Taxation

Taxation in United States

Taxation Definition

The process of taxing or imposing a tax. Webster. In Practice. Adjustment. Fixing the amount; e. g., taxation of costs. 3 Chit. Gen. Prac. 602.

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The process of taxing or imposing a tax. Webster. In Practice. Adjustment. Fixing the amount; e. g., taxation of costs. 3 Chit. Gen. Prac. 602.

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This definition of Taxation Is based on the The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary . This entry needs to be proofread.

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Taxation in 1899 (United States)

The following information about Taxation is from the Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States by the Best American and European Writers.

TAXATION, Principles of. It would seem to be in the nature of an economic or commonsense axiom, that a large and varied experience in respect to the management of any one of the great departments of the world’s business would result in the gradual evolution and final definite establishment of certain rules or principles which would be almost universally recognized and accepted as a basis for practical application and procedure. But in respect to the matter of taxation-which is a fundamental necessity for the maintenance of civilization and of all government, and is constantly, outside of sheer barbarism, everywhere maintained-no such result has been attained. In no department of economic science is there so much of obscurity and conflicting opinion.

Most economists agree, that there is no science of taxation as there is a science of exchanges; and that there are no great natural laws running through and controlling taxation and its effects.

And while the student will find examples in the history of states or governments [871] of the practical application of almost every form of taxation which human ingenuity, prompted by necessity, selfishness or greed, could devise; and a sufficient record of effects, to warrant the drawing of general and correct inferences, it is nevertheless probably true, that there is not, at the present time, a single existing tax decreed by despotism, or authorized by the representatives of the tax payers, which has been primarily adopted or enacted solely with reference to any involved economic principles, or which has primarily sought to establish the largest practical conformity under the existing circumstances to what are acknowledged to be the fundamental principles of equity, justice and rational liberty. But, on the contrary, the influence of temporary circumstances, as viewed in most instances from the standpoint of a governmental administration-despotism or republican alike-desirous of retaining power, has ever been the controlling motive in determining the character of taxation; or, as Colbert, the celebrated finance minister of Louis XIV., is reported to have expressed it, in saying, that the act of taxation consists in so plucking the goose [i.e., the people] as to procure the largest quantity of feathers with the least possible amount of squealing.

Hence, apart from its methods of distributing power and patronage, the popular idea of evil, as connected with government, may almost always be referred back to unequal or excessive taxation as a source; and to the reality of which, as evils, more than to any other one agency, may be referred the French revolution, and the ferocity with which it was conducted. Hence, also, the preference almost always shown, on the part alike of those who enact and those who pay taxes, for indirect taxation, which very successfully blinds the tax payer as to the amount which he pays and as to the time and place of its collection. And hence, finally, the idea, which has come to be all but universally entertained, that taxation per se is in itself an evil; something to be avoided if possible, and an escape from which is always good fortune; when the real truth undoubtedly is, that there is no one act which can be performed by a community, which brings in so large return to the credit of civilization and general happiness, as the judicious expenditure, for public purposes, of a fair percentage of the general wealth raised by an equitable system of taxation. The fruits of such expenditure are general education and general health; improved roads, diminished expenses of transportation, and security for life and property. And it will be found to be a general rule, that no high degree of civilization can be maintained in a community, and indeed that no highly civilized community can exist, without comparatively large taxation; the converse of this proposition, however, at the same time not being admitted, that the existence of high taxes are necessarily a sign of high civilization. In short, taxation in itself is no more of an evil than any other necessary and desirable form of expenditure; but it is an evil when taxation is rendered excessive through injudicious or wasteful expenditures; or when, by reason of ill adjustment, the levy of the tax is made an occasion for the collection from the people, through the enhancement of profits and prices, of a far greater sum than is requisite to meet the public requirements.

-Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, laid down four canons, or maxims, (to be hereafter stated), in respect to the levying and collection of taxes in general, which, as they are constantly quoted and referred to with favor, have a better claim to be regarded as in the nature of fundamental truths than any other propositions which have thus far been formulated on this subject. But as these propositions are, as their author characterized them, general, and not particular, in their nature; and as at least one of them is, in the light of a larger experience, not considered as correct, there is, it must be conceded, much warrant for the assumption, that in the sense of propositions, or rules, universally, or in any large degree, recognized and made the basis of practical application, there are no principles of taxation. To admit the correctness of such an assumption, is, however, at the same time to confess, that human knowledge, in at least one department, has reached its largest limit; and that a class of transactions, which, more than almost any other, are determinative of the distribution of wealth, and the forms in which industry shall be exerted, are best directed by accident or caprice. It is accordingly proposed, in the present article, to make the true state of the case the main objective of inquiry; and, in place of framing any theory at the outset, to rather aim to place before the reader such a review of our knowledge of this subject, and more especially such a summary of the most recent experiences and investigations, as will qualify him for the forming of an opinion, whether any deductions which may be made are to be regarded as merely curious or valuable contributions to the department of economic science under consideration, or whether they rise to the dignity and importance of fundamental and incontrovertible truths or propositions. And as the first step in such a discussion, it is important to start with a definition, and define, at the outset, what is meant by taxation.

-Taxation (from the Latin taxo, or taxare, to rate, to value), in the ordinary sense, means the act or process of apportioning or assessing, and of collecting or gathering from a people, a portion of their property, for the use or support of their government, and for all public needs. The command of a constant and adequate revenue being absolutely essential to the existence of organized government, the power to compel or enforce contributions from the people governed, or, as it is termed, to tax, is inherent in and an incident of every sovereignty, and rests upon necessity. The question of the obtaining of such revenue, obviously, therefore, is the question of first importance in the economy of a state; the one in [872] comparison with which all others are subordinate. For without revenue (and a government never has any resources except what it has obtained from the people), regularly and uniformly obtainable and coming in, no governmental machinery for the protection of life and property, through the dispensing of justice, and the providing for the common defense, could long be maintained; and in default thereof, production would stop or be reduced to a minimum, accumulations would cease or become speedily exhausted, and civilization would inevitably give place to barbarism and the wilderness.

More about Taxation in the Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States

-Again, the power of taxation being an incident of sovereignty, the right to exercise that power must be coextensive with that of which it is the incident; or, in other words, as the power of every complete sovereignty over the persons and property of its subjects is unlimited, the power, therefore, in every such sovereignty to compel contributions for the service of the state, or, as we term it, to tax, must be unrestricted. Thus, the power to tax, says Chief Justice Marshall, in giving the opinion of the supreme court denying the right of Maryland to tax the bank of the United States, involves the power to destroy; and in the case of Weston vs. The City of Charleston, the same court, by the same eminent authority, held further, that if the right to impose a tax exists, it is a right which in its nature acknowledges no limits. It may be carried to any extent within the jurisdiction of the state or corporation which imposes it, which the will of such state or corporation may prescribe.

In the United States, however, it may be here noted, that the sovereignty of the national government, and of the separate states, is materially limited in respect to both taxation and other matters; on the one hand, in virtue of an agreement of union accepted by all the states, and known as the federal constitution; and on the other, in virtue of certain original powers retained by the states, and not delegated by them, in entering the federal Union, to any other or higher sovereignty. Thus, no state of the federal Union can impose any tax upon any agency of the federal government, its mails, its custom houses, its lands, its judicial processes, its money, or through its evidences of indebtedness, upon its credit or borrowing power. On the other hand, the federal government can not tax the agencies or instrumentalities by which any state performs its functions. That such reciprocal limitations are natural and necessary, and exist by implication, not only in the constitution of the United States, but also in the very structure of the federal Union, must be evident, when one reflects that otherwise the federal government on the one hand, and the governments of the states on the other, might impose taxation to an extent that would cripple, if not wholly defeat, the operations of the two authorities, each within its respective and proper sphere of action.

