I have heard the Federal Income Tax should be unconstitutional.?

Question

Should it be unconstitutional?

If so why is it still around?

Answer 1

If it should be unconstitutional, 3/4 of the states will have to pass and amendment repealing the 16th.

It is still around because it is still consititutional.

It sounds like you don't even know what your own question is.

Answer 2

You heard wrong.  Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.

Answer 3

In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It empowered Congress to tax "incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." The Internal Revenue Code is today embodied as Title 26 of the United States Code (26 U.S.C. and is a lineal descendant of the income tax act passed in 1913, following ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment. While some states do not have an income tax (Nevada), all residents and all citizens of the United States are subject to the federal income tax. Not everyone, however, must file a return. The requirements for filing are found in 26 U.S.C. section 6011

All U.S. Citizens are subject to tax on their "Gross income", which can be generally defined as "all income from whatever source derived;" a more complete definition is found in 26U.S.C. section 61.  Also 26 U.S.C. section  6012 defines who must file a tax return.

This link will take you to the Cornell University Law School web site, (don’t panic if they ask for a donation it is not required, the “No Thanks” button will get you to the information

http://www.law.cornell.edu

Play around until you can look these up,

Sixteenth Amendment ,   26 U.S.C. § 6011.,  26 U.S.C. § 61.,  26 U.S.C. section  6012

If you still don’t believe look around until you find the part that says you can go to prison if you don’t do it.

Answer 4

It would have been without the 16th Amendment.  The 16th Amendment removed the Apportionment Clause from the Constitution allowing the unapportioned tax on income that we have today.

People who claim that it is unconstitutional are called Tax Protesters.  They have been around since the beginning of the income tax but they have never won a court case and gotten out of paying their taxes.

Answer 5

You've heard wrong.

Article 1, Section 8 of The Constitution grants Congress the power to lay taxes.  It does not specify what taxes that Congress may lay, only that they have the power to do so.  Therefore the Federal Income Tax is fully Constitutional right from the word, "Go!"

Due to a successful court challenge in the late 1800s, the FIT was declared to be an illegal direct levy subject to apportionment.  That was impossible back then (but would be child's play in the modern computer age) so it was effectively killed off for a while.  However in 1913, the 16th Amendment to The Constitution was ratified which explicitly stated that incomes from ANY source could be taxed without apportionment.  That nullified the ruling from back in the 1800s and Congress almost immediately passed an income tax law.  The Federal Income Tax has been with us ever since, in one form or another.  The current law was originally passed in 1954 and has been amended many times since then.

Any claims that the FIT is unconstitutional have been rejected by the courts so many times now that even attempting to raise that as a defense in court can result in immediate files for raising a specious defense, i.e. one totally without any merit whatsoever under the law that it constitutes a waste of the court's time.  (As you may guess, courts take a dim view of time-wasters.)