Talk:Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution/Archive 12

Southern states
Is there any reason why many Southern states (who had seceded against centralization only half a century before) where among the first to ratify this amendment? --88.64.10.144 (talk) 09:26, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Transclusion problems
The /Comments page is transcluded twice in hidden text, producing an anomalous table of contents on this page. I don't know what can be done about it. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:57, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Changed headers in /Comments page to bold so phantom items do not appear in TOC of this main talk page. 172.131.153.174 (talk) 16:54, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Null argument
The page does not have any section dedicated to the argument that the 16th amendment was not legally ratified. This should not be the case considering the argument that it is technically nullified is strong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.141.117.10 (talk) 17:08, 22 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Any such section should be brief and neutral — pretty much stating only that some people have argued that the Sixteenth Amendment was never legally ratified, but that their arguments have not been accepted by the courts. The existing "See also" link to Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments should be moved to the head of such a new section via the Main template.  I cannot emphasize strongly enough that a section of this sort must not try to promote the argument (per WP:NPOV), or even do more than briefly acknowledge it (per WP:FRINGE).   Rich wales (talk · contribs) 17:40, 22 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Dear user IP 67.141.117.10: No, the argument is not "strong." The argument that the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified is false from a legal standpoint; it is also a legally frivolous. It is a fraudulent argument, and it has been ruled to be a fraud in court. The article cited by Richwales, Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments, documents this fully. Every single court that has considered the argument has rejected it. The nonratification argument fraud began in the early and mid-1970s, over sixty years after the Amendment was ratified -- and the argument was created in part because the fraudsters who started the argument didn't really understand the Amendment, anyway. They created the argument because they incorrectly thought that if the Amendment had not been ratified, Congress could not tax their incomes. Famspear (talk) 00:10, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Alaska and Hawaii
In the text it states that the legislatures of Florida and Pennsylvania never considered the proposed amendment. Should Alaska and Hawaii not be added to the list? Of course, I know that these two states only obtained statehood decades after 1913, and that as enough states had already ratified the amendment by then, so it is all a moot point, but I think that this should then be mentioned in one way or another. After all, after 36 states had ratified the amendment, everything becomes a moot point, and we also mention the remaining states. Is it the case, that when a territory obtains statehood, it automatically ratifies the amendments that are already on the book? If so, maybe this should be mentioned. As you probably have noticed, I don't know much of the matter, so I put it here on the talk page, and didn't try an edit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.176.99.188 (talk) 12:42, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
 * That part of the article is referring to what happened at the time the amendment was before the States for ratification, so Alaska and Hawaii (then being territories) are not relevant. When a State is admitted to the Union, it agrees to comply with the Constitution, but it does not ratify each amendment. Remember, the amendments are as much a part of the Constitution as are the original Articles. By agreeing to comply with it, the new State is referring to all of the Constitution. There's no need for the new State to individually ratify any amendment, because it can't decide to pick and choose with which parts of the Constitution it will comply. The new State either agrees to comply with all of the Constitution or it does not so agree. The latter choice would preclude it being admitted into the Union. SMP0328. (talk) 17:04, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Sixteenth Amendment ratification
The 16th amendment was merely 'declared' ratified in February 1913, it was never ratified by the required number of states.


 * 48 states at the time
 * 36 must approve for ratification
 * The required number was not reached

This can be expanded on further, however the time and effort to do so is pointless if it will just be dismissed as conspiracy. The documents and evidence is available to show which states did/did not correctly approve the amendment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.66.70.95 (talk) 14:03, 7 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Nope. This is a highly fringe view, discussed in the Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments article. It's been considered by the courts and rejected every time, so much so raising as an argument to avoid paying taxes will earn you an automatic penalty. It's only raised by tax protestors and calling it fringe is fairly charitable. There's a See Also link to the tax protestor article, more details don't belong here. See WP:UNDUE, WP:FRINGE. Ravensfire ( talk ) 15:47, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should put up an FAQ for this claim, like what has been done at Talk:Barack Obama. SMP0328. (talk) 16:37, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I'm not too sure. That was added, in part, because of the media-storm from the initial wave of garbage and you had a fair number of people who would read the FAQ.  I don't think we'll have that here - mostly true believers that will not be dissuaded from their holy mission by mere words.  Ravensfire ( talk ) 16:40, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Editors Ravensfire and SMP0328 are correct. The argument that the Sixteenth Amendment was not ratified is false, and has been debunked in court over and over and over and over and over again. See the applicable article as referenced by editor Ravensfire.

