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All true. but nothing to do with whether or not it was Constitutional (outside the 16th ammendment).That's not how I recall things. To the Founders, the very idea of taxing individuals (as opposed to objects, as with a sales tax) was highly offensive. They were regarded as options of last resort, only to be imposed in war or other emergency.
The first proposol for an income tax was during the War of 1812, though it was not adopted. But in neither case was it suggested that the income tax was unconstitutional or could only legally applied in time of war.The first federal income tax was imposed during the Civil War. it was soon repealed.
Sort of. The argument, regarding direct vs indirect, was that since the Constitution removed the State's power to tax imports or exports, that the State's had to retain some rights and protection for their state taxes.In the 1890s Congress assessed a peacetime income tax for the first time. The Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1895. Referring to prohibiting direct taxation in Article I, the court argued that the income tax would excessively enhance federal power in relation to state power.
But the Court in Pollock did not declare income taxes unconstitutional, only that taxing the income from real estate or personal property was a direct tax and would require apportioning among the states. But they upheld income taxes on other sources, but decided that the law as a whole, was so entangled, the parts couldn't be separated and the whole bill was therefore invalid.
bolding mine.Pollock v Farmer's Loan and Trust 158 U.S. 601 (1895)
We have considered the act only in respect of the tax on income derived from real estate, and from invested personal property, and have not commented on so much of it as bears on gains or profits from business, privileges, or employments, in view of the instances in which taxation on business, privileges, or employments has assumed the guise of an excise tax and been sustained as such.
Being of opinion that so much of the sections of this law as lays a tax on income from real and personal property is invalid, we are brought to the question of the effect of that conclusion upon these sections as a whole.
It is elementary that the same statute may be in part constitutional and in part unconstitutional, and, if the parts are wholly independent of each other, that which is constitutional may stand, while that which is unconstitutional will be rejected. And in the case before us there is no question as to the validity of this act, except sections 27 to 37, inclusive, which relate to the subject which has been under discussion...
To reiterate the bolded part....there was no question as to the validity of the act except for the parts relating to tax on income from real estate and personal property.