-Natural Limitations on the Meaning and Exercise of Taxation. The term taxation, however, involves something more than the mere act of taking on the part of a government, or its unrestrained power of compelling contributions for the use of the state. The essence of all taxation consists in making the burden of taxation equal upon all subjects of immediate competition; and when this principle is violated, the act of taking, or the enforced contribution, is no longer entitled to be considered taxation, but becomes at once an arbitrary spoliation or confiscation. Thus, to illustrate: suppose it were proposed to tax the stock in trade of red-haired men 5 per cent., and those of red-nosed men 10 per cent.; or (as was proposed by a bill introduced into the congress of the United States in 1874) to exempt incomes below $5,000 from taxation, and tax those equal to $5,000 5 per cent., and all above, 10 per cent.; or to do as actually once was done in England under an income tax law enacted in 1691-tax Catholics at rates double those imposed on Protestants, it seems clear that such transactions could not involve any principle, or be regarded in any other light than the mere arbitrary and despotic exercise of power; or the making of the possession of a red nose, or red hair, or the result of enterprise, skill, economy, or the fortuitous circumstance of birth or belief, the occasion for inflicting a penalty. Yet, this was what substantially was done in the middle ages, when nobles were exempt from taxation because they were nobles, and the common people were taxed because they were villains or bondsmen; when Jews were assessed because they were not Christians, and Catholics because they were not Protestants. And if it be said, as it doubtless will be, in rejoinder to a part of the above illustration, that the rich, by reason of their riches, are abundantly able to pay, and, therefore, should be made to, the answer is, that under a universal and uniform income tax (if there could be such a thing), which would establish a comparative equality of burden, they would pay more by an inevitable law and yet pay equally; while under an unequal law, which takes from them because they are rich, the act of taking has no claim to be considered a tax, but is simply confiscation. For if the state may take five per cent. from the man with $5,000 income, and ten per cent. from the man with more than $5,000, why stop at this amount? We have not approximated the limit or capability of the persons assessed to make contributions. Why not take all that such individuals receive in excess of the average income of the masses? Why not divide up and put every one on an equality? The advocacy of any such forms of contribution under the name of taxation (although the advocates may not be, and generally are not, aware of it), is simply, therefore, the advocacy of the most radical principles of communism. There is, accordingly, a broad and philosophical distinction, which may be claimed to rise to the dignity of an economic principle, between taxation and arbitrary taking.

In the soundings which have been made at great depths in the [873] ocean for telegraphic or other purposes, the sounding line has not unfrequently brought up from the bottom small-chambered shells or other minute animals of exquisite organization and structure; and the question naturally arises, In what manner can these minute organisms live and flourish under the enormous pressure that in some instances must be exerted, of at least three tons to the square inch? The explanation is to be found in the circumstance that the pressure is everywhere equalized, being as much from within outward as from without inward, and thus an equilibrium is maintained under which development goes on and existence is made possible; and it is in preserving this equilibrium, this equalization of pressure (says Mr. Lowe, from whose speech as chancellor of the English exchequer the above illustration is derived), that the whole secret of taxation consists. All experience shows that a people who are moderately prosperous will bear the heaviest burdens of taxation without complaint when they feel that the distribution is just and equal; but when the distribution is unequal, somebody inevitably is being either plundered or crushed.

-Limitations of Territorial Sovereignty and Limitations of the Taxing Power Coextensive. It would seem to be in the nature of a self evident proposition, although in fact it is by no means so regarded, that the power of every state or government to tax, must be exclusively limited to subjects within its territory and legal jurisdiction.

All subjects, says Chief Justice Marshall, in giving the opinion of the supreme court, in the case of McCullough vs. Maryland (4 Wheaton, 431), over which the sovereign power of the state extends, are objects of taxation; but those over which it does not extend, are, on the soundest principles, exempt from taxation. * * The sovereign power of the state extends to everything which exists by its own authority or is introduced by its permission.

Every nation, says Wheaton, possesses and exercises exclusive sovereignty and jurisdiction throughout the full extent of its territory. It follows, from this principle, that the laws of every state control, of right, all the real and personal property within its territory. The second general principle is, that no state can, by its laws, directly affect, bind or regulate property beyond its own territory. This is a consequence of the first general principle; a different system, which would recognize in each state the power of regulating persons or things beyond its territory, would exclude the equality of rights among different states, and the exclusive sovereignty which belongs to each of them.

(Wheaton’s International Law, chap. II., § 2; Fœlix International Prisé, §§ 9 and 10.) And in a decision of more recent date (State Tax on Foreign-held Bonds, 15 Wallace, 306, 328), the United States supreme court said:

The power of taxation, however vast in its character and searching in its extent, is necessarily limited to subjects within the jurisdiction of the state. Property lying beyond the jurisdiction of the state is not a subject upon which her taxing power can be legitimately exercised. Indeed, it would seem that no adjudication should be necessary to establish so obvious a proposition.

