WI: The 16th Amendment creates an uprising

In 1913, a 16th Amendment was ratified which enabled the income tax. Considering the fact American Revolution happened because of taxation, how can you make it so this event creates an alternative scenario where you pretty much have another outrage by the American people? Which sides would people take? What would be the result if a huge uncontrollable revolt happened? How would it impact the rest of the 20th century?
 
It's a nonstarter because income taxation was a popular proposal because it shifted tax burdens away from workers and small holders, who were disproportionately affected by poll taxes, tariffs, and excises. The Sixteenth was swiftly ratified because of this, and it largely existed only to protect existing income tax policy from constitutional challenge, which was moot because SCOTUS ruled they were not direct taxes
 
Also, the American revolution didn't happen just because of taxes. There was many reasons including that there was no representation in parliament, there was blocking in expanding West, and how heavy handed the brits were in Boston.
 
In 1913, a 16th Amendment was ratified which enabled the income tax. Considering the fact American Revolution happened because of taxation, how can you make it so this event creates an alternative scenario where you pretty much have another outrage by the American people? Which sides would people take? What would be the result if a huge uncontrollable revolt happened? How would it impact the rest of the 20th century?

The income tax was popular at the time, especially in the South and West. It was considered a fairer means of raising revenue than the tariff, which hit lower-and middle-class consumers. It was assumed that only the well-to-do would pay the income tax--which indeed was at first true. There was a $4,000 exemption for couples and a $3,000 for individuals--and that was a lot of money in 1913! "Using a back-of-the-envelope estimate, then, a couple with $4,000 income in 1913 probably would have ranked in the best-compensated 4 to 6 percent of Americans." https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-...ch-says-only-millionaires-paid-first-us-inco/

The people who objected to the income tax were mostly conservative Northeasterners like Senator Elihu Root who complained that New York as a wealthy state would pay an undue share of the burden. Somehow I don't see a Wall Street lawyer like Root leading an outraged mob at the barricades...
 
The income tax was popular at the time, especially in the South and West. It was considered a fairer means of raising revenue than the tariff, which hit lower-and middle-class consumers. It was assumed that only the well-to-do would pay the income tax--which indeed was at first true. There was a $4,000 exemption for couples and a $3,000 for individuals--and that was a lot of money in 1913! "Using a back-of-the-envelope estimate, then, a couple with $4,000 income in 1913 probably would have ranked in the best-compensated 4 to 6 percent of Americans." https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-...ch-says-only-millionaires-paid-first-us-inco/

The people who objected to the income tax were mostly conservative Northeasterners like Senator Elihu Root who complained that New York as a wealthy state would pay an undue share of the burden. Somehow I don't see a Wall Street lawyer like Root leading an outraged mob at the barricades...

Indeed, to the extent there was popular revulsion, it was directed not against the income tax but against the Supreme Court's decision striking it down:

"The Sixteenth Amendment was a direct response to the Supreme Court's decision in Pollock v. Farmers Loan & Trust.147 Pollock struck down a federal income tax on the ground that it was a "direct" tax, which under Article I, Section 2 must be apportioned among the states. 148 But Pollock was a surprising decision that did not reflect the way the law was understood at the time and did not much change the direction in which the law subsequently evolved. 149 Before Pollock, the Supreme Court had repeatedly rejected claims that the category of "direct taxes" - a particularly ill-defined notion 150 - included inheritance taxes, taxes on notes issued by state banks, or taxes on insurance premiums. 151 In 1881, just fourteen years before Pollock, the Supreme Court upheld an income tax that was imposed during the Civil War but not repealed until 1872.152

"As a result, when the movement for a federal income tax gathered speed in the late nineteenth century, the constitutionality of the tax was not seen as an important question. 153 Pollock was widely and immediately condemned; one commentator, writing at the time, compared the hostility to Pollock to the reaction to the Dred Scott decision. 154 President and Chief Justice-to-be William Howard Taft said: "Nothing has ever injured the prestige of the Supreme Court more..."155 After Pollock was decided, there was considerable sentiment in Congress for simply enacting an income tax statute - not so much as an act of defiance but because many were convinced that the Court would not adhere to Pollock.156 The Court did little to dispel this conviction. A few years after Pollock, the Court upheld an inheritance tax, reasoning that it was an excise tax and therefore indirect. 157 In accepting the Republican nomination for President in 1908, Taft endorsed an income tax and suggested that a constitutional amendment would be unnecessary, both because the Court's decisions might be interpreted to allow some kind of income tax and because the Court's membership had changed.158

