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发帖数: 6973 | 1 John Steele Gordon, A Short History of the Income Tax. One original sin was
the separation of teh corporate and personal tax, giving lawyers,
caccountants and the wealthy a chance to game teh system. Wall Street
Journal, Sept 27, 2011.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424
052970204422404576594471646927038.html
Note:
(a) The essay states, "After the Civil War, nearly all the wartime taxes--
including teh nation's first income tax--were repealed."
Taxing income above $600 a year (about $10,000 today), that federal income
tax lasted from 1961 to 1972 (inclusive).
(b) The essay says, "The case turned on the definition of a 'direct tax,'
which the Constitution requires to be apportioned equally among the states
according to the population, something impossible with an income tax."
Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of teh federal constitution starts with:
"Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several
states which may be included within this union, according to their
respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number
of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and
excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
(c) The essay mentions "the Progressive wing of the Republican Party grew
strength under Theodore Roosevelt."
(i) Theodore Roosevelt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt
(1858-1919; US president 1901-1909; his leadership of the Progressive
Movement)
Both he and his successor William Howard Taft were Republicans.
(ii) Progressive Era
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era
(from the 1890s to the 1920s; One main goal was eliminate corruption; A
second theme was achieving efficiency; imposition of an income tax with the
Sixteenth Amendment)
(d) The essay remarks about Mr Taft, "He came up with a brilliant, very
lawyerly alternative: He proposed a constitutional amendment to legalize a
personal income tax, while meanwhile imposing a tax on corporate profits. *
* * As the corporate income tax was technically an excise tax, there was no
constitutional problem."
(i) Mr Taft attended Yale College and Cincinnati Law School.
(ii) Corporate tax in the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_tax_in_the_United_States
(A corporate income tax was enacted in 1894, but was shortly held
unconstitutional. In 1909, Congress enacted an excise tax on corporations
based on income. After ratification of the Sixteenth amendment to the U.S.
Constitution, this became the corporate provisions of the Federal income tax
.)
(e) Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution states in toto: "
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.
(f) S Corporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subchapter_S_corporation
(a corporation that makes a valid election to be taxed under Subchapter S of
Chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code. In general, S corporations do not
pay any federal income taxes. Instead, the corporation's income or losses
are divided among and passed through to its shareholders. The shareholders
must then report the income or loss on their own individual income tax
returns)
(g) My comment: In the days leading to the passage of the Sixteenth
Amendment, politicians promised that only the SUPERRICH would be taxed.
Americans then did not know the tax one day would befall almost all of them
(except the poorest). |
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