by Diane Rufino
The 16th Amendment 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.”
The Sixteenth Amendment, which gave the American people the affliction of confiscatory income taxes, is 100 years old this year. It was ratified on February 3, 1913.
One hundred years of affliction is a long time. The time has come for tax reform…. No, the time has come for a tax revolution.
The IRS, which is in charge of collecting the income tax revenue, is 138 years old. It was created by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862. It has gone from being an agency that terrorizes citizens over their tax returns to an agency that terrorizes citizens based on their speech and political viewpoint. Wouldn’t it be nice if the American people, being in charge of their government, could walk into the massive IRS building in DC and deliver the line that has made Donald Trump famous: “You’re Fired!”
The Sixteenth Amendment was proposed in 1909 and adopted in 1913. The proposal of a constitutional amendment to give Congress the power to impose an income tax began as a scheme of political maneuvering that went horribly awry. In fact, the proponents, House and Senate Republicans who were in a battle for a new tariff bill, proposed the amendment as a political trick and expected the proposal to be killed by the States during the ratification phase, thereby making a popular and political statement that the American people in general do not want an income tax. But the plan backfired. A brief overview of the history of the income tax, including the Sixteenth Amendment in the United States is provided below.
The Founding Fathers had rejected income taxes, as well as any other direct taxes, unless they were apportioned to each state according to population. At the time of our founding, wealth was measured in terms of property rather than income. Property was the goal of freedom. One exercised his inalienable rights to “pursue” happiness and obtain property. Our founders didn’t talk much in terms of “income.” They rejected the income tax entirely, but when they spoke of taxes they recognized the need for uniformity and equal protection to all citizens. “All duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.” “Direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States.” “No direct tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to a census.” This is what the US Constitution reads. Then, the 14th Amendment promised “equal protection of the laws” to all citizens. The principle behind the progressive income tax – the more you earn, the larger the percentage of tax you must pay – would have been appalling to the founders. They recognized that, in James Madison’s words, “the spirit of party and faction” would prevail if Congress could tax one group of citizens and confer the benefits on another group.
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Broke nations are bailing out other broke nations with borrowed money. Round and round we go – where we stop nobody knows. As of April, 
