Talk:Direct tax

message: The following largely unsourced commentary was moved from the article to here:
::in order to correct this definition without taking away from others nor making remote accusations, which in this matter indicates high crimes and high treason, let us examine history closer.  The Pollock case indicates a FACT of law in the United States of America, which has not changed for one second.
::Macomber vs. Eisner was another defining moment in history, to stop that Congress from further prostituting their office to the fiat "junkies".
::To explain that consider that to pass a law is a power of trust and faith in your elected officials being exerted by the inaction of the People.
::However never forget the Constitution is maximum law to all in government and military positions..........so to speak out about injustice is a protection and a mandate of that protection.
::By due process of law in the courts we avoid war and death and destruction of the innocent persons in any nation.
::The United Nations was created by those who have been trying to destroy freedom in the United States of America........not that it is not needed nor desired  (U.N.   as a tool for world peace).......it can never deny nor disparage the rights of the citizens of this nation nor any place of it. because..........................Current laws through it are not the same as the law of nations mentioned in the Constitution for the United States of America.  OUR Constitution protects freedom the U.N. charter impedes it and destroys it.  Our Constitution is a better role model for nations, when truthful and faithfully administrated by oath to it.   Thus who in government can be paid without a truthful oath to it.  The 16th attempt to amend has no empowerment clause, which is what  is to be examined as being pointed out in the Macomber Case and established   (based on info then available) in the least as a flexible working fact subject to adjustment later.  The treason of Aldrich should be pursued as a reasonable point to investigate, the murders of all Presidents before and after his lifetime.  He is dead.  Rockefeller is dead. Jp Morgan is dead and Rothchild, etc...Their lives are now part of history, for which all citizens are entitled to be left accurate and certain factors considered such as the right to privacy and the safety such gives citizens from "bullies" in the "classroom" so to speak.
::USA economy has, ab initio, a 100%  value based on gold and silver (coin, thus 100 -40= 60%retained by the citizens from government).  Coin is the critical word here in assessing accurate values and identifing errors.  The bridge of thought to that is the seignorage the People's treasury was cheated out of.   There is more to discuss here, but consider as an employer that to issue any IRS tax forms in 2009 could be treasonous and in excusable.  Labor as a part of the cost is deductable, not the citizen nor their right to keep the compensation for their labor (pay).  Social Security is a promise that was to be maintained 75 years into the future.  It howwever does not escape conta bonos mores judical review for adjustment and revision to total constitutionally. It creates zero jurisdiction upon a citizen, but does upon those not a citizen.  Point in question......stolen identities and those funds to be given to the identity victim.   There is much to discuss nationwide (thank God for our blessing of computers and the internet here), while preventing income tax till these matters are fully examined by de jure Grand juries both state and national......Federal is colloquial and inaccurate as a description of Our national government.  See also Article 4 protections against prejudice of claims 
::December 13, 2008
::see also Jefferson's Opinion (prophesy) about a national bank...............for the safety of the innocent, this augmentation to continue so the People have time to peacefully and calmly examine the facts.......past, present and future.
Wikipedia articles are not the place for this. Yours, Famspear (talk) 14:44, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Weird, unsourced fragmented, tangential material

