The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution allows Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states on the basis of population. It was passed by Congress in 1909 in response to the 1895 Supreme Court case of Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. The Sixteenth Amendment was ratified by the requisite number of states on February 3, 1913, and effectively overruled the Supreme Court's ruling in Pollock.
Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Company, 157 U.S. 429 (1895), affirmed on rehearing, 158 U.S. 601 (1895), 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. The decision was superseded in 1913 by the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which allows Congress to levy income taxes without apportioning them among the states.
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. laws prohibiting private homosexual activity, sodomy, and oral sex between consenting adults are unconstitutional. The Court reaffirmed the concept of a "right to privacy" that earlier cases, such as Roe v. Wade, had found the U.S. Constitution provides, even though it is not explicitly enumerated. The Court based its ruling on the notions of personal autonomy to define one's own relationships and of American traditions of non-interference with private sexual decisions between consenting adults.
Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court that upheld, in a 5–4 ruling, the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults, in this case with respect to homosexual sodomy, though the law did not differentiate between homosexual sodomy and heterosexual sodomy. This case was overturned in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas, though the statute had already been struck down by the Supreme Court of Georgia in 1998.
Stanley Forman Reed was a noted American attorney who served as United States Solicitor General from 1935 to 1938 and as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1938 to 1957.
The Tea Rose-Rectanus doctrine or remote, good-faith user doctrine is a common law rule of United States trademark law that determines the geographic scope of rights. The doctrine allows a junior user of a mark that is geographically remote from the senior user of the mark to establish priority over a senior user's claim to the mark in the junior user's area. The constructive use and notice sections of the Lanham Act limited the applicability of this doctrine.
Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court case that rejected the argument that a separate opinion privilege existed against libel. It was seen by legal commentators as the end of an era that began with New York Times Co. v. Sullivan and continued with Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., in which the court clarified and greatly expanded the range and scope of what could be said in the press without fear of litigation.
United States v. Kirby Lumber Co., 284 U.S. 1 (1931), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that when a corporation settles its debts for less than the face amount, a taxable gain has occurred.
Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T Corp., 550 U.S. 437 (2007), was a United States (U.S.) Supreme Court case in which the Supreme Court reversed a previous decision by the Federal Circuit and ruled in favor of Microsoft, holding that Microsoft was not liable for infringement on AT&T's patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271(f).
Springer v. United States, 102 U.S. 586 (1881), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the federal income tax imposed under the Revenue Act of 1864.
Hernandez v. Commissioner, 490 U.S. 680 (1989), is a decision of the United States Supreme Court relating to the Internal Revenue Code § 170 charitable contribution deduction.
United States v. Winstar Corp., 518 U.S. 839 (1996), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that the United States Government had breached its contractual obligations. The court in Winstar rejected the Government's “unmistakability defense”—that surrenders of sovereign authority, such as the promise to refrain from regulatory changes, must appear in unmistakable terms in a contract in order to be enforceable.
United States v. General Electric Co., 272 U.S. 476 (1926), is a decision of the United States Supreme Court holding that a patentee who has granted a single license to a competitor to manufacture the patented product may lawfully fix the price at which the licensee may sell the product.
Edward Terry Sanford was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1923 until his death in 1930. Prior to his nomination to the high court, Sanford served as a United States Assistant Attorney General under President Theodore Roosevelt from 1905 to 1907, and as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee and the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee from 1908 to 1923. As of 2021, he is the last sitting district court judge to be elevated directly to the Supreme Court.
Tax protesters in the United States advance a number of constitutional arguments asserting that the imposition, assessment and collection of the federal income tax violates the United States Constitution. These kinds of arguments, though related to, are distinguished from statutory and administrative arguments, which presuppose the constitutionality of the income tax, as well as from general conspiracy arguments, which are based upon the proposition that the three branches of the federal government are involved together in a deliberate, on-going campaign of deception for the purpose of defrauding individuals or entities of their wealth or profits. Although constitutional challenges to U.S. tax laws are frequently directed towards the validity and effect of the Sixteenth Amendment, assertions that the income tax violates various other provisions of the Constitution have been made as well.
Hartsville Oil Mill v. United States, 271 U.S. 43 (1926), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims was not enlarged by Congressional reference legislation when the court already had jurisdiction to hear the case under another section of the Judicial Code. Additionally the court held that modification to the contract in question was not by duress as there had not been an inadequate power in the courts to remedy the effects of the threatened actions.
Yu Cong Eng v. Trinidad, 271 U.S. 500 (1926), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a law passed by the US colonial government of the Philippines in 1921, Act No. 2972 of the Philippine Legislature, known as the "Chinese Bookkeeping Act", was unconstitutional. It prevented business records from being kept in the Chinese language.
United States v. Ramsey, 271 U.S. 467 (1926), was a U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the government had the authority to prosecute crimes against Native Americans (Indians) on reservation land that was still designated Indian Country by federal law. The Osage Indian Tribe held mineral rights that were worth millions of dollars. A white rancher, William K. Hale, devised a plot to kill tribal members to allow his nephew, who was married to a tribal member, to inherit the mineral rights. The tribe requested the assistance of the federal government, which sent Bureau of Investigation agents to solve the murders. Hale and several others were arrested and tried for the murders, but they claimed that the federal government did not have jurisdiction. The district court quashed the indictments, but on appeal, the Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Osage lands were Indian Country and that the federal government therefore had jurisdiction. This put an end to the Osage Indian murders.
Corrigan v. Buckley, 271 U.S. 323 (1926), was a U.S. Supreme Court case in 1926 that ruled that the racially restrictive covenant of multiple residents on S Street NW, between 18th Street and New Hampshire Avenue in Washington, D.C., was a legally binding document which made the selling of a house to a black family a void contract. This ruling set the precedent upholding racially restrictive covenants in Washington; soon after this ruling, racially restrictive covenants flourished around the nation.
