The Constitution, in Article I, Section 8, gives Congress the 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.”
In Article I, Section 9, the original document made clear that “no Capitation, or other direct Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census of Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.” It is moreover established that “No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.”
Since 1913, our Constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property have been abridged and diminished by the imposition on each of us of Federal income, payroll, and estate taxes. This is an unconstitutional Federal assumption of direct taxing authority.
The Internal Revenue Service is the enforcement arm of the Federal government’s present unjust tax system. Citizens, both in groups and as individuals, have repeatedly sought responses from the IRS bureaucracy as to the basis for the agency’s tax policies and procedures. No answers have been forthcoming although a responsible government must be answerable to the people and has a duty to those it is supposed to serve.
We propose legislation to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, and will veto any authorization, appropriation, or continuing resolution which contains any funding whatsoever for that illicit and unconstitutional agency. We are opposed to the flat-rate tax, national sales tax, and value added tax proposals that are being promoted as an improvement to the current tax system. The Sixteenth Amendment does not provide authority for an un-apportioned direct tax.
Moreover, it is our intention to replace, with a tariff based revenue system supplemented by excise taxes, the current tax system of the U.S. government (including income taxes, payroll taxes, and estate taxes.)
To the degree that tariffs on foreign products, and excises, are insufficient to cover the legitimate Constitutional costs of the federal government, we will offer an apportioned “state-rate tax” in which the responsibility for covering the cost of unmet obligations will be divided among the several states in accordance with their proportion of the total population of the United States, excluding the District of Columbia. Thus, if a state contains 10 percent of the nation’s citizens, it will be responsible for assuming payment of 10 percent of the annual deficit.
The effect of this “state-rate tax” will be to encourage politicians to argue for less, rather than more, federal spending, and less state spending as well.
To the extent permitted by the Constitution, we believe that the taxation of corporations is an appropriate source of government revenue. The Supreme Court has defined “income” as a “gain or increase arising from corporate activity or privilege.” People are not corporations, and corporations need not be treated as “people” for the purposes of taxation.
There is substantial evidence that the 16th Amendment was never legally ratified. When elected, we will act to cease collection of direct Federal personal income taxes. We also support ratification of the Liberty Amendment which would repeal the Sixteenth Amendment, and provide that “Congress shall not levy taxes on personal incomes, estates, and/or gifts.”
We support the use of motor fuel excise taxes, at rates not in excess of those currently imposed, to be used exclusively for the erection, maintenance, and administration of Federal highways. These taxes should never be used for “demonstration projects”, mass transit, or for other non-highway purposes.
We support the use of excise taxes to curb the use of tax dollars for media advertising, and to provide so-called “tax abatements,” “tax incentives,” and “economic development grants,” which are pretexts to raid the public treasury and rob the workingman for the benefit of wealthy interests favored by the politicians.
The Constitution Party Platform can viewed in it’s entirety here.