"After Taft became President he changed his view about the need for an amendment, and in i909 - as part of a package of complex political maneuvers by both supporters and opponents of the income tax - Congress (with the Senate voting unanimously) proposed the Sixteenth Amendment to the states.' 159 At nearly the same time, Congress enacted a tax on corporations that was measured by their income; while the proposed amendment was before the state legislatures, the Court upheld the corporate income tax, again narrowing Pollock by reasoning that the tax was not an income tax but an excise tax on the privilege of doing business in corporate form. 160 After the Sixteenth Amendment was adopted, the Court, in upholding the new income tax, characterized the amendment as restoring power that Congress had assumed to exist before Pollock was decided. 161

"In this instance, too, the primary mechanism of change was not the amendment process but the long-term development of popular opinion. The Supreme Court essentially accepted the income tax both before and after the Sixteenth Amendment. Pollock was a momentary aberration, as the Court itself all but admitted. It is true that the amendment dispatched Pollock cleanly and decisively; without an amendment, Pollock would have continued to cast a cloud over the income tax. But Pollock had all the earmarks of a precedent that was destined to be overruled: it was inconsistent with earlier cases, subsequent cases immediately construed it narrowly, and it faced strong popular opposition. The Sixteenth Amendment put an end to the sideshow that Pollock began, but a sideshow was all it was."

https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2986&context=journal_articles
 
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Also, the American revolution didn't happen just because of taxes. There was many reasons including that there was no representation in parliament, there was blocking in expanding West, and how heavy handed the brits were in Boston.
Yeah but taxes I think we're the biggest part remember the Whiskey Rebellion after Washington became president? I don't recall very many other than the Civil War where representation was a major Rebellion
 
Indeed, to the extent there was popular revulsion, it was directed not against the income tax but against the Supreme Court's decision striking it down:

"The Sixteenth Amendment was a direct response to the Supreme Court's decision in Pollock v. Farmers Loan & Trust.147 Pollock struck down a federal income tax on the ground that it was a "direct" tax, which under Article I, Section 2 must be apportioned among the states. 148 But Pollock was a surprising decision that did not reflect the way the law was understood at the time and did not much change the direction in which the law subsequently evolved. 149 Before Pollock, the Supreme Court had repeatedly rejected claims that the category of "direct taxes" - a particularly ill-defined notion 150 - included inheritance taxes, taxes on notes issued by state banks, or taxes on insurance premiums. 151 In 1881, just fourteen years before Pollock, the Supreme Court upheld an income tax that was imposed during the Civil War but not repealed until 1872.152

"As a result, when the movement for a federal income tax gathered speed in the late nineteenth century, the constitutionality of the tax was not seen as an important question. 153 Pollock was widely and immediately condemned; one commentator, writing at the time, compared the hostility to Pollock to the reaction to the Dred Scott decision. 154 President and Chief Justice-to-be William Howard Taft said: "Nothing has ever injured the prestige of the Supreme Court more..."155 After Pollock was decided, there was considerable sentiment in Congress for simply enacting an income tax statute - not so much as an act of defiance but because many were convinced that the Court would not adhere to Pollock.156 The Court did little to dispel this conviction. A few years after Pollock, the Court upheld an inheritance tax, reasoning that it was an excise tax and therefore indirect. 157 In accepting the Republican nomination for President in 1908, Taft endorsed an income tax and suggested that a constitutional amendment would be unnecessary, both because the Court's decisions might be interpreted to allow some kind of income tax and because the Court's membership had changed.158

"After Taft became President he changed his view about the need for an amendment, and in i909 - as part of a package of complex political maneuvers by both supporters and opponents of the income tax - Congress (with the Senate voting unanimously) proposed the Sixteenth Amendment to the states.' 159 At nearly the same time, Congress enacted a tax on corporations that was measured by their income; while the proposed amendment was before the state legislatures, the Court upheld the corporate income tax, again narrowing Pollock by reasoning that the tax was not an income tax but an excise tax on the privilege of doing business in corporate form. 160 After the Sixteenth Amendment was adopted, the Court, in upholding the new income tax, characterized the amendment as restoring power that Congress had assumed to exist before Pollock was decided. 161

"In this instance, too, the primary mechanism of change was not the amendment process but the long-term development of popular opinion. The Supreme Court essentially accepted the income tax both before and after the Sixteenth Amendment. Pollock was a momentary aberration, as the Court itself all but admitted. It is true that the amendment dispatched Pollock cleanly and decisively; without an amendment, Pollock would have continued to cast a cloud over the income tax. But Pollock had all the earmarks of a precedent that was destined to be overruled: it was inconsistent with earlier cases, subsequent cases immediately construed it narrowly, and it faced strong popular opposition. The Sixteenth Amendment put an end to the sideshow that Pollock began, but a sideshow was all it was."

https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2986&context=journal_articles
True the people were for an income tax but had you told them that it would eventually get up to a 90% rate and hold at 25 to 35% rate it would be a Dead Issue forever. Fact the 16th Amendment would probably be to Outlaw that type of tax. Same with Social Security if you told people when I started that your heart and the employer's part would go above 15% I've been some major changes there too. Like the income tax started at 1% is it bad they thought I would think it was a great deal today hell I go for 3 to 4 percent. Some states and cities pulled the same scam and the people fell for it too.
 
