Law Commons^™

A Tax Or Not A Tax: That Is The Question, Erik M. Jensen

Faculty Publications

This piece is part of the author’s probably misguided effort to take seriously the Sixteenth Amendment phrase “taxes on incomes.” The piece (in form a letter to the editor, but complete with footnotes!) responds to a reader who had noted that, because of a cap, the basic Social Security “tax” does not reach higher levels of income. Because the author had earlier argued that a tax “on” incomes should result in higher tax liability for higher-income persons, it might seem that the Social Security levy is unconstitutional (or the author just wrong). This piece makes several points: (1) The Social …