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-Protection the Correlative of Taxation. The correlative of taxation, furthermore, is protection; or, in other words, according to the political theory of our governments, national and state, and in fact of every government claiming the title to be free, taxes are the compensation which property pays the state for protection.

Taxes are a portion which each individual gives of his property, in order to secure and have the perfect enjoyment of the remainder. Governments are established for the protection of persons and property within the limits of the state, and taxes are levied to enable the government to afford and give such protection. They are the price and consideration of the protection afforded.

(Ingersol, J., Circuit Court of the United States, Duer vs. Small.) There is nothing poetic about tax laws When they find property, they claim a contribution for its protection.

(Lowrie, Chief Justice, Tinley vs. The City, etc., 32 Penn., 381) Montesquieu, writing with the monarchical institutions of France mainly or solely in view, discusses this subject in his Spirit of Laws (book xxxi., ch. i.) as follows:

The public revenues are a portion that each subject gives of his property, in order to secure or enjoy the remainder.

-These fundamental principles, defining sovereignty in respect to taxation are, however, violated, either in theory or practice, by most of the states in the federal Union (but not in other countries) in their exercise of the taxing power; as, for example, in Massachusetts, where the law defines personal estate for purposes of taxation so as to include goods, chattels, money and effects, wherever they are; ships, public stocks and securities, stocks in turnpikes, bridges and moneyed corporations within or without the state; and where the administrators of the law tax residents for personal property, even of a visible, tangible character, having a situs in another state or country; and, by another and irreconcilable rule, tax non-residents for all of their personal property having a situs within the state. The claim or argument, however, which the advocates of such a system set up in its defense is, that personal property (more especially what is termed in law choses in action, or credits, titles, notes, bonds, mortgages, which are in their nature incorporeal, and therefore invisible and intangible) has no situs, and, therefore, follows and adopts that of its owner. But this rule or fiction of law-mobilia personam sequuntur-was never invented with a view of its being used as a rule to govern and define the application and scope of taxation, but was originally a device of international comity, intended to subserve the convenience of the owner of property; by which a state holding jurisdiction of the property permits an act, done by the non-resident owner at his domicile, to have the same effect, touching it, as if done at the locus situs. It means, simply, that for the purpose of sale, distribution, or other disposition of the property, [874] any act, agreement or authority, which is sufficient in law where the owner resides, shall pass the property where it is; and the true and right use of it is to facilitate affairs of commerce and the distribution of decedents’ estates, by enabling parties to dispose of their property without embarrassment from their ignorance of the laws of the country where it is situated.

(Catlin vs. Hall, 21 Vermont, 152.) It would be a more accurate rendering of the rule to say, Personal property follows the law of the owner’s domicile, and not, as in effect claimed, that the law of the owner’s domicile follows the property. But no fiction, says Blackstone, shall extend to work an injury; its proper operation being to prevent a mischief or remedy an inconvenience, which might result from the general rule of law.

At any attempt to misapply a fiction, it falls within and is terminated by that other authoritative maxim of logic and the common law, cessante ratione legis, cessat ipsa lex. Another great authority in law, Lord Mansfield, says:

Fictions of law hold only in respect of the ends and purposes for which they were invented; when they are urged to an intent and purpose not within the reason and policy of the fiction, the other party may show the truth.

It is also worthy of note, that in Rome, where this fiction originated, its applicability to property was never held, according to Savigny, to extend beyond Roman territory. 125

-It is a curious fact, also, that those states which adopt, in their systems of taxation, the rule of taxing property beyond their sovereignty or territorial jurisdiction, by reason of the possession of its owner, do not carry the principle involved to its logical conclusion, and tax real estate similarly situated. But for this distinction no good reasons can be given, although pretexts, claiming to be reasons, may. One claim, however, is obviously as good as the other. A robber who should draw romantic distinctions between watches and purses, would fail in business. If we are to be robbers in practice, let us, at least, secure some grace by honesty in our professions, and admit that what we thus [875] take is not a tax received as the just recompense of a benefit conferred, but a compulsory levy, having its cause in our greed, and its justification in our power; and as these reasons are as good for a large levy as a small one, and the whole of a man’s estate is greater than its part, why not take the whole? Still further, says Mr. Lowrey, if we tax a man (in New York or Massachusetts) who has come from Connecticut or England to stay a year, for the property he has left behind, why not the man who has come for a week? If we are to do business upon the principle that might makes right, would it not be a brilliant stroke to station ourselves at all the avenues of ingress to a state, and cry Stand and deliver to the passengers? From the above citations and arguments, the conclusion would seem to be inevitable, that when a state assesses property situated beyond its territory and jurisdiction, and which its laws and processes are not competent or able to either reach or protect, or assesses one of its own citizens in respect to such property, the act has no claim to be regarded as taxation, but is simply arbitrary taking, in no respect different in principle from confiscation.

