Court Opinion

ID: 9418407
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:24:50.22897+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:02.646905
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Holmes,
dissenting.
I think that Towne v. Eisner, 245 U. S. 418, was right in its reasoning and result and that on sound principles the stock dividend was not income. But it was clearly intimated in that , case that the construction of the statute then before the Court might be different from that of the Constitution. 245 U. S. 425. I think that the word “incomes” in the Sixteenth Amendment should be read in *220“a sense most obvious to the common understanding at the time of its adoption.” Bishop v. State, 149 Indiana, 223, 230; State v. Butler, 70 Florida, 102, 133. For it was for public adoption that it was proposed. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 407. The known purpose of this Amendment was to get rid of nice questions as to what might be direct taxes, and I cannot doubt that most people not lawyers would suppose when they voted for it that they put a question like the present to rest. I am of opinion that the Amendment justifies the tax. See Tax Commissioner v. Putnam, 227 Massachusetts, 522, 532, 533.
Mr. Justice Day concurs in this opinion.