This Day in History: In Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. the Supreme Court of the United States declared unapportioned income tax to be unconstitutional on this day in 1895. Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Company was a landmark case of the Supreme Court of the United States. In a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court struck down the income tax imposed by the Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act for being an unapportioned direct tax.
"Early Americans went to war over the inalienable rights described by philosopher John Locke as the natural rights of life, liberty and property. It didn’t take long, however—a hundred years, in fact—before the American government was laying claim to the citizenry’s property by levying taxes to pay for the Civil War. As the New York Times reports, 'Widespread resistance led to its repeal in 1872.' Determined to claim some of the citizenry’s wealth for its own uses, the government reinstituted the income tax in 1894. Charles Pollock challenged the tax as unconstitutional, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor. Pollock’s victory was relatively short-lived. Members of Congress—united in their determination to tax the American people’s income—worked together to adopt a constitutional amendment to overrule the Pollock decision." Source
Under Woodrow Wilson, (arguably the worst president ever) Congress produced a permanent income tax by way of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution and the Revenue Act of 1913.
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/06/dickens-knew-taxes-started-french.html
How They Viewed an Income Tax Over 100 Years Ago
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/04/how-they-viewed-income-tax-over-100.html
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