Why do we have to pay income tax?

Question

It was never in the US constitution.

Answer 1

Income tax was brought into life in the first place to raise contributions to cover the expenses of the necessities of running and supplying the wherewithall to run the country to put it briefly, I think.

Answer 2

Income taxes were levied by an amendment to the Constitution.

Answer 3

This is a very largely debated subject.  Though the Income Tax was created with the 16th amendment, the US Supreme Court soon afterwards stated that the 16th amendment granted no new taxing abilities to the federal government.  There is a very good documentary on this subject by Aaron Russo called "America:  Freedom to Fascism".

Answer 4

What happens if you don`t fill petrol in your car? It stops, & so would society.

Answer 5

To pay for public works to benefit all the people, as well as the business of government itself.

Answer 6

You are wrong.

Article 1 Section 8 Clause 1 states, "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes,..."

That INCLUDES income taxes.  The first income tax in this country was levied long before the 16th amendment.  In fact, it was levied in 1861 and continued until 1872 when Congress allowed it to lapse.  In 1880, the Supreme Court, in Springer v. U.S. 102 U.S. 586 (1880), upheld the constitutionality of the income tax of 1865.

In the 1890s, Congress passed another income tax.  This time, the Supreme Court, in Pollock vs. Farmer's Loan, 157 U.S. 429 (1894) and 158 U.S. 601 (1895), declared that a tax on income received from person property (i.e. rental income, dividends, etc.) was the same as a tax on the property itself.  Since a tax on property is a direct tax and the tax levied was unapportioned, they declared it unconstitutional.  However, the court did say that a tax on wages was indirect and would have been constitutional, but the law had severability issues, so the court had to declare the entire law unconstitutional.  The 16th amendment was created to remove any apportionment requirement from any income tax regardless of the source.  So, the 16th amendment did not grant new power but simply clarified that the power of Congress to tax incomes that it had from the beginning was an indirect tax and was not subject to apportionment.

BTW, you can ignore America: Freedom to Fascism.  There are so many inaccuracies in that movie, that if I listed just the ones found in the first five minutes of the film, I would fill up the space allowed by Yahoo for a single answer.