Incidentally, the non-ratification argument is not merely dismissed as "conspiracy." It is dismissed as fraudulent, blatant nonsense. Famspear (talk) 21:35, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

A new contributor added some nonsense to the article, which was reverted by another editor. As has been explained countless times, no court has ever ruled the Sixteenth Amendment to have been illegally or improperly ratified. Never. Not even once.

William J. Benson, the litigant mentioned by the contributor, is of course a convicted felon (see below) who served time for federal tax crimes. His "Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified" scheme has been litigated many times.

Also, the case number cited by the contributor, "04C 7403" which supposedly applies to a case in some sort of "district" court in Virginia, is not a valid case number for any case in the Federal district courts in Virginia, as far as I can tell (I checked PACER for the federal district court in all the districts in Virginia a few minutes ago).

Despite the contributor's claim to the contrary, I see no record of a court case involving the United States against "William J. Benson" in any federal district court in Virginia. (There are a few cases involving other people with a similar name.)

There are cases in federal courts in Illinois involving Benson (he's from Illinois) -- and Benson lost on his "nonratification" nonsense every single time.

Benson's "Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified" nonsense is part of a tax scheme which was ruled to be a fraud by a federal court. See also Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments. Benson himself served time in federal prison for tax crimes -- after trying to use his own "nonratification" scheme in his trial. After serving his sentence, he continued the scheme, and even tried to fool people into believing that he "discovered" the supposed "truth" that the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified AFTER he went to prison -- when in fact he wrote his "book" long before he was arrested, tried, and convicted.

Every single court, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, that has ever ruled on this topic has REJECTED the argument that the Sixteenth Amendment was not properly ratified. Every single time. Not one exception. All this is documented in the articles: The Law that Never Was and Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments. Famspear (talk) 23:11, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I have a question. How many Senators were present when the 16th Amendment was ratified? Magnum Serpentine (talk) 21:03, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I assume you want to know how many Senators were present when the amendment was passed by the Senate. Why does it matter how many Senators were present? SMP0328. (talk) 00:16, 17 October 2012 (UTC)


 * We also sort of assume that we're talking about United States Senators. And we also have to answer the questions: "Present where? Present in the U.S. Senate chamber?"


 * Of course, the U.S. Senate does not "ratify" amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate only propose such amendments.


 * Perhaps the question was intended to be: "How many U.S. Senators were present in the Senate chamber when the U.S. Senate passed the resolution proposing the Amendment?" Artice V of the Constitution requires at least a two-thirds vote in the House and a two-thirds vote in the Senate in order to "propose" an amendment. But Article V technically does not expressly state that any member (of the House or Senate) be "present" (that is, physically located within the applicable House or Senate chamber). Also, Article V does not specify whether the two-thirds vote has to be (A) two-thirds of all the members, or (B) two-thirds of all those members actually voting, or (C) two-thirds of all those physically present in the chamber, etc., etc.


 * I suppose we could check the record to see what the vote was (if it's not already mentioned in the article), but from a legal standpoint it's irrelevant.


 * Further, to digress -- and this is a point that tax protesters often don't seem to want to "get" -- if there had been a material defect in the process, someone would have noticed, and would have pointed that out. Both the House and Senate certified the amendment as having been proposed, a total of 42 states certified the amendment as having been ratified, and the Secretary of State certified the amendment as having been ratified. The federal courts have, without a single exception, ruled that the Amendment is a valid part of the Constitution, over and over. By the way, the earliest recorded argument that the Sixteenth Amendment was "not properly ratified" that I have ever located was approximately sixty-two years after the Amendment was ratified. Just think: The highest marginal tax rates were over 90% in the early 1950s, and yet no one -- not the members of the Congress who proposed the amendment, not the members of the various state legislatures who ratified it, not the millions of taxpayers who were paying federal income tax for sixty-two years, not the legal scholars who had studied the federal income tax for sixty-two years, ever said "hey, wait a minute, this thing was not ratified". It was at the time when a baby born on the day of ratification would have been about sixty-two years old, that someone first raised the argument, and that someone was a criminal defendant raising argument in court to try to avoid a federal tax conviction. He lost. Famspear (talk) 02:31, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The following does not show the vote, but this is from the U.S. Government Printing Office:


 * The Sixteenth Amendment was proposed by Congress on July 12, 1909, when it passed the House, 44 Cong. Rec. (61st Cong., 1st Sess.) 4390, 4440, 4441, having previously passed the Senate on July 5. Id., 4121. It appears officially in 36 Stat. 184. Ratification was completed on February 3, 1913, when the legislature of the thirty-sixth State (Delaware, Wyoming, or New Mexico) approved the amendment, there being then 48 States in the Union. On February 25, 1913, Secretary of State Knox certified that this amendment had become a part of the Constitution. 37 Stat. 1785.

