Talk:Tax resistance in the United States

The section headed "Tax protester theories" is unnecessarily dismissive of those with legitimate, and sometimes well-informed and historically-accurate perceptions of the history and nature of taxation in America - especially the distinction, which has changed dramatically if not diametrically over time, between wages and income.

For example, when the income tax was initiated in the US following the ratification of the 16th Amendment, up until WWII, wage earners were exempt from taxation because of high tax bracket thresholds, and the tax system was more progressive than ever since.

In Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith explained, "Capitation taxes, so far as they are levied upon the lower ranks of people, are direct taxes upon the wages of labor…."

A long-standing thread of political-economic thought in America insists that true income (wealth accretion), being a form of theft from others, demands a return to society in the form of taxation, tariff or excise. It was broadly understood that a man’s wages belonged to him alone; but profit, interest, dividend and rental income belonged in part to everyone and could be legitimately re-appropriated to redress the economic imbalance.

This was, in fact, the view of Thomas Paine, expressed in his final revolutionary pamphlet, Agrarian Justice (1797), and shared by a number of great American thinkers, such as Henry George (the author of the most read book in America after the bible, Progress and Poverty, 1879). And it was for this reason that Paine proposed an inheritance tax to redress the imbalance once every generation and to fund a universal social security program, and that George proposed a single tax on land (the expropriated commons).

President Thomas Jefferson abolished the Federal income tax during his first term in office. He stated, in his Second Inaugural Address on March 4, 1805: "The remaining revenue on the consumption of foreign articles is paid chiefly by those who can afford to add foreign luxuries to domestic comforts, being collected on our seaboard and frontiers only, and incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask, What farmer, what mechanic, what laborer ever sees a taxgatherer of the United States?"

Senator Norris Brown (R-Nebraska), was the author of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution. Senator Brown’s intent can be determined from congressional debates and from an article he wrote: "If the income arises from an investment in lands, it should be taxed; if it arises from investments in manufacturing enterprises, in railroads, in banks, in newspapers, in the mercantile business, or in steamship lines, it should be taxed..."

Alabama became the first state to ratify the 16th Amendment. The only question asked during the debate in the House was by Rep. Glover who wanted to know if the Income Tax Amendment would affect salaries. "Col. Sam Will John responded that it would not," reported The New York Times. The Alabama Legislature, along with everyone else in America at that time, understood that the "income" to be taxed was passive income from investment and business profit.

The Supreme Court reiterated this understanding in Eisner v. Macomber (1919) that "Income may be defined as the gain derived from capital, from labor, or from both combined."

Riversong (talk) 20:59, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Missing major history
Odd that this page jumps from Vietnam War tax protest to the 21st century, and completely ignores the most significant war-tax resistance event of the late 20th century: the 1989 seizure and auction sale of the community land trust home (and, illegally, the leased land) of Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner, which resulted in a brilliantly-organized 18-month long occupation and participation by hundreds, if not thousands, of pacifists and other supporters from around the country, including many of the prominent peace activists of the 1960s. The protest also led to the Gandhian "constructive program" called Building Our Swords Into Plowshares, which used community volunteers to build a superinsulated low-cost duplex that was turned over to Habitat for Humanity.

Riversong (talk) 21:18, 11 September 2018 (UTC)