Ct. 236, Ann. Cas. 1917B, 713, L. R. A. 1917D, 414; Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co., 240 U.S. 103 , 112 et seq., 36 Sup. Ct. 278; Peck & Co. v. Lowe, 247 U.S. 165, 172 , 173 S., 38 Sup. Ct. 432.
So, the 16th Amendment removed the "necessity which otherwise might exist for an apportionment among the states of taxes laid on income." It granted Congress the abililty to tax income "without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration" which didn't previously exist.
There are plenty of other rulings that say the same thing if you ever get out of 1916.