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Legislative Sources

U.S. Constitution

The authority for the imposition of the federal income tax is found in Article I, Section 7, of the U.S. Constitution. It grants Congress the authority to impose taxes to pay debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States. Due to early opposition, the supporters of the income tax decided to amend the Constitution, so that there would be no question as to the constitutionality of a federal income tax. On February 3, 1913 Congress ratified the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, it states:

The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on income, from whatever sources derived without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

The Constitution of the United States is the source of all of the federal laws of the country, including both tax and nontax provisions. In addition to the Sixteenth Amendment the Constitution contains other provisions that bear upon the taxation process. The constitutional rights of due process and of the privacy of the citizen shall apply in tax, as well as nontax, environments. The Constitution also requires that taxes imposed by Congress apply uniformly throughout the United States. And, except as provided by the Sixteenth Amendment, the Constitution still bars per capita and other direct taxes, unless the revenues that are generated from these taxes are apportioned to the population of the states from which they were collected.