page_title: Income tax in the United States
section_title: Constitutional
hierarchical_section_title: Income tax in the United States / History / Constitutional
caption_attribution_description: English: Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States. Latviešu: Abrahams Linkolns, sešpadsmitais ASV prezidents. Српски / srpski: Абрахам Линколн, шеснаести председник Сједињених Америчких Држава. Deutsch: Abraham Lincoln, der 16. President der USA.
context_page_description: Income taxes in the United States are imposed by the federal, most states, and many local governments. The income taxes are determined by applying a tax rate, which may increase as income increases, to taxable income, which is the total income less allowable deductions. Income is broadly defined. Individuals and corporations are directly taxable, and estates and trusts may be taxable on undistributed income. Partnerships are not taxed, but their partners are taxed on their shares of partnership income. Residents and citizens are taxed on worldwide income, while nonresidents are taxed only on income within the jurisdiction. Several types of credits reduce tax, and some types of credits may exceed tax before credits. An alternative tax applies at the federal and some state levels.
  In the United States, the term "payroll tax" usually refers to FICA taxes that are paid to fund Social Security and Medicare, while "income tax" refers to taxes that are paid into state and federal general funds.
  Most business expenses are deductible.
context_section_description: Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution (the "Taxing and Spending Clause"), specifies Congress's power to impose "Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises", but Article I, Section 8 requires that, "Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."
  The Constitution specifically stated Congress' method of imposing direct taxes, by requiring Congress to distribute direct taxes in proportion to each state's population "determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons". It has been argued that head taxes and property taxes (slaves could be taxed as either or both) were likely to be abused, and that they bore no relation to the activities in which the federal government had a legitimate interest. The fourth clause of section 9 therefore specifies that, "No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken."
  Taxation was also the subject of Federalist No. 33 penned secretly by the Federalist Alexander Hamilton under the pseudonym Publius. In it, he asserts that the wording of the "Necessary and Proper" clause should serve as guidelines for the legislation of laws regarding taxation. The legislative branch is to be the judge, but any abuse of those powers of judging can be overturned by the people, whether as states or as a larger group.
  The courts have generally held that direct taxes are limited to taxes on people (variously called "capitation", "poll tax" or "head tax") and property. All other taxes are commonly referred to as "indirect taxes," because they tax an event, rather than a person or property per se. What seemed to be a straightforward limitation on the power of the legislature based on the subject of the tax proved inexact and unclear when applied to an income tax, which can be arguably viewed either as a direct or an indirect tax.
caption: President Abraham Lincoln and the United States Congress introduced in 1861 the first personal income tax in the United States.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image DateTime": "2011:07:29 19:20:32", "Image ExifOffset": "2142", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "0", "Thumbnail YResolution": "0", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4316", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7875", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "7DDE6AF252444BA784C9F6B3225F1837", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}