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 5–4 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 The decision was superseded in 1913 by the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which allows Congress to levy income taxes without apportioning them among the states.
United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936), is a U.S. Supreme Court case that held that the U.S. Congress has not only the power to lay taxes to the level necessary to carry out its other powers enumerated in Article I of the U.S. Constitution, but also a broad authority to tax and spend for the "general welfare" of the United States. The decision itself concerned whether the processing taxes instituted by the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act were constitutional.
Hylton v. United States, 3 U.S. 171 (1796), is an early United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a yearly tax on carriages did not violate the Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 and Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 requirements for the apportioning of direct taxes. The Court concluded that the carriage tax was not a direct tax, which would require apportionment among the states. The Court noted that a tax on land was an example of a direct tax that was contemplated by the Constitution.
Cheek v. United States, 498 U.S. 192 (1991), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court reversed the conviction of John L. Cheek, a tax protester, for willful failure to file tax returns and tax evasion, who was convicted again during retrial. The Court held that an actual good-faith belief that one is not violating the tax law, based on a misunderstanding caused by the complexity of the tax law, negates willfulness, even if that belief is irrational or unreasonable. The Court also ruled that an actual belief that the tax law is invalid or unconstitutional is not a good faith belief based on a misunderstanding caused by the complexity of the tax law, and is not a defense.
Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co., 259 U.S. 20 (1922), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled the 1919 Child Labor Tax Law unconstitutional as an improper attempt by Congress to penalize employers using child labor. The Court indicated that the tax imposed by the statute was actually a penalty in disguise.
Texas Monthly v. Bullock, 489 U.S. 1 (1989), was a case brought before the US Supreme Court in November 1988. The case was to test the legality of a Texas statute that exempted religious publications from paying state sales tax.
Carter v. Carter Coal Company, 298 U.S. 238 (1936), is a United States Supreme Court decision interpreting the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, which permits the United States Congress to "regulate Commerce... among the several States." Specifically, it analyzes the extent of Congress' power, according to the Commerce Clause, looking at whether or not they have the right to regulate manufacturing.
Commissioner v. Indianapolis Power & Light Company, 493 U.S. 203 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court addressed whether customer deposits constituted taxable income to a public utility company.
Department of Revenue of Kentucky v. Davis, 553 U.S. 328 (2008), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld a Kentucky law that provides a preferential tax break to Kentucky residents who invest in bonds issued by the state and its municipalities. The Court held in a 7–2 vote that the State of Kentucky does not engage in unconstitutional discrimination against interstate commerce by exempting the interest on its bonds from residents' taxable income while taxing the interest earned on the bonds of other states. The case has national implications because thirty-six (36) states have tax schemes similar to the one at issue in Kentucky.
MeadWestvaco Corp. v. Illinois Dept. of Revenue, 553 U.S. 16 (2008), is a United States Supreme Court case concerning the extent a state may tax companies that are not based in their state.
Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, 430 U.S. 274 (1977), is a United States Supreme Court case regarding the Commerce Clause and sales tax.
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.
Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 524 U.S. 498 (1998), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act constituted an unconstitutional regulatory taking of property which required the Act to be invalidated. The import of this decision is that it was made in the context of a purely economic regulation. The plurality examines the statute and its resultant harm as an ad hoc factual inquiry based on factors delineated in Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, such as the economic impact of the regulation, its interference with reasonable investment backed expectations, and the character of the governmental action. The decision thereby moved beyond the traditional notions of equal protection which had been applied to economic regulation since the time of Lochner v. New York, requiring extreme deference to Congress, and applied a regulatory takings analysis to the problem resulting in a much less deferential result. While the plurality recognizes that this is not a traditional takings case where the government appropriates private property for public use, they also state this is the type of case where the "Armstrong Principle" of preventing the government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole. However, while the plurality seems to invalidate this particular law on takings grounds, the concurrences and the dissents warn of such an analysis as this should actually be examined under substantive due process or ex post facto theories.
In United States law, the federal government as well as state and tribal governments generally enjoy sovereign immunity, also known as governmental immunity, from lawsuits. Local governments in most jurisdictions enjoy immunity from some forms of suit, particularly in tort. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act provides foreign governments, including state-owned companies, with a related form of immunity—state immunity—that shields them from lawsuits except in relation to certain actions relating to commercial activity in the United States. The principle of sovereign immunity in US law was inherited from the English common law legal maxim rex non potest peccare, meaning "the king can do no wrong." In some situations, sovereign immunity may be waived by law.
Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co., 240 U.S. 103 (1916), is a United States Supreme Court case.
Comptroller of the Treasury of Maryland v. Wynne, 575 U.S. 542 (2015), is a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision that applied the Dormant Commerce Clause doctrine to Maryland's personal income tax scheme and found that the failure to provide a full credit for income taxes paid to other states was unconstitutional.
Stratton's Independence, Ltd. v. Howbert, 231 U.S. 399 (1913), was a case before the U.S. Supreme Court that addressed the question of corporate taxation.
Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Ward, 470 U.S. 869 (1985), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that a state cannot tax out-of-state insurance companies at a greater rate than domestic insurance companies under the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article Four of the United States Constitution.
American Trucking Associations, Inc. v. Smith, 496 U.S. 167 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Court's decision in American Trucking Associations, Inc. v. Scheiner did not apply retroactively.
