Talk:Gross income

message: Dear editors: Should this article be merged with Internal Revenue Code 61? Which article should survive? Yours, Famspear 21:00, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See my comment at Talk:Internal Revenue Code 61. Cheers! bd2412 T 21:06, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible merger?

message: I often see this phrasing in gross income discussions.  Why the verb reduce? John wesley 15:56, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Reduction or Reduced to income

message: The article states that The Supreme Court has stated that Gross income can be seen as an undeniable succession to wealth. So which Supreme court would that be? Is it safe to assume the US supreme court? -Zer0fighta 22:50, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. Clarification added. Yours, Famspear 01:27, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Supreme court? 

message: Regarding proposed merger of Gross income and Gross profit
* Oppose. The concepts of gross income and gross profit are completely different. Merging the two would create needless confusion. Both articles probably need some work to clarify the concepts. "Gross income" as used in the article of that name is primarily a U.S. Federal income tax law (tax accounting) concept. "Gross profit" as used in the article of that name is primarily a financial accounting concept. Yours, Famspear 17:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed merger

message: I'm a bit confused.  The article clearly covers (not well) the U.S. concept of gross income.  I believe the U.S. is the only country that has the concept.  If so, why do we need a separate section on "U.S."?  The following do not have the concept:
*Canada has no such concept, 
*UK uses the term "gross income"  as a term of convenience to refer to all income (as opposed to net income), 
*Singapore has no such concept,
*Australia has no such concept, levying tax separately on 3 types of income,
*New Zealand appears to have no such concept,
*In India, when the term is sort of used, it is used as "gross total income" to refer inclusively to all income
I think we can qualify in the intro that the term is a U.S. term.  Am I wrong here?
I'm also confused by the term "accession".  It doesn't appear anywhere in the USC, or the regs under sec. 61.  I have found the word in a very limited number of court cases, all of which cite one of only two USSC cases that uses the word, each only once.  Is this a term the tax protesters are fond of?  Why are we using it.  In Macomber, the SC stated (citing Strattons Independence) "'Income may be defined as the gain derived from capital, from labor, or from both combined,' provided it be understood to include profit gained through a sale or conversion of capital assets, ..." (252 US at 207; USSC 1920)
Finally, why the long discussion on gold coins?  Again, is this for the tax protesters?  More than a sentence seems undue weight.  Same with "exchange of services".  These things have long been well settled, except to tax protesters to whom nothing is ever settled.  I don't see the need to pander to them in an article of broad application.
I'm going to undertake some clean-up of the article, including a rewrite of the intro.  Comments very welcome here.  Oldtaxguy (talk) 00:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confused on terms used 

message: I propose to move the section of this article Gross income#Federal income tax implications of receipt of gold or silver coins to be a new subsection of Tax protester statutory arguments.  It is a fringe theory contrary to law on a very specific point, and should not, I believe, be in a general discussion of a major topic. Comments? Oldtaxguy (talk) 03:57, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed move of sectoin to Tax protester statutory arguments 

message: I have posted a draft major revision to the Gross income article on a subpage of my user page.  It is available at User:Oldtaxguy/drafts.  Please make edits & post comments to the discussion page on that user page, or on this page.  I will attempt to make changes to this article by Labor Day. Oldtaxguy (talk) 17:37, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  DRAFT article posted to user page for comments & edit 

message: I removed this sentence from the article:
::::Exempt income and Income that is not considered tax exempt is legally defined in 26 CFR 1.861-8T(d)(2)(ii) and (iii).
The cited regulation defines "exempt income" and "income not considered exempt" for purposes of 'that particular Treasury regulation -- in particular, for purposes of determining the allocation of deductions related to one or more classes of gross income under 26 CFR 1.861-8T(d)(2)(i)(A).
By contrast, the basic definition of gross income is found in Internal Revenue Code section 61. The definition of gross income is then narrowed by the provisions of Internal Revenue Code sections 101 through 140 (and, in certain cases, by various other Code sections such as section 911) and the Treasury regulations under those provisions. Section 861 of the Internal Revenue Code, and the Regulation found at 26 CFR 1.861-8T, do not define exempt income for purposes of section 61, or for purposes of sections 101 through 140, etc. Indeed, section 1.861-8T(d)(2)(ii) states that exempt income means "any income that is, in whole or in part, exempt, excluded, or eliminated for federal income tax purposes." Where do you go to determine what income is exempt, excluded, etc.? To Internal Revenue Code sections 101 through 140, section 911, etc., etc. Famspear (talk) 18:48, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: 1.861-8T is an enhancement to 1.861-8, which states in the first paragraph, in part, "This section provides specific guidance for applying the cited Code sections [861-863] by prescribing rules for the allocation and apportionment of expenses, losses, and other deductions..." The reg section by its very terms has nothing to do with determinations related to gross income.  The tax protesters are taking pieces out of context to try to argue that somehow income does not include income "from whatever source derived" (as the 16th amendment and section 61 state). Thanks for the removal. Oldtaxguy (talk) 03:14, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: You're welcome! Famspear (talk) 15:38, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Exempt income for federal income tax purposes

