![]() ![]() A small progressive tax, he predicted, “will be but the stepping stone to others, larger and more sweeping, till our political contests will become a war of the poor against the rich.” At age 77, Field not only repudiated Congress’s actions, he also penned a prophecy. ![]() Stephen Field, a veteran of 30 years on the Court, was outraged that Congress would pass a bill to tax a small voting bloc and exempt the larger group of voters. When Congress passed another income tax in 1894-one that only hit the top 2 percent of wealth holders-the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. As Representative Justin Morrill of Vermont observed, “in this country we neither create nor tolerate any distinction of rank, race, or color, and should not tolerate anything else than entire equality in our taxes.” Interestingly, the tax had a maximum rate of 10 percent, and it was repealed in 1872. One exception was during the Civil War, when a progressive income tax was first enacted. 10, Madison asked, “hat are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine?” He went on to say, “The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice.”ĭuring the 1800s economic thinking in the United States usually conformed to the founders’ guiding principles of uniformity and equal protection. They recognized that, in James Madison’s words, “the spirit of party and faction” would prevail if Congress could tax one group of citizens and confer the benefits on another group. In other words, the principle behind the progressive income tax-the more you earn, the larger the percentage of tax you must pay-would have been appalling to the founders. And 80 years later, in the same spirit, the Fourteenth Amendment promised “equal protection of the laws” to all citizens. “ll duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States,” reads the U.S. America’s founders rejected the income tax entirely, but when they spoke of taxes they recognized the need for uniformity and equal protection to all citizens. ![]()
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