A Monument of Deficient Wisdom: The Constitutional Conflict in Federal Income Tax Law Enforcement
by on 12/20/2001
55 Pages
Although America is engaged in a serious debate over the question of far-reaching tax reform, absent from the discussion is the question of how the current tax system and our system of constitutional limited government are at odds with one another. The Founders of the republic established a government with limited, enumerated powers. Through the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Founders reserved to the people their fundamental rights to life, liberty and property.
As a part of the overall mechanism for operating our government, the Founders established a tax system that could fund the new government while at the same time, respect the limitations placed upon it by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. However, the Sixteenth Amendment radically altered this delicate balance. It removed the protection of Article I, section 9 of the Constitution, which prohibited the federal government from laying a “direct tax” unless “in proportion to the census or enumeration.” The Sixteenth Amendment gave birth to the modern income tax and its enforcement agency, the Internal Revenue Service.
Since its adoption in 1913, the modern income tax has been a source of constant, sweeping legislative alterations and judicial interpretations. The tax code now consists of more than 18,000 pages of mind-numbing complexity that touches the lives of nearly every citizen. In its haste to use the personal income tax to expeditiously raise greater amounts of revenue, Congress erected a statutory scheme that strikes at the heart of our most important liberties. And while the Supreme Court was established as a barrier against such encroachments upon liberty, it in fact has allowed Congress to all but eradicate individual liberties upon the proposition that the government’s “overriding need for revenue” outweighs the citizens’ interest in individual rights.
In the debate over sweeping tax reform, we must address the question of whether and to what extent we desire that individual liberties should be preserved. The instant examination plainly illustrates that the income tax, as a direct tax, is a frontal assault upon the most fundamental of our constitutional liberties. It is made abundantly clear why the Founders rejected direct taxation such as an income tax in favor of indirect taxes as the chief means of raising revenue. The enforcement of a system of direct taxation necessarily requires the systematic invasion of individual liberties and destruction of constitutional restrictions on the power of government. Otherwise, a direct tax is simply unenforceable. It is for that reason that an income tax of any kind is wholly antithetical to liberty. This discussion clearly shows that liberty and an income tax cannot co-exist in the same society. One must necessarily drive out the other. The question for policy makers is simple: which is the American people more willing to learn to live without?
Stand by the roads, and look, and ask
for the ancient paths, where
the good way is; and walk in it,
and find rest for your souls.
— Jeremiah 6:16
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