Essay On The 16th Amendment

The sixteenth amendment in article I, section 8 gives congress the power to impose and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. In article I, section 9 states that no direct could be imposed unless made proportion to the population based on census result, which means congress has to levy taxes based on the state population rather than individual. During the civil war the federal government imposed an income tax for individual to pay tax for war expenses; the supreme court found this to be unconstitutional based on the case of Pollock v. farmer’s Loan & trust co. (1895). After this case congress sent to the states the sixteenth amendment which gives congress the power to impose direct tax, that is, congress fixes the amount of income it wants to raise and levies each state with their proportionate share of the amount, a direct tax can be collected by federal officials or the states; state can collect their taxes in any way they want. In nutshell, a direct tax is collected only on persons or property. Indirect taxes are not being used in the constitution. It is simply a label for all duties, imposts and excises taken as a group, and is usually referred to any tax which is not direct. Though it has often been disputed that a uniform tax is one, which shows fundamental equality, the Supreme Court has constantly rejected this disagreement. The main purpose of allowing indirect taxes to be uniform is to secure the law of no taxation without representation.
The uniformity of the taxes is mostly based on the geographic region, which does not really mean that the law of equality does not require fundamental equality, but based on Article I, section 8 it explains that the law of equality is not the subject of the uniformity