True the people were for an income tax but had you told them that it would eventually get up to a 90% rate and hold at 25 to 35% rate it would be a Dead Issue forever. Fact the 16th Amendment would probably be to Outlaw that type of tax. Same with Social Security if you told people when I started that your heart and the employer's part would go above 15% I've been some major changes there too. Like the income tax started at 1% is it bad they thought I would think it was a great deal today hell I go for 3 to 4 percent. Some states and cities pulled the same scam and the people fell for it too.
That's an absurd hypothetical. Statecraft is expensive, and for a modern state to function it has to at bare minimum prove to its inhabitants that it is more than a conspiracy to further enrich the powerful.

Unless you want the US to be a failed state they are going to have to get that money from somewhere, and the income tax is the least destructive way.

Also, no one pays the full rate anyway either
 
True the people were for an income tax but had you told them that it would eventually get up to a 90% rate and hold at 25 to 35% rate it would be a Dead Issue forever.

Actually, the initial 7% top rate was increased drastically--with public approval--within a few years. "The highest income tax rate jumped from 15 percent in 1916 to 67 percent in 1917 to 77 percent in 1918." https://bradfordtaxinstitute.com/Free_Resources/Federal-Income-Tax-Rates.aspx

Was there much protest? For the most part, only from the well-to-do. The 1916 increase was applauded in the South and West -- and by a "radical" minority in states like Prennsylvania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Worth_Bailey -- as a good response to the Northeastern conservatives' cry for "preparedness":

"Nor did the progressives fail to derive satisfaction from the way in which they had seemingly turned the tables on the preparedness-big business element. "What has become of the dollar patriots?" Bailey taunted. "Where are the members of the Preparedness league and the Navy league? In the counting room hollering loud and long because they find that incomes must bear a portion of the burden they had hoped to unload upon the farmer and the steel worker." 49 This was the progressives' economic interpretation of the movement to make America strong enough to defend herself." https://archive.org/stream/woodrowwilsonand007665mbp#page/n239

Well, you may say, that was wartime. But even in the 1920's, Mellon had a lot of trouble getting the top rates reduced, even though Congress was controlled by the Republicans. He finally succeeded in 1925, but only to 25%--a rate much higher than that of 1916. It's pretty clear, therefore, that high rates for the rich were popular throughout the early history of he income tax. (Of course the 90% of the 1950's looks extremely high, but in fact virtually nobody ever actually paid it due to the exemptions in the tax code at the time.)
 
Yeah but taxes I think we're the biggest part remember the Whiskey Rebellion after Washington became president?

No they weren't. It has been said that the colonists would've gladly paid their taxes had they been given representation in Parliament so they could vote on and draft laws that treated then fairly. The slogan at the time wasn't "no taxation," it was, "no taxation without representation." And this wasn't even the final catalyst for the rebellion. That was the Intolerable Acts, which shut down the Port of Boston, took away Massachusetts' self government, allowed British officers to stand trial in Britain for crimes committed in America, and finally they demanded all the colonists to quarter soldiers in their homes.

As for the Whiskey Rebellion, this was quickly put down by Washington with broad popular support.

I don't recall very many other than the Civil War where representation was a major Rebellion

So what? That doesn't change the fact that the American Revolution happened for the reasons that it did.
 
In 1913, a 16th Amendment was ratified which enabled the income tax. Considering the fact American Revolution happened because of taxation-

Without representation
. Why do people always forget the second half of the slogan? Just because it made up the second half doesn't mean it's unimportant to the overall meaning.
 
That's an absurd hypothetical. Statecraft is expensive, and for a modern state to function it has to at bare minimum prove to its inhabitants that it is more than a conspiracy to further enrich the powerful.

Unless you want the US to be a failed state they are going to have to get that money from somewhere, and the income tax is the least destructive way.

Also, no one pays the full rate anyway either
It's not a bad rate even the partial rate is you state that most people pay but it's a lot difference if you're making $100,000 or $20,000 and you're single. If they ain't started out the tax even at the day's 25% rate it never would have passed and I did not hear any thing in your reply that states that if the poorest people were charge the 25% rate they would have been happy
 
Without representation. Why do people always forget the second half of the slogan? Just because it made up the second half doesn't mean it's unimportant to the overall meaning.

Maybe because right wingers manipulate history to support a certain agenda. Making the ARW look like a war against taxation justifies conservative policies and implies that liberal policies are not only wrong but oppressive and anti-American.
 
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