Talk:Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution/Archive 8

message: Dear readers: Here's another comment about the phony claim about Form 1040 by the anonymous user at IP 129.137.3.208:
::"The original 1040 for 1913 implemented exactly what Congress intended to achieve with the 16th. You can read it at the irs.gov site, and see that it does not include wages as taxable income."
I agree that the original Form 1040 for 1913 "implemented exactly what Congress intended," etc. You see, I have a copy of the form. Although the copy of the 1913 Form 1040 at the IRS web site does not appear to want to load up properly on my computer at the moment, readers can find the form at other web sites by doing a google search.
The 1913 Form 1040 is a three page form, plus instructions. Page 1, line 1 clearly states: "Gross income (see page 2, line 12)." Line 12 on page 2 is the "total" line for page 2.
The very first line for the various kinds of taxable income on page 2, under "DESCRIPTION OF INCOME," is "Total amount derived from salaries, wages, or compensation for personal service of whatever kind and in whatever form paid" (bolding added).
Are we starting to see a trend here with the material provided by the user at IP 129.137.3.208? Falsely citing "Gurley v. Rhoden" for an argument about the validity of the Federal income tax on wages -- when the case did not even involve Federal income tax, much less taxation of wages. A false claim that the 1913 Form 1040 "does not include wages as taxable income" when it clearly does. Does IP129.137.3.208 think that nobody can check this kind of stuff?
Dear IP 129.137.3.208 -- please do not falsely cite IRS tax forms unless you want to be called on it -- or you enjoy being exposed.
Hint #1: Lots of tax practitioners have ready internet access to all the statutes, regulations and court decisions on taxation since the year 1913. Further, all the decisions before 1913 are available at the library of any law school. Do not cite court decisions that you don't want other people to check.
Hint #2: Lots of tax practitioners keep clean copies of the IRS forms and instructions going back for many years. We need them for our work. Yours, Famspear 19:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Hey, let's read the 1913 Form 1040

message: An anonymous editor at IP 198.153.17.188 inserted a fragment from the definition of wages from  -- in the section discussing income under the U.S. Constitution. The edit as inserted by the anon resulted in an incorrect definition of income.
The term "wage" as used in section 3401 refers to "wage" (or salary or other compensation for personal services) for purposes of the tax withholding requirements. That is not necessarily the same as the definition of "wage" for purposes of  (i.e., relating to the issue of what is a "wage" for purposes of the Federal income tax itself under . More importantly, the term "income" as discussed in the article refers to income under the Constitution, which may be a broader definition than that for income under some provision of the Internal Revenue Code such as section 61 or section 3401. Yours, Famspear 21:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Income under the Constitution versus wages for purposes of statutory tax withholding

message: An anonymous editor changed the abbreviated references to the Pollock case from "Pollock" to "Farmers' Loan." In citing U.S. case law regarding Federal taxation, the convention is to cite the first listed party (in this case, Mr. Pollock) unless the first listed party happens to be the Collector of Internal Revenue, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, etc. In this case, Pollock was a private citizen, so in abbreviated citations, you would normally cite the case as Pollock and not as Farmers' Loan. I therefore reverted the edits. Yours, Famspear 18:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Naming conventions in case law citations

message: I was thinking of adding to the article and was amazed to find the controversies being played out here. Now I'm having second thoughts. Suprisingly, the topic I was interested in including my have some relevance to the argument. Here it is...
One very important landmark tax decision not discussed here by either side of the discussion is Hylton vs US, 3 US 171 (1796).
[http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=3&page=171
]
This case is important for two reasons. It clarifies, for the first time, the ill-defined terms in the taxation sections of Article 1 of the US constitution. Secondly, Alexander Hamilton and Chief Justice Paterson are participants who were both "framers" of the 2-year old constitution; they should know what they are talking about with regards to original intent.
From Hylton vs US...
"...direct taxes contemplated by the Constitution, are only two, to wit, a capitation, or poll tax, simply, without regard to property, profession, or any other circumstance; and a tax on LAND. I doubt whether a tax, by a general assessment of personal property, within the United States, is included within the term direct tax".
Emphasis is in the orginal, not my own.
:This ingenuously omits the words "I am inclined to think" with which the sentence begins; why should we quote dictum? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not amazingly prescient at all; read Adam Smith on the window tax (and he was adopting the conventional wisdom of his time, twenty years before) . Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I said  ingenuous; and Riromero might benefit from reading the article obiter dictum. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Dear Riromero: Stay tuned; I will try to address some of your points. I'm not sure whether an expansion including a description of Hylton would go here or, alternatively, in the article on direct taxes, or indirect taxes, or whatever. This may take a while, as I am in the middle of tax season myself. Yours, Famspear 22:21, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Dear Riromero: OK, and maybe I can find a copy of that law review article some time. Yours, Famspear 03:22, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  I was thinking of adding something, but... 

message: Under the first paragraph of the Background section, I can read this single line phrase "the constitution is stupid".  When clicking the "edit" button, this text appears nowhere.  Is this a case of a deferred amendment or some bizarro bug in wikipedia?  Has the wiki been hacked? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.149.162.10 (talk) 19:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "the constitution is stupid"...? 

message: Has every state done so?  It is still good law because we only need 3/415:07, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Someone on raticftaction

message: I posted the section with complete ratification dates, but someone quickly changed a few of the dates citing the United States Government Printing Office .  However, just about every other source I've found online, including the US House of Representatives  and Lexis Nexus , all have different dates for the following states: Montana, South Dakota, Kansas, Arizona, and Wisconsin.  Anybody know why?  --CapitalR 06:37, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And I'll try to do some further checking on these differences. Stay tuned. Famspear 00:03, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ratification dates