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The 16th Amendment and Federal Income Tax Turns 100 — Is it Time for a Change?

Feb. 5, 2013 7:03pm Christopher Santarelli

Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 16th Amendment which established a federal income tax. Since its adoption in 1913, the income tax for the top bracket has skyrocket from seven to 39.6 percent, along with a jump in the total pages of tax code from 400 to 73, 954.

Jay Starkman writes in the Wall Street Journal that the income tax was actually first implemented to raise money during the Civil War, but repealed in 1872 because the revenues were no longer needed. The concept was however resurrected in 1894 by populist frequent presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, bounced around couts and Congress for another 19 years before 36 individual states had adopted the tax leading to an amendment pushed by newly elected President Woodrow Wilson in 1913.

On ‘Real News‘ Tuesday Will Cain ran down the debate history on income taxes, and joined a discussion with the panel on what options are there for income tax reform, and whether or not we can live without it.

In CONTROL, Glenn Beck presents a passionate, fact-based case for guns that reveals why gun control isn’t really about controlling guns at all; it’s about controlling us. Find out more HERE.

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Comments (14)

BARACKOBAMAisaRUSSIANROBOTOIDclone
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 7:22pm
http://www.freedomtruthfighters.com/2013/02/barack-obama-is-russiain-robotoid1.html#.URrLDKXTYQo

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Bikkiboo
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 2:39pm
The Fair Tax would solve lot of our problems. First, it’s 100% fair – EVERYONE pays it. It’s somewhat progressive because the more you buy, the more you pay. It would stop most of the lobbying and influence peddling by special interests because there would be no “tax breaks” or deductions for this & that. Since it is a sales tax, any change or increase would immediately be noticed, and Congress could not get away with any sneak increases. It would save us all money because we wouldn’t have to keep records or pay tax preparers, we could eliminate the IRS and only keep a small office to collect the new sales tax. The Fair Tax rebates the tax on food and drugs. This rebate could be placed in 401K-type investments to cover one’s retirement. Over 40+ years or so, that could mean Social Security could be phased out, saving us even MORE money.
I do not like the combination of a flat tax and a sales tax because Congress will alway find a reason to raise it. With the Fair Tax, it is a % of the GDP, and Congress should be ashamed to try to take more than that. Good times mean the GDP is higher, so the tax revenue is higher – that’s a terrific incentive for Congress to do things that keep the economy going well. Read the book THE FAIR TAX to understand it completely. It makes a lot of sense!

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leonardo44
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 12:46pm
wow, when I watched Real News last night there was a real debate between Cain and Sexton that erupted over the tax code, what’s with showing this boring clip? why isn’t the good stuff shown on the website?

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Proud Southerner
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 12:23pm
Yep. Chief Justice John Roberts said call it a tax and the government can do anything it wants without the will of the people. Brilliant.

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Phlyon
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 11:09am
The income tax as it exists today is the reason that the government believes it has the right to everything the people in the nation have, have had, and will ever have. By consenting to tell the government about all of our business dealings, the government believes they are the source of all peoples’ business dealings. The average worker doesn’t think about a JOB as being a business dealing, because too often they all work on such a long lay. Jobs, contracts, and the procurement of cash flow does not begin or end with the government, it comes through perseverance, and people should protect what exact information is divulged to those able to extoll moneys from them. Most laws on the books, including tax laws, should be found unconstitutional simply on the basis of the 5th amendment and the courts holding that a person shall not be compelled to incriminate themselves. Making it illegal to not inform the government about income, is indeed making illegal not self incriminating, and turning the 5th amendment void. I would argue that ‘feeling’ that taxes are a duty is a bit miss guided. I would argue that ‘feeling’ that taxes should be more like tithing, in that if you believe in something you should financially support it or have it be lost to all the other noise of the world. That the government must compel a donation shows how few truly support the direction these fine leaders have taken throughout history.

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1WhoQuestions
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 10:44am
Too soon to establish a flat tax system? Flat tax of 10% on individual and business gross income. No deductions or exemptions for anyone. 15% flat tax on all investment income. Leave this one as is. Those taxes would go for everything except the debt. 5% sales tax on everything to be used soley for servicing and paying down the national debt. Or is that too easy a solution?