message: I see that Arthur Rubin's 3RR period has expired before mine and that he has arbitrarily reverted all my edits without discussion in this Talk page. I propose to restore them to the content at User:Bracton/Sandbox/Direct_tax, but I also propose we discuss this here and try to reach consensus. If we cannot, then I will ask for arbitration by editors who don't have a professional stake in the subject field.
You will note that the article in the Sandbox now contains a subsection on U.S. state and local direct taxes, cited to a 1796 U.S. government report that was previously cited but now has a link to the Library of Congress website, so editors may read it for themselves. I also recommend reading my cite, also online, of a comprehensive law review article on the subject by a Professor of Law at the University of Texas. I suggest that anyone arguing to revert my edits that cite this scholar read his article first.
Contrary to the WP:OR comments of some editors, the usage of this term, synonyms for it, or the same concept, are not confined to the national government of the United States. It is also used for U.S. state and local government, and in most other English-speaking countries. It is appropriate to bring in at least short passages on those instances of use, each cited. 
All of the meanings listed at the outset have their own sections in the Sandbox version proposed, all of which are cited to reliable sources.
As for the objection that the description of Adam Smith as "classical" is not cited, his article is in the category of Classical economists, and the word "classical" is used 11 times in his article. His influence can be seen in such writings of the Founders as the Report on Manufactures by Alexander Hamilton, a cite to which I have also added. He was also quoted extensively by Justice Patterson in his opinion in the Hylton case, as discussed in the majority opinion in the Pollock case. (Note the link to justia.com, which seems to have a more accurate version than findlaw.com.)
As for the argument that U.S. courts have "rejected" the pass-through meaning, they have not. In Pollock the majority actually accepted it, as a definition, which would have required them to find the tax was indirect, but decided on the basis of mainly English precedents that held income taxes to be direct. One of the dissents quoted below highlighted this.
Several points need to be understood:
First, U.S. courts only decide national cases, not state or local. A court decision is law only for the parties to the case, not for the public in general. That power is reserved exclusively to Congress or state legislatures, or to constitutional conventions. 
Second, even within a federal jurisdiction, finding for one definition is not a rejection of others, especially if they were not proposed by the litigants, and even more if they are only dicta. Different definitions can distinguish the same things in the same ways, and may be used in different situations for different purposes. Definitions that classify objects the same way can be considered equivalent and not in conflict, and it is not OR to summarize them in the way editors must do in the normal course.
Third, the Pollock case discusses most of these meanings, rejects none of them, and cites to the writings of English jurists and lawmakers in reaching its finding, which has not been overturned, even if the income tax amendment may have changed the need for it. For example this from the majority opinion of Fuller:
But this is not a definition. It is a statement of classification. It doesn't provide criteria for deciding what actual taxes might be properly included in any of the classes listed.
He further cited with apparent approval "Mr. Hamilton's judgment at that time all internal taxes, except duties and  excises on articles of consumption, fell into the category of direct taxes." That is a somewhat different classification, since "on articles of consumption" indicates the pass-through definition. He then goes on to further quote Hamilton in his arguments in Hylton,
So he arrives at the key finding with this statement:
Note that he is not saying income is part of the definition. A tax on property may be classified as direct by definition, but the conclusion that income on property is part of that property is not part of the definition, but a logically independent proposition, based on comments by English jurists such as Coke, and the conclusion is disputed by the dissenters.
He further cites to English sources that income on property is part of the property:
The relevance of the Wolcott report, though not cited in Pollock, is thus seen as indicative of what kinds of taxes were deemed "direct":
Although dissenting, Justice Harlan gathered and commented on earlier cases in a way that made several points that are relevant to the definition of "direct tax" that are not impaired by him being in the minority:
:This one expresses the apportionability criterion:
:He quoted Justice Chase in Hylton that he could find only two examples: a capitation tax and a land tax. And quoting Justice Iredell:
That is a statement of apportionability being a definition, or defining criterion.
Justice Brown, also in dissent in Pollock, says:
In other words, the pass-through meaning was one of the meanings in play, even if it wasn't the meaning for constitutional purposes for national taxation.
He goes on to make some key points:
And:
Here is the dissenting complaint of accepting the economic definition but then ignoring it:
From all this we can only summarize that several meanings were in play and still are. This article needs to present them all. Bracton (talk) 17:24, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that several meanings are at play, without determining if your quotes are on topic.  Some of the ones you've added are clearly not accurately quoting the source, are clearly quoting a source without credibility at the time, or just don't support your interpretation of the meaning.  For example, your statement that the Pollack Court found income taxes, in general, to be direct taxes is clearly false.   The Court found that income taxes on income from property was a direct tax on the property.  It specifically did not find that the income tax, except in regard income from property, was a direct tax.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 20:56, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You need to be more specific. I did not state that the Pollock court found all income taxes to be direct. I accurately quoted from the Pollock opinions, which were quoting other persons in other cases and writings. Granted, the quotes are in the context of a more extended discussiion, and one needs to go back to the original to get the entire thing, but links are provided for anyone to do that. You have also not made a supported argument for not revising the article as I propose. Bracton (talk) 22:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Bracton edits of April, 2009

message: In business, how is a person who is defined as indirect labor (overhead) taxed, if indirect tax is paid by the consumer.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.177.242.131 (talk) 04:25, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indirect labor 

message: This article is wrong and should be amended.
A direct tax cannot be one that is "paid directly to the government by the persons on whom it is imposed" as this is a meaningless term.
In the UK, Income tax is paid directly to the Government by the employer for an employee and so must be, using this definition, an indirect tax.
However for a self-employed person income tax is paid by him directly to the government and so, again using this definition, is a direct tax.
So UK Income tax is both a direct and an indirect tax, under this definition, hence the term is meaningless and the main differentiation term of taxes has no meaning.
This definition refers to the collection method not the tax itself.
A directly collected tax would have this definition and UK income tax would be collected both directly and indirectly (as it is).
Using the definition as given only Corporation tax and Capital gains tax and very minor taxes such as road fund and TV licence etc are direct taxes, in the UK, the bulk of the taxes have some element of deduction at source. 
A direct tax is, and always has been, a tax that is assessed based on the circumstances of the taxpayer. So graduted poll taxes, income tax, corporation tax etc are direct taxes and "anonymous" taxes such as excise duties, customs duties, VAT, sales tax, poll taxes etc. are indirect taxes.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.113.202.75 (talk) 15:12, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition 

message: This article appears to be primarily about direct taxation in the United States. Is it applicable elsewhere? 68.47.23.59 (talk) 13:15, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The term "direct tax" is probably used in other nations where the primary language is English. The term may or may not mean the same thing in those countries. All Wikipedia articles are "works in progress," so it's possible expand the article to add information on how the term "direct tax" is used in countries other than the United States. Famspear (talk) 16:27, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  U.S. article? 

message: To help plan how much you pay for tax so you have enough left over. 102.249.2.203 (talk) 15:12, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  financial planning on tax