Should the Republican Congress send a balanced budget amendment to the States?

[johnwk]

I got as far as your quote of Title IV, Sec 401 where the LAW clearly states if the sixteenth Amendment is not repealed in 7 years "all provisions of, and amendments made by, this Act shall not apply" and in the next paragraph you called that baloney. I call it the LAW.

Of course you did not read the import part of the post which follows:


But let’s pretend H.R. 25 is adopted and the Sixteenth Amendment is repealed before the seven year period. Well surprise, surprise! Congress still maintains power to lay and collect taxes calculated from profits, gains and other incomes.

The fact is, prior to the adoption of the 16th Amendment the Supreme Court in Flint vs. Stone Tracy upheld the Corporate “Excise” Tax of 1909 which was an “excise” tax laid upon the “privilege” of being a corporation, and the amount of tax to be paid was calculated from the Corporations’ profits and gains! Although the tax is not an income tax as such, but an excise tax, it still allows Congress to collect taxes calculated from profits, gains and other “incomes”, which is exactly what we have now. And so, the repeal of the 16th Amendment is meaningless unless the wording of the repeal contains language I have been suggesting for years:

The Sixteenth Amendment is hereby repealed and Congress is henceforth forbidden to lay ``any`` tax or burden calculated from profits, gains, interest, salaries, wages, tips, inheritances or any other lawfully realized money

But the progressives behind the alleged fair tax are determined to keep alive Congress’ power to lay and collect taxes calculated from profits, gains and other “income” in order to get at those evil corporate profits, as would be done with a Nancy Pelosi type “windfall profits excise tax”. And this is one of the reasons H.R. 25 creates an “Excise Tax Bureau” which is in addition to the “Sales Tax Bureau” , and will be ready, if H.R.25 went into effect, to re-establish the very miseries which we now experience under the IRS and an “income tax” --- a tax also calculated from profits, gains and other “incomes”.


If the authors of the alleged fair tax were sincere about removing from Congress’ powers its power to lay and collect taxes calculated from profits, gains and other “incomes” and not trying to pull something slick over the American People, H.R. 25 would contain a stipulation in its language that the fair tax shall not go into operation until the 16th Amendment is repealed and the repeal would contain the language I stated above. Keep in mind that our existing Constitution contained a stipulation which required its ratification by nine States before it could be put into operation!

But don’t expect our fair tax point men such as Mike Huckabee, Neal Boortz, Herman Cain, and others, to address the above facts and unwind the con job written into H.R. 25. Their job is to mesmerize the unsuspecting with a con artists’ hook --- that our beloved IRS will be closed down and “income taxes” will come to a screeching halt.

JWK


Read the freaken fair tax bill so we don’t have to find out what’s in it if passes.

The discussion pertaining to the excise tax in 1909 and the Founder's belief that Congress has the authority to levy taxes, it would be important to note that Federal Income tax as a means to collect revenue was deemed unConstitutional following the civil war. The original intent of the Federal Income Tax was to help pay for the war as it's only purpose, when it was believed to be used as a permanent means to collect revenue, it met strict resistance and was struck down. So the idea that Congress had the open authority and original intent by our Founders to simply levy any new tax as it feels it requires on the people, is entirely untrue. Do your research on the history of the Federal Income tax, as it relates to President Lincoln and the civil war.

I don't know what point you are trying to make as it relates to the topic of the thread. And yes, I have done my research. As to the "income tax" laid during the Civil War, it was upheld in SPRINGER v. U S, 102 U.S. 586 (1880). But that is not the subject of this thread. This thread is about real tax reform, which in my mind means withdrawing Congress' power to lay and collect taxes calculated from lawfully earned "incomes".


JWK





If, by calling a tax indirect when it is essentially direct, the rule of protection could be frittered away, one of the great landmarks defining the boundary between the nation and the states of which it is composed, would have disappeared, and with it one of the bulwarks of private rights and private property. POLLOCK v. FARMERS' LOAN & TRUST CO., 157 U.S. 429 (1895)