So, if we can locate the Congressional Record, volume 44, at pages 4390, 4440, and 4441, that might show the votes in the House and Senate. Actually, the Senate vote might be shown at page 4121. Famspear (talk) 03:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

While federal courts may have rejected arguments in several cases, my question pertains to the reason they rejected them. According to an article [ http://www.wnd.com/2001/02/8189/ Are federal income taxes legal?] in WorldNetWeekly "The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stated: 'Stahl’s claim that ratification of the 16th Amendment was fraudulently certified constitutes a political question because we could not undertake independent resolution of this issue ‘without expressing lack of respect due coordinate branches of government.’' This statement is key in the anti-tax community’s position. It is used as evidence that the judicial system flatly refuses to address the question of the amendment’s veracity," and later, "In Stahl’s case, the court refused to decide his claim of fraud in ratification for the same reason it refuses to decide whether or not pieces of legislation were properly enacted. In fact, the 9th Circuit referred to such a case in its decision in United States v. Stahl."
 * The article suggests that the Political question doctrine is actually the basis for rejectimg Stahl's defense and NOT any federal court's affirmation of the legitimacy of the 16th Amendment. Not being a tax activist as such, I can neither confirm nor deny the appearance or context of this statement in this federal court decisions (or others); however, it does imply that rejections of this argument in Stahl's and others' cases IS NOT on the basis their ruling that the 16th Amendment is legitimate. Jezbold (talk) 22:05, 3 November 2012 (UTC)


 * A rejection of a non-ratification argument using the political question doctrine is, by definition, an affirmance of the "legitimacy" of the 16th Amendment, as you put it.


 * I suspect that some people might be confused into thinking that a rejection using the political question doctrine is somehow a decision on "merely" some sort of "procedural" issue. That would be wrong. A rejection of a non-ratification argument on the basis of the political question doctrine is a decision on the merits. The legal effect of all these decisions is that the Sixteenth Amendment was properly ratified and is a valid part of the Constitution.


 * I would add that non-ratification arguments are based in part on misconceptions about the ratification process and about how our legal and political system works. Famspear (talk) 01:25, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

About sixty years after the ratification, various non-ratification arguments were concocted by people opposed to the Federal income tax -- in part because they mistakenly assumed that the Sixteenth Amendment, in 1913, was the beginning of the Congressional power to impose income taxes. They thought that by somehow finding a court that would rule that the Amendment was not legally valid, they could thereby eliminate the Federal income tax. They were wrong. Repeal of the Amendment tomorrow would not have that effect.

Then, in the early 1980s, a guy named William Benson self published a book in which he falsely claimed to have "proven" the non-ratification nonsense. Even if he had been correct on ALL the FACTS he supposedly "uncovered", the legal effect would be the same: The Amendment was properly ratified, and is part of the Constitution. This is the fundamental point that escapes the people who tried to use his scam. It doesn't matter whether Benson was right on the facts. He was wrong on the legal effect of those "facts" .

Benson later served time in Federal prison after trying to use his own non-ratification scam in his own federal tax crime trial. Even many years later, on his own web site, he was trying to make people believe that he had "discovered" the non-ratification and had written his book AFTER he was convicted, to try to fool people into thinking that if they bought his book, they could also "prove" non-ratification and thereby get out of paying federal income tax. (I still have a PDF copy of his web page on that.)

His scam has been ruled to be a fraud in federal court. In one case, the court noted that he had been falsely telling people that they could use his non-ratification scheme to get out of paying federal income tax, when he knew very well that this was not true. Famspear (talk) 01:50, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

"today's money"
"$20,693 in today's money" should be changed to "$20,693 in 2012 money" 66.66.149.221 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:56, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Income taxes pre-Pollock
I'd like to see some discussion of the reasons an income tax was originally proposed, and it's alluded to when the article mentions western states approved of the 16th Amendment while northeastern states opposed it: Alcohol.

The temperance movement took almost 100 years to enact Prohibition, and part of the reason for that is the federal government got a great deal of its revenue from excise taxes on booze. Western states were dry states. They desperately needed the income tax revenue to insulate themselves from the price shocks in the gold and silver markets, on which they made royalties that were as volatile as the price of metals. Alcohol already being illegal, they didn't have booze to fall back on as a revenue source. Northeastern states, on the other hand, had most of the alcohol consumers and the most tax revenue, so income taxes weren't as important to them.

