Uniformity
“Mr. Justice Miller, in his lectures on the constitution, 1889-1890 (pages 240, 241), said of taxes levied by congress: ‘The tax must be uniform on the particular article; and it is uniform, within the meaning of the constitutional requirement, if it is made to bear the same percentage over all the United States. That is manifestly the meaning of this word, as used in this clause. The framers of the constitution could not have meant to say that the government, in raising its revenues, should not be allowed to discriminate between the articles which it should tax.’ In discussing generally the requirement of uniformity found in state constitutions, he said: ‘The difficulties in the way of this construction have, however, been very largely obviated by the meaning of the word ‘uniform,’ which has been adopted, holding that the uniformity must refer to articles of the same class; that is, different articles may be taxed at different amounts, provided the rate is uniform on the same class everywhere, with all people, and at all times.’”
[Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429, 594-95 (1895)]
“In U. S. v. Singer, 15 Wall. 111, 121, a tax was imposed upon a distiller, in the nature of an excise, and the question arose whether in its imposition upon different distillers the uniformity of the tax was preserved, and the court said: ‘The law is not in our judgment subject to any constitutional objection. The tax imposed upon the distiller is in the nature of an excise, and the only limitation upon the power of congress in the imposition of taxes of this character is that they shall be ‘uniform throughout the United States.’ The tax here is uniform in its operation; that is, it is assessed equally upon all manufacturers of spirits, wherever they are. The law does not establish one rule for one distiller and a different rule for another, but the same rule for all alike.’”
[Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429, 593 (1895)]
“But the law is not invalid merely in its disregard of the rule of apportionment of the direct tax levied. There is another and an equally cogent objection to it. In taxing incomes other than rents and profits of real estate it disregards the rule of uniformity which is prescribed in such cases by the constitution. The eighth section of the first article of the constitution declares that ‘the congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.’ Excises are a species of tax consisting generally of duties laid upon the manufacture, sale, or consumption of commodities within the country, or upon certain callings or occupations, often taking the form of exactions for licenses to pursue them. The taxes created by the law under consideration, as applied to savings banks, insurance companies, whether of fire, life, or marine, to building or other associations, or to the conduct of any other kind of business, are excise taxes, and fall within the requirement, so far as they are laid by congress, that they must be uniform throughout the United States. The uniformity thus required is the uniformity throughout the United States of the duty, impost, and excise levied; that is, the tax levied cannot be one sum upon an article at one place, and a different sum upon the same article at another place. The duty received must be the same at all places throughout the United States, proportioned to the quantity of the article disposed of, or the extent of the business done. If, for instance, one kind of wine or grain or produce has a certain duty laid upon it, proportioned to its quantity, in New York, it must have a like duty, proportioned to its quantity, when imported at Charleston or San Francisco; or if a tax be laid upon a certain kind of business, proportioned to its extent, at one place, it must be a like tax on the same kind of business, proportioned to its extent, at another place. In that sense, the duty must be uniform throughout the United States. It is contended by the government that the constitution only requires an uniformity geographical in its character. That position would be satisfied if the same duty were laid in all the states, however variant it might be in different places of the same state. But it could not be sustained in the latter case without defeating the equality, which is an essential element of the uniformity required, so far as the same is practicable.”
[Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429, 592-93 (1895);
EDITORIAL: Here is Justice Fields saying that the 1894 income tax failed as a direct tax without apportionment, but would also fail even as an INDIRECT tax to conform with the Constitution’s requirement of uniformity. Today, only the 30% tax imposed under IRC 871(a) on certain income of nonresident aliens is uniform. The rest of the income tax imposed in IRC is CONTRACTUAL, thus not bound by any Constitutional rules for taxes. The contract is described by the phrase “effectively connected with the conduct of a trade or business within the United States” thus bringing a person and/or some or all of the person’s income within the Article IV power to “make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States”. Anyone is free to enter into this contract or not. So the Constitution is irrelevant to this tax on “effectively connected” income (which is why the graduated rates are not a problem) EXCEPT with respect to LIMITING the meaning of the CONSTITUTIONAL term “income” (as used in defining the statutory terms “gross income” “adjusted gross income” and “taxable income”). Note that certain taxes on United States persons do not even use the term “income” such as the Mandatory Repatriation Tax (a Subtitle F tax recently upheld by Supreme Court in Moore v. United States as not violating the Constitution). WHY? Because there is a CONTRACT between any United States person and the United States! If Congress wanted to, it could enact a tax on a United States person for every time that person flushes their toilet! Congress has PLENARY power to enact any tax it wants on a United States person, so long as it does so in clear and unequivocal language.]