Temecula Constitution Class: Income Tax - 16th Amendment

Join us tonight at 6:00 pm at Faith Armory on Enterprise Circle West in Temecula for our study of the 16th Amendment. . .

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Lesson 12.1 - Income Tax and the Federal Reserve

Income Tax

The income tax was never supposed to come into existence.  The Founding Fathers prohibited direct taxes in Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 of the U.S. Constitution, and the proposed amendment was never expected to be ratified by the States.

Progressivism was on the rise in the United States around the turn of the 20th Century.  Americans were concerned about the large national debt that remained with the United States as a result of the Spanish-American War, and the growing social inequality between the rich and the poor.  The idea that there should be a tax that “soaks the rich” began to take root among progressives of both major parties.  The Democrats took to progressivism more than the Republican Party, and the liberals of the Democrat Party were looking for a way to embarrass the conservative arm of the GOP so that they could gain some traction in the next election.

With social unrest rising among the population, a democrat proposed The Bailey Bill with the express hope the Republicans would reject it.  The theory was that after the Republicans rejected the bill, the democrats could then point a finger at the Republicans, claiming for political purposes that the Republicans were in cahoots with the corrupt wealthy corporate types, and their rejection of the Bailey Bill, which would have imposed an income tax on the rich, was proof of such an alignment between the Republicans and the wealthy.

The conservative Republicans knew what the progressives of the Democrat Party were up to, and launched a counter move.  They proposed a constitutional amendment that would impose an income tax on the rich, and when the States refused to ratify the amendment, the Republicans would use that failure to ratify the amendment as proof that the people, through their State legislatures, were against the idea of a new income tax.  In turn, that would defeat the Bailey Bill, for how could Congress approve an income tax against the rich through the Bailey Bill after the people and States rejected a constitutional amendment that would have done the very same thing?

The proponents of the 16th Amendment promised that if it were to be ratified (and remember, it was fully expected not to be ratified) the income tax would only be imposed on the top 5% wage earners, it would be voluntary, and it would be temporary.

The progressives of the Republican Party, however, rallied behind the proposed amendment, and the Secretary of State announced the amendment was ratified on February 12, 1913.

Progressives, satisfied the 16th Amendment was ratified, hoped to use it to tax the rich.  In the beginning, only 5% of the people were required to submit tax returns.  Many of the rich, however, avoided the tax with charitable deductions, and other creative strategies.

During World War II Franklin Delano Roosevelt saw the income tax as a way to vastly increase revenue, and initiated a policy of withholding from “all” wages and salaries, not just the highest incomes enjoyed by the rich.   Rather than the rich paying the tax at the end of the year, the tax was collected at the payroll window before it was even due to be paid by the taxpayer. This style of collection shifted the tax from its original design as a tax on the wealthy to a tax on the masses, mostly on the middle class.

In addition to violating the original intent of Article I, Section 9, the income tax also opposes the 4th Amendment which requires that a citizen’s privacy be protected.  An income tax enforced by the Internal Revenue Service violates the privacy of the home, business, personal papers and personal affairs of the private citizen.  Since the tax is based on income, the IRS has the task of making sure everyone pays his fair share. This task is physically impossible without prying into the private papers, private business and personal affairs of the individual citizens.

More amazing than the birth of the 16th Amendment in the sense of how it was simply a political ploy that was never expected to be ratified, is the fact that there is evidence that the amendment was not fully ratified.

According to some researchers, the 16th Amendment was never properly ratified by the requisite three-fourths of the states.  However, despite the failure of the States to fully ratify the amendment, Secretary of State Philander Knox fraudulently declared ratification.  Some may suggest that he did so under the urgings of wealthy bankers like J.P. Morgan.