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.
Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the validity of a tax statute called the Revenue Act of 1913, also known as the Tariff Act, Ch. 16, 38 Stat. 166, enacted pursuant to Article I, section 8, clause 1 of, and the Sixteenth Amendment to, the United States Constitution, allowing a federal income tax. The Sixteenth Amendment had been ratified earlier in 1913. The Revenue Act of 1913 imposed income taxes that were not apportioned among the states according to each state's population.
Irwin Allen Schiff was an American libertarian and tax resistance advocate known for writing and promoting literature in which he argued that the income tax in the United States is illegal and unconstitutional. Judges in several civil and criminal cases ruled in favor of the federal government and against Schiff. As a result of these judicial rulings Schiff was in a hospital prison serving a sentence of 162 months at the time of his death at the age of 87. The Federal Bureau of Prisons reported that Schiff died on October 16, 2015.
A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 501(c) nonprofit organizations in the US.
Tax protesters in the United States have advanced a number of arguments asserting that the assessment and collection of the federal income tax violates statutes enacted by the United States Congress and signed into law by the President. Such arguments generally claim that certain statutes fail to create a duty to pay taxes, that such statutes do not impose the income tax on wages or other types of income claimed by the tax protesters, or that provisions within a given statute exempt the tax protesters from a duty to pay.
Marrita Murphy and Daniel J. Leveille, Appellants v. Internal Revenue Service and United States of America, Appellees, is a controversial tax case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit originally held that the taxation of emotional distress awards by the federal government is unconstitutional. That decision was vacated, or rendered void, by the Court on December 22, 2006. The Court eventually overturned its original decision, finding against Murphy in an opinion issued on July 3, 2007.
Flamingo Resort, Inc. v. United States, 664 F.2d 1387, was a case decided before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that decided the question of when the right to receive income represented by "markers", or gambling credit lines, become "fixed" for tax purposes based on the "all events" test.
United States v. Gotcher, 401 F.2d 118, is a tax case from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Alderson v. Commissioner, 317 F.2d 790 was a tax law case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the ruling of the United States Tax Court that an exchange of properties does not constitute a taxable sale under § 1031(a) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Estate of Rockefeller v. Commissioner, 762 F.2d 264, was a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that section 162(a) of the Internal Revenue Code only allows deductions against income for expenses that occur while carrying on a trade or business.
Warren Jones Company v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 524 F.2d 788 was a taxation decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The 861 argument is a statutory argument used by tax protesters in the United States, which interprets a portion of the Internal Revenue Code as invalidating certain applications of income tax. The argument has uniformly been held by courts to be incorrect, and persons who have cited the argument as a basis for refusing to pay income taxes have been penalized, and in some cases jailed.
Golsen v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 54 T.C. 742 (1970), aff'd on other grounds, 445 F.2d 985, cert. denied, 404 U.S. 940 (1971), is a case in which the United States Tax Court stated the principle that where the court of appeals to which an appeal would be made in a given case has already established a rule of precedent for a legal issue to be decided by the Tax Court, the Tax Court will follow the decision of that court of appeals. Under the rule articulated in the case, the Tax Court may render different decisions, based on identical situations, for taxpayers that are differentiated only by the geographical area in which the Tax Court case is decided.
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.
A tax protester is someone who refuses to pay a tax claiming that the tax laws are unconstitutional or otherwise invalid. Tax protesters are different from tax resisters, who refuse to pay taxes as a protest against a government or its policies, or a moral opposition to taxation in general, not out of a belief that the tax law itself is invalid. The United States has a large and organized culture of people who espouse such theories. Tax protesters also exist in other countries.
Sibla v. Commissioner, 611 F.2d 1260, was an important income tax case regarding 26 U.S.C.S. § 162(a).
Early v. Commissioner, 445 F.2d 166 was a United States income tax case, holding that an agreement between taxpayers and heirs of decedent—pursuant to which taxpayers received a joint life interest in income from the trust estate in return for the surrender of stock allegedly given to them by the decedent—was actually a compromise of the taxpayers' disputed right to the stock, and since they claimed the stock as donees, they were to be treated as having acquired their life estate in that capacity for federal income tax purposes.
Estate of Sydney J. Carter v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 453 F.2d 61, was a United States Federal income tax case decided by Judge Henry Friendly of the Second Circuit Court.
Regan v. Taxation with Representation of Washington, 461 U.S. 540 (1983), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court upheld lobbying restrictions imposed on tax-exempt non-profit corporations.
Tax protesters in the United States advance a number of administrative arguments asserting that the assessment and collection of the federal income tax violates regulations enacted by responsible agencies –primarily the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)– tasked with carrying out the statutes enacted by the United States Congress and signed into law by the President. Such arguments generally include claims that the administrative agency fails to create a duty to pay taxes, or that its operation conflicts with some other law, or that the agency is not authorized by statute to assess or collect income taxes, to seize assets to satisfy tax claims, or to penalize persons who fail to file a return or pay the tax.