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media-bias-steals-elections
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 9:08am
If you got a think about having an income tax, then don’t have one? Try a sales tax not greater than 17% combined with local and state taxes, eliminate other taxes and you will watch the economy grow faster?

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GroundZero is Nuclear Demolition x3
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 8:02am
Amendments to the Constitution are to re-enforce RESTRICTIONS on the Fed Gov, not grant them more authority. 1913 also saw the creation of the Federal Reserve, this was to prevent the PEOPLE from printing their own money. If we printed our own money, a tax system would not be needed and the international powers couldn’t have that. It would devalue “their” money. The 16th was never ratified by the states, and shouldn’t be legal. But Beck and his cohorts will start shouting “conspiracy theory” over anything the MSM doesn’t approve.

William Cooper exposed how pubic disarmament would take place over twenty years ago: http://youtu.be/OCc_43fJMMo

He also called out Rush L and Alex J as propaganda for the elite.

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johnpaulkuchtajr
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 5:45am
It would be sooooo easy to turn that federal tax process completely around with the FAIR TAX.

Broaden the tax base by catching the folks currently flying under the radar, illegals, and those flying over the radar, the trust fund babies. Naturally, the political class hates this idea because it deprives them of the ability to bend the tax code in favor of campaign contributors.

It’s pretty simple…………

IF YOU STAY IN AMERICA, PAY FOR AMERICA!

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The Third Archon
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 1:42am
What we SHOULD do is abolish this whole “brackets” nonsense, and move to a scaling marginal tax, by which I mean if you are familiar with integral calculus imagine two functions on a Cartesian coordinate plane, where one represents income and the other below represents taxes owed at that income, with the taxes function asymptotically approaching the income function. At any point along the income function, one could determine the taxes one owes (prior to deductions) simply by looking at the corresponding y-value of the tax function for the same x (income) value. The closing space between the two functions would representing a marginal scaling tax, and derivatives (in the calculus sense) could be calculated and adjusted to scale the rate of change of the close of this distance as desired. The end result, and primary difference from our current tax set up, would be that each and every person’s tax rate would be individualized down to the dollar and cent amount they made in income along this relatively simple two curves; each marginal scaling in income would have an accompanying marginal scale in taxes plotted in the function. Thus people on the edges of the tax bracket would not get screwed by making enough” to put over into a higher bracket, an effect caused by rates increasing in starts and stops instead of a smooth scaling rate. Of course, because this is increasingly less attractive the richer you are, this is never discussed as a possibility.

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The Third Archon
Posted on February 6, 2013 at 1:22am
“Since its adoption in 1913, the income tax for the top bracket has skyrocket [sic] from seven to 39.6 percent”
(1) Skyrocketed not ‘skyrocket’
(2) Actually, the federal income tax rate for the top bracket hit an all time high of 94% during 1944 and 1945, was lowered in 1964 (during LBJ’s presidency) to about 50%, and was gutted by Reagan to 28% by the time he left office (that didn’t last long), although there were also highly regressive tweaks to who was included in that bracket as it was lowered to expand more people to be included in the top tax rate bracket. Therefore, as you can see, it is at the least disingenuous to imply that we’ve “skyrocketed” linearly to an “exorbitant” rate of 39.6% since the inception of the federal income tax.

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- Thomas
  Posted on February 6, 2013 at 1:49am
  Get rid of the Federal income tax and then we can go back to voting with our feet. Let the liberal states go starve and then they will change. These liberals run states don’t feel the pain of their decisions because the Federal government bails them out with the good states that know what really works. Federal income tax was a communist idea to destroy the free market. Let the liberal run states burn and throw fits until these juveniles grow up and take responsibilities for the actions and for the people they are voting in.
  
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sURFNmADNESS
Posted on February 5, 2013 at 10:33pm
Why do we need it? The government has operated with no budget now for 5 years and never had stayed under what they take in. They simply print more cash. So why does anyone need to pay, lets all get our free stuff.

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BigDaddyTex
Posted on February 5, 2013 at 10:21pm
YAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!! IRS!!! IRS!!! IRS!!!!

pffffffffft………… :-P

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