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Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments are assertions that the imposition of the U.S. federal income tax is illegal because the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reads "''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,''" was never properly ratified,〔Christopher S. Jackson, ''The Inane Gospel of Tax Protest: Resist Rendering Unto Caesar - Whatever His Demands'', 32 Gonzaga Law Review 291, at 301-303 (1996-97) (hereinafter "Jackson, ''Gospel of Tax Protest''").〕 or that the amendment provides no power to tax income. Proper ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment is disputed by tax protesters who argue that the quoted text of the Amendment differed from the text proposed by Congress, or that Ohio was not a State during ratification.〔Jackson, ''Gospel of Tax Protest'', at 305.〕 Sixteenth Amendment ratification arguments have been rejected in every court case where they have been raised and have been identified as legally frivolous. Some protesters have argued that because the Sixteenth Amendment does not contain the words "repeal" or "repealed", the Amendment is ineffective to change the law. Others argue that due to language in ''Stanton v. Baltic Mining Co.'', the income tax is an unconstitutional direct tax that should be apportioned (divided equally amongst the population of the various states). Several tax protesters assert that the Congress has no constitutional power to tax labor or income from labor,〔Jackson, ''Gospel of Tax Protest'', at 314.〕 citing a variety of court cases. These arguments include claims that the word "income" as used in the Sixteenth Amendment cannot be interpreted as applying to wages; that wages are not income because labor is exchanged for them; that taxing wages violates individuals' right to property,〔Jackson, ''Gospel of Tax Protest'', at 307.〕 and several others. Another argument raised is that because the federal income tax is progressive, the discriminations and inequalities created by the tax should render the tax unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law. Such arguments have been ruled without merit under contemporary jurisprudence. == Sixteenth Amendment ratification == Many tax protesters contend that the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was never properly ratified (see, e.g., Devvy Kidd).〔From "(Tax Cuts, Fair Tax Schemes Keep People Herded in the Wrong Direction )", by Devvy Kidd: "The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution were clearly never ratified by the required number of states; fraud was committed when they were announced ratified." May 14, 2007.〕〔Christopher S. Jackson, "The Inane Gospel of Tax Protest: Resist Rendering Unto Caesar - Whatever His Demands", 32 ''Gonzaga Law Review'' 291-329 (1996-97).〕 The "non-ratification" argument was presented by defendant James Walter Scott in the 1975 case of ''United States v. Scott'', some sixty-two years after the ratification. In ''Scott'', the defendant -- who called himself a "national tax resistance leader" -- had been convicted of willful failure to file federal income tax returns for the years 1969 through 1972, and the conviction was upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.〔''United States v. Scott'', 521 F.2d 1188 (9th Cir. 1975).〕 In the 1977 case of ''Ex parte Tammen'', the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas noted testimony in the case to the effect that taxpayer Bob Tammen had become involved with a group called "United Tax Action Patriots," a group that took the position "that the Sixteenth Amendment was improperly passed and therefore invalid...." The specific issue of the validity of the ratification of the Amendment was neither presented to nor decided by the court in the ''Tammen'' case.〔See ''Ex parte Tammen'', 438 F. Supp. 349, 78-1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 9302 (N.D. Tex. 1977).〕 After the ''Scott'' and ''Tammen'' decisions, two lines of court cases eventually developed. The first group of cases deals with the claims of William J. Benson, co-author of the book ''The Law That Never Was'' (1985). The second line of cases involves the contention that Ohio was not a state in 1913 at the time of the ratification. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tax protester Sixteenth Amendment arguments」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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