Disclaimer

If you find the following offensive or troubling don’t complain to me. I was not even born when this took place, nor were our current Congressional members in office. Address your concerns to them, they have access to the Congressional Record, House Reports, Senate Reports, Conference Reports and IRS statistical information contained here in. The only issue I am addressing is the need for a upward change in the exclusion from income relative to “personal, living and family” expenses.  These expenses are specifically excluded from the computation of “income”.  WHY?  Another unfortunate problem to consider is that in the English language words can have several different meanings.  Those meanings must be realized within the context of the subject being discussed and not assumed to mean anything else. This graph is taken from IRS.gov**

Mr. President and members of Congress

I make a request that you consider a noble change to the Internal Revenue Tax Code imposed upon “income.” That the personal exemption, now called the standard deduction, be increased to the point that it actually offsets the personal, living, and family expenses of the majority of American citizens, rich and poor, as it did in 1913 when the Amendment was ratified.

Under the income tax statues implemented prior to 1913, as well as those issued after, the deduction of “personal, living, and family expenses” have been specifically excluded from the computation of income. In place of those expenses the Statute provided an exclusion from income (personal exemption) of a set amount, well above the “wages” (all renumeration) of common labor. Why? Was it simply because Congress chose not to allow such expenses? Or, is there a Constitutional mandate, in relation to how “taxes” may be imposed?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

“We the people of the Unites States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish the Constitution for the United States of America.”

Article 1, section 2, clause 3 states: “Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers” …..

Article 1, section 8, clause 1 reads: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”

Article 1, section 9, clause 4 provides “No capitation, or other direct Tax shall be laid unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken”. And

The 16th Amendment, which provided; “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

Congress, in 1909, did not ask for a change in the existing wording of Article 1 section 2 or Article 1 section 9 of the Constitution, nor did they create a new type of Tax that was neither “direct” nor “uniform. They asked the States for permission to levy a Tax upon “income, from whatever source derived”. What ever that “income” was, the Amendment did not allow a Tax to be placed upon the source. In order to make that distinction clear in 1913, the exclusion (personal exemption) from “income” was set at a point well above the cost of “personal, living and family” expenses of the “taxpayer”.

What I am asking for is that Congress return to the people the Right to live and prosper, before being taxed on the money we must earn to pay that Tax.

Tax Given