message: I have reverted a change I believe incorrect. 26 CFR 1.61 et seq. do NOT define income in detail; rather, the regs list 22 categories of income and provide some elaboration for those categories only.  Further, many of these regulations have not been updated since the 1960s or earlier.  Example:  1.861-6, Gains from Dealings in Property, was last updated in 1957. Property includes securities and derivitaves that did not exist in 1957, so obviously that regulation could not have defined income "in detail". Further, if the regulations provided such detail, why have there been so many court cases (hundreds) since the regulations came out? (There have nearly 40 citing this one section of the regulations.)
I have also removed the citation to Glenshaw Glass (GG), a case advocated as being significant by very few scholars, and almost completely ignored by most others. In GG, the Court rebutted arguments by the taxpayer that attempted to narrow the definition of income. The Court used the phrase "accession to wealth" only once, and only in passing reference to something that clearly fit within the definition of income. To argue that this chance phrase is somehow more important or significant than the body of the opinion that cites more than 15 other S.Ct. cases defining income is a real stretch. The GG case was on one specific point (punitive damages), and merely reaffirmed the other cases. The Court concluded with a citation to Midland Mutual Life (1937) that states, "we must not confine the legislation within narrower forms than the statutory language would indicate." This conclusion is the heart of the case. The taxpayer sought to exclude something from the definition of income and the Court said no, because the term should be interpreted broadly. It stated, "The terms "interest," "dividends," and "rents," employed in the statute simply and without qualification or elaboration, were plainly used by Congress in their generic meanings, as broadly descriptive of certain kinds of "income." " My view, supported by the citations given, is that the term "income" remains a plain language term without precise definition. As Justice Thurgood Marshall observed about pornography, he couldn't define it but could certainly recognize it when he saw it. 
To state in the article that the term is well defined is simply to make a false assertion. Oldtaxguy (talk) 03:26, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Defining income 

message: Gross income is not limited to the US - why does this article talk only about the US? I thought Wikipedia was supposed to be international.
2001:268:C030:1FDC:D898:E0A7:C8F4:305C (talk) 10:32, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gross income is not limited to the US - why does this article talk only about the US? I thought Wikipedia was supposed to be international. 

message: I cleaned up some of the language regarding "foreign persons" -- persons who are not U.S. citizens. In U.S. federal income tax law, both resident aliens and nonresident aliens can be considered "foreign" persons. However, the tax rules differ for those two groups. The article was incorrectly using the term "foreign person" to mean what the statute actually calls a "nonresident alien." By contrast, a resident alien is pretty much taxed (for U.S. Federal income tax purpose) in the same way as a U.S. citizen. So, you cannot use the term "foreign person" in the way it was being used in the article. Famspear (talk) 14:54, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I've seen the term "US person" in US documents, I think meaning a person legally resident in the US (native or not), though I'm not entirely sure. It might make sense to define and use the term in the article. "Foreign" is quite the wrong word in an article which is about a general concept, not about the US. Pol098 (talk) 13:44, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Foreign" person versus "resident alien" versus "nonresident alien" 

message: "Gross income" is just the dictionary word "gross", meaning "before deductions" (OED meaning 6 of the adjective), followed by "income". The term "gross income" is actually in dictionaries. I'd propose that the article "gross income" be reduced to a very few sentences explaining the concept, or dropped altogether as a dictionary term, and the bulk of the content of this article be moved or merged to an article about US tax law in particular. I don't think detailed discussion of the treatment of gross income in tax law and other cases belongs in the article about the concept, even if separated into sections for different jurisdictions; the details should be in the various articles about tax law in various places, etc., with "See also" or similar links to these articles here. Others have also made suggestions regarding the US-centric nature of this article about a general English-language term. Pol098 (talk) 13:35, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is short dictionary definition plus discussion of US tax law