Tax Scheming

[redcliffsw]

Here's one by a Constitutionist named Devvy Kidd. 
She makes some excellent points:

http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd270.htm

[larryJ]

Interesting site.  There are some things however that are not true.  It is stated that neither the sixteenth or seventeenth amendments were ratified if I read it right.  Both amendments were ratified by the required number of states, in this case, 36, which is three-fourths of the then existing forty-eight.  Other than that, I found it interesting to read.  Thanks for posting it.

Larryj

[Diane Amberg]

It's  interesting that one of the books advertised was on the vaccine fears. In my paper today there was an article about that very thing .I don't have time right now to talk about it other than to show you this...."The Lancet study suggesting a possible link between autism and a vaccine had severe ethical flaws and scientific flaws- and 10 of the 13 authors have since retracted their conclusions." I'll follow up later.

[redcliffsw]

Larryj, f you read it again, I think you'll see that she means the amendments were not really ratified.

[larryJ]

I did go back and read it again and she states those two amendments were never ratifiied.  So I went and looked again at the amendments and copied this:

16th Amendment
In 1895, in the Supreme Court case of Pollock v Farmer's Loan and Trust (157 U.S. 429), the Court disallowed a federal tax on income from real property. The tax was designed to be an indirect tax, which would mean that states need not contribute portions of a whole relative to its census figures. The Court, however, ruled that the tax was a direct tax and subject to apportionment. This was the last in a series of conflicting court decisions dating back to the Civil War. Between 1895 and 1909, when the amendment was passed by Congress, the Court began to back down on its position, as it became clear not only to accountants but to everyone that the solvency of the nation was in jeopardy. In a series of cases, the definition of "direct tax" was modified, bent, twisted, and coaxed to allow more taxation efforts that approached an income tax.

Finally, with the ratification of the 16th Amendment, any doubt was removed. The text of the Amendment makes it clear that though the categories of direct and indirect taxation still exist, any determination that income tax is a direct tax will be irrelevant, because taxes on incomes, from salary or from real estate, are explicitly to be treated as indirect. The Congress passed the Amendment on July 12, 1909, and it was ratified on February 3, 1913 (1,302 days).


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17th Amendment
One of the most common critiques of the Framers is that the government that they created was, in many ways, undemocratic. There is little doubt of this, and it is so by design. The Electoral College, by which we choose our President, is one example. The appointment of judges is another. And the selection of Senators not by the people but by the state legislatures, is yet another. The Senatorial selection system eventually became fraught with problems, with consecutive state legislatures sending different Senators to Congress, forcing the Senate to work out who was the qualified candidate, or with the selection system being corrupted by bribery and corruption. In several states, the selection of Senators was left up to the people in referenda, where the legislature approved the people's choice and sent him or her to the Senate. Articles written by early 20th-century muckrakers also provided grist for the popular-election mill.

The 17th Amendment did away with all the ambiguity with a simple premise — the Senators would be chosen by the people, just as Representatives are. Of course, since the candidates now had to cater to hundreds of thousands, or millions, of people instead of just a few hundred, other issues, such as campaign finances, were introduced. The 17th is not a panacea, but it brings government closer to the people. The Amendment was passed by Congress on May 13, 1912, and was ratified on April 8, 1913 (330 days).

In looking at other websites concerning this subject there a lot of debate concerning the ratification most notably by a gentleman by the name of Benson who sued claiming that the amendments were unconstitutional.  The court found him wrong and he was later imprisioned for failure to pay his taxes. 

It is so much fun to belong to this forum and learn something new every day.  Thank you all so much for your ideas and inputs.

Larryj

[Diane Amberg]

Thanks. I was too lazy to look for it.