To a significant degree, the temperance movement was behind the income tax. There was also significant overlap between the temperance movement, the suffragettes, and the progressive movement, and a significant part of that solidarity was around the federal income tax. Janus303 (talk) 04:59, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Synthesised research in inflation adjusted income thresholds
As of 8 April 2015, the "Income taxes before the Pollock case" section contains the following text: "It levied a flat tax of three percent on annual income above $800, which was equivalent to $20,999 in today's money. This act was replaced the following year with the Revenue Act of 1862, which levied a graduated tax of three to five percent on income above $600 (worth $14,174 today) and specified a termination of income taxation in 1866." (The emphasis was added by me.) The conversions from US dollars in 1861 and 1862 respectively into "today's money" appears to be based on the cited source by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and its table of CPI estimates and the provided formula for calculating conversions between years. My math might be wrong, but I could not reproduce the figures of "$20,999" and "$14,174" mentioned in the article. Is this not synthesised research? My initial investigation into these conversions were stimulated by my desire to clarify what year was meant by "today" in that section, but that is moot if the numbers themselves are not reliable. Kind regards, Matt Heard (talk) 01:16, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
 * More specifically, is this a valid routine calculation? Kind regards, Matt Heard (talk) 01:19, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Dear Matt Heard: I see what you mean. Along that line: I sort of wonder whether the inflation adjustments should be in the article, which I believe is what you're driving at. Further, I wonder whether the amounts (even the unadjusted ones) should be in the article at all. This is not an article about any tax statute in particular. The article is about a tax provision of the U.S. Constitution. I would lean toward just removing all of it as being tangential. Famspear (talk) 01:24, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Famspear. Even if those numbers can be corrected, their relevance to this article is highly dubious. SMP0328. (talk) 02:07, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 16 May 2016
It is important that the reader realize that the 16th Amendment did not give Congress new taxing powers that it did not already have under the Constitution. This important concept reflected the 1916 Supreme Court decision in Brushaber, but is almost impossible to discern because of the archaic language used. This fact was clarified in another 1916 case called Stanton vs. Baltic Mining and was specifically stated to IRS agents by the IRS Commissioner in Treasury Decision 2303, from March 3, 1916. This decision can be seen at the following URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First_page_from_TD_2303.pdf. I can also supply the four pages of that decision. There is another important Act of Congress that is otherwise unknown, namely Section 24 of the 1916 Revenue Act, which repealed the 1913 income tax.

Tomclaytonmd (talk) 19:48, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, and that point is already covered in the article. For example, the quote from Alan O. Dixler:


 * .....the 16th Amendment did not give Congress any new power to lay and collect an income tax; rather, the 16th Amendment permitted Congress to do so without apportionment ....

---Alan O. Dixler, "Direct Taxes Under the Constitution: A Review of the Precedents," Nov. 20, 2006, Tax Analysts (bolding added).

This is an important point that seemed to escape the tax protester/tax denier fraudsters back when they were active. They wanted to argue that the Congress never had power to tax incomes, and that the Amendment added "no new power." Their argument was thus that Congress does not have that power today. Just the opposite is the case: Congress always had the power to tax incomes. The Sixteenth Amendment added no "new" power, for the simple reason that Congress already had that power. The Amendment merely removed the apportionment requirement (that had been imposed under the Pollock decision) for taxes on interest income, dividend income, and rent income.

The tax protester movement seems to have largely died down. In the period from 2005 to about 2007, Wikipedia was often the subject of attacks by tax protesters trying to spread their nonsense through Wikipedia articles. Famspear (talk) 01:10, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Toggling edit request. The original edit request text was not specific about any change (in the format of "Change X to Y"). Doesn't look like a change needs to be made. — Andy W.  ( talk  · ctb) 01:14, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. No change needs to be made. Also, the Stanton case is old news: Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co.. So is T.D. 2303. There is nothing particularly "unknown" about section 24 of the Revenue Act of 1916. All statutes enacted by Congress are a matter of public record. They are published in the United States Statutes at Large. There have been many, many, many revenue acts passed by Congress (especially since 1913), and many of them contain provisions that repeal certain provisions of prior acts of Congress. Famspear (talk) 01:21, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 October 2017
The sentence "Opposition to the Sixteenth Amendment was led by establishment Republicans because of their close ties to wealthy industrialists, although not even they were uniformly opposed to the general idea of a permanent income tax." needs a citation or should be deleted. The assertion in that sentence calls into question the character of the "establishment Republicans" in a way that comes across as motivated by partisan politics and ideology, as opposed to historically rooted.

Getting the author of this wiki to also offer the self-proclaimed position of the "establishment republicans" of this time would be another improvement. Bigggny (talk) 13:52, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
 * That sentence does need a reliable source, as do many sentences in the Adoption section. So I've merged all the cite tags in that section into a sectionwide cite tag. SMP0328. (talk) 20:45, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

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