Issue 45 The Four Taxes April 1,2013

As many of you are already aware, the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the right to tax America's citizens. But, did you know that it only lists four taxes in the entire document. That’s right, depending on how you read the wording, the Federal government is either limited to those 4 or can tax us in what ever form they wish. So as to give you knowledge on what these taxes are, I list them and tell you all how they work.

Impost Tax: This tax is simple; it taxes all products coming into the United States at a specified rate.

Expost Tax: This tax is the opposite of an impost tax; it taxes all products leaving the United States.

Together these taxes form the basis of a tariff system, but according to the U.S. Constitution all Impost taxes must be equal regardless of country. Likewise Expost taxes must be set equal as well. These limitations where designed to prevent taxation from being used as a weapon to hurt trade and show favor or disfavor to a particular country save cutting off trade relations entirely. Basically, it prevented conflict with other nations by treating everything imported and exported equal in terms of taxation.

Excise Tax: This tax is much broader in scope as it is a tax on all goods and services. Like its, Impost and Expost counterparts, all must be taxed at the same rate. If you want a modern term, then a sales tax would be an appropriate representation. So long as money was exchanged for a good or service like land sales, paying for a lawyer, or simply buying food, it was taxed.

The limitation of making sure each of these taxes are set equal were and still is a stroke of genius (even if it is ignored today). It prevented taxation being used as a weapon, and prevented conflicts in trade both between nations and even between the States (like New York and New Jersey). But our last tax has no such limitations and we all despise it.

Income Tax: We pay this tax every single year based on the amount of money we make. It is not designed to treat people fairly or even businesses for that matter. It is set up to be a weapon to suppress and confiscate people’s wealth. Many people believe this tax should go away as it harms and suppresses small businesses, and aids in keeping the poor poor and the super rich rich. There is no equal treatment law in this tax as it was added during the Wilson Administration as the 16th Amendment. During that time period, the progressive party was in full swing (it has its ideology based in socialism, but was the foundation for modern liberalism. It wants equal treatment of everyone, but uses government to enforce any and all forms of social equality) and they saw the rich as the enemy.

The Founding Fathers of the American Constitution had already faced the income tax under the oppression of Great Britten during the colonial period, and thus they set forth a warning. In the Federalist papers they said that (I paraphrase) an income tax is impossible to support as the more a government spends trying to enforce it, the more money they loose until they have no money at all. Basically, just trying to enforce it will break the bank of any country eventually and make a person who simply forgets to pay their taxes or portion of a criminal. And thus why libertarians and conservatives want it gone (and that is not even including the living hell it creates by picking winners and losers in the free market system distorting it and creating more incentives for corruption).

Well, there you have it, the four legal taxes as per the United States Constitution. If and when possible I will post more posts like this to aid those who seek to bring government in line once again and make it responsible to the people. Information is power and I hope this helps.