Has Anybody Ever Found the Law that Actually REQUIRES Americans to PAY INCOME-TAXES?

Question

I will pay you through pay-pal $100 if you can find the law that reqiures one to pay the Federal Income tax. I SWEAR.

FIND IT!

In the Supreme Court case of Bowers, Collector v. Kerbaugh-Empire Co.,[10], Mr. Justice Butler stated:

It was not the purpose or the effect of that amendment to bring any new subject within the taxing power. Congress already had the power to tax all incomes. But taxes on incomes from some sources had been held to be "direct taxes" within the meaning of the constitutional requirement as to apportionment. [cites omitted] The Amendment relieved from that requirement and obliterated the distinction in that respect between taxes on income that are direct taxes and those that are not, and so put on the same basis all incomes "from whatever source derived". [cites omitted] "Income" has been taken to mean the same thing as used in the Corporation Excise Tax of 1909 (36 Stat. 112), in the Sixteenth Amendment, and in the various revenue acts subsequently passed. [cites omitted] After full consideration, this court declared that income may be defined as gain derived from capital, from labor, o

Answer 1

This doesn't answer your question, I know; however, aren't there plenty of laws on the books to punish you if you DO NOT pay taxes?

Answer 2

The 16th Amendment - The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Passed July2, 1909, Ratified February 3, 1913.

The article in US Code that requires you to PAY ? I'm not sure...

US Code, Title 26, Subtitle A covers Income Tax

Answer 3

The 16th Amendment, ratified in 1916, explicitly gave the U.S. Government authority to pass laws to collect income tax. Implicit in the government's authority to levy taxes is the requirement that those taxes be paid. It probably isn't explicitly stated anywhere that "citizens must pay taxes that are levied" because it's generally assumed that when governments pass laws that citizens must adhere to them. That is, it is not required for a law to say "you have to follow this" in order for people to have to follow it.

If you truly need proof, I'd look to the laws regarding penalties for failure to pay taxes.

Answer 4

Congress can lay and levy Taxes, its in the Constitution- if you want the exact wording, study a Tax evasion case, one is currently going on involving that black actor, cannot recall his name. He has not filed since 1999.

Answer 5

The IRS was formed as a "Temporary Company" in order to create revenue to help fund the United States involvment in WW1. After WW1 was over the IRS was suppose to close down, however.......

Answer 6

I have heard what you are speaking of. I also heard that once you pay taxes you must keep paying them. I heard that you have to pay state tax but not federal. I heard that federal tax was for a war? I think.

I think I will ask my law professor.

Answer 7

USC sec. 6001, 11, 12, of the Code states the taxes shall be paid and records kept. Sec. 6671, 72, 73, 94, etc. govern the civil and criminal liabilities.

Answer 8

There is a law that will get you if you don't pay. It falls under Tax Evasion.

Answer 9

This has been tried before. I'm not willing to go to jail to dispute the issue.

Answer 10

[edit] Passage of the Sixteenth Amendment
In response, Congress proposed the Sixteenth Amendment (ratified by the requisite number of states in 1913), which states:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
As the Supreme Court held in Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad, 240 U.S. 1 (1916), the amendment did not expand the federal government's existing taxing power but rather removed any requirement for apportionment of income taxes (meaning tax on profit or gain from any source) among the states on the basis of population (i.e., regardless of whether the tax was deemed direct or indirect).


[edit] Modern interpretation of the power to tax incomes
The modern interpretation of the Sixteenth Amendment taxation power can be found in Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co. 348 U.S. 426 (1955). In that case, a taxpayer had received an award of punitive damages from a competitor, and sought to avoid paying taxes on that award. The Court observed that Congress, in imposing the income tax, had defined income to include:

"gains, profits, and income derived from salaries, wages, or compensation for personal service . . . of whatever kind and in whatever form paid, or from professions, vocations, trades, businesses, commerce, or sales, or dealings in property, whether real or personal, growing out of the ownership or use of or interest in such property; also from interest, rent, dividends, securities, or the transaction of any business carried on for gain or profit, or gains or profits and income derived from any source whatever."
348 U.S. at 429. The Court held that "this language was used by Congress to exert in this field the full measure of its taxing power", id., and that "the Court has given a liberal construction to this broad phraseology in recognition of the intention of Congress to tax all gains except those specifically exempted." Id. at 430.

The Court then enunciated what is now understood by Congress and the Courts to be the definition of taxable income, "instances of undeniable accessions to wealth, clearly realized, and over which the taxpayers have complete dominion." Id. at 431. The defendant in that case suggested that a 1954 rewording of the tax code had limited the income that could be taxed, a position which the Court resoundingly rejected, stating:

The definition of gross income has been simplified, but no effect upon its present broad scope was intended. Certainly punitive damages cannot reasonably be classified as gifts, nor do they come under any other exemption provision in the Code. We would do violence to the plain meaning of the statute and restrict a clear legislative attempt to bring the taxing power to bear upon all receipts constitutionally taxable were we to say that the payments in question here are not gross income."
Id. at 432-33. Tax statutes passed after the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913 are sometimes referred to as the "modern" tax statutes. Hundreds of Congressional acts have been passed since 1913, as well as several codifications (i.e., topical reorganizations) of the statutes (see Codification).

Central Illinois Public Service Co. v. United States, 435 U.S. 21 (1978), confirmed that wages and income are not identical as far as taxes on income are concerned, because income not only includes wages, but any other gains as well. The Court in that case noted that in enacting taxation legislation, Congress "chose not to return to the inclusive language of the Tariff Act of 1913, but, specifically, 'in the interest of simplicity and ease of administration,' confined the obligation to withhold [income taxes] to 'salaries, wages, and other forms of compensation for personal services'" and that "committee reports ... stated consistently that 'wages' meant remuneration 'if paid for services performed by an employee for his employer'". Id. at 27.

Other courts have noted this distinction in upholding the taxation not only of wages, but also of personal gain derived from other sources - but there are limitations to the reach of income taxation. For example, in Conner v. United States, 303 F. Supp. 1187 (S.D. Tex. 1969), aff’d in part and rev’d in part, 439 F.2d 974 (5th Cir. 1971), a couple had lost their home to a fire, and had received compensation for their loss from the insurance company, partly in the form of hotel costs reimbursed. The court acknowledged the authority of the IRS to assess taxes on all forms of payment, but did not permit taxation on the compensation provided by the insurance company, because unlike a wage or a sale of goods at a profit, this was not a gain. As the Court noted, "Congress has taxed income, not compensation".