-It will be also here interesting to recall some of the antecedents of this fiction of law, that personal property, irrespective of its situs, follows the owner for the purpose of taxation. Its prototype was the ancient taille, or tax of servitude, imposed on persons originally bondmen, or on all persons who held in farm or lease, or resided on lands of the suzerain; and from which proprietors or suzerains of the land were exempt. And as no vassal could at will divest himself of servitude or allegiance to his lord or suzerain, so the obligation to pay taxes always remained upon him as a personal servitude, whatever might be the location of his property. In other words, the condition of the masses all over Europe during the middle ages was not unlike the condition of the slaves in the United States previous to emancipation. They (the slaves) had property in their possession, and spoke of themselves as owners of property, but in reality their property followed the condition of the servitude of their persons, and both persons and property belonged equally to the masters. The taille, furthermore, as a badge of servitude, was supposed to dishonor whoever was subject to it, and degrade him, not only below the rank of a gentleman, but of that of a burgher, or inhabitant of a borough or town; and no gentleman, or even any burgher, says Adam Smith, who has stock will submit to this degradation.

Now, the idea embodied in the word servitude is, an obligation to render service, irrespective of, or without, compensation; and the idea upon which the taxation of personal property in this country has been based is, that the property owes a servitude to the state where the owner resides, irrespective of its actual location, in virtue of the obligation which its owner, as a citizen, may owe to the state by reason of the protection which the state gives him in respect to his person.

More about Taxation in the Cyclopaedia

-Again, in old times, the division of property into real and personal was wholly unknown; and under the common law, all property was classed as lands, tenements, hereditaments, and goods and chattels.

In the course of time, however, leases of land for a term of years were classed as chattels, and were distinguished as chattels real; while other chattels, which did not savor of lands, were called chattels personal, ‘because,’ says Lord Coke, ‘for the most part they belong to the person of a man, or else for that, they are to be recovered by personal actions.’ And Blackstone tells us, that ‘chattels personal are property, and strictly speaking, things movable, which may be annexed to or attendant on the person of the owner, and carried about with him from one part of the world to another’; and as instances, he mentions money, jewelry, garments. Personal property, in fact, consisted almost entirely of such things as could be, and actually were, carried about with the person of the owner, or could be easily secreted. And Blackstone also tells us, that the amount of the personal estate of our ancestors, was so trifling that they entertained a very low and contemptuous opinion of it; and that ‘our ancient law books do not, therefore, often condescend to regulate this species of property.’ Nothing of an incorporeal nature was anciently comprehended within the class of personal chattels. It was otherwise as to lands or real property, as to which ‘incorporeal hereditaments’ occupied a conspicuous place from the earliest times. Such was personal property in the early history of our laws. It was of comparatively small importance, and its laws were few and simple; while real property, being of a fixed and permanent nature, was regarded as immeasurably more valuable, and was governed by laws of its own, of the most intricate and abstruse character. Both species of property, when compared with that of our own time, were of small pecuniary value; but between the importance attached to personal and movable property, and the value of real property, there was a difference vastly greater than that which now exists, both because of the comparative insignificant value of personality, and because of the feudal tenure by which lands were held, out of which grew some of the most important consequences to both the land and the person. From these circumstances arose the notion, which became a fiction of the law, that property merely personal always attended the person of its owner; while lands, tenements and hereditaments, being fixed and immovable, and of infinitely more consideration, were held, from their very nature, as well as from motives of political policy, to have a situs of their own, from which they derived their laws and incidents wholly regardless of the domicile of the owner. Growing out of the same reasons, it was also the prevailing opinion, that while immovables were exclusively governed by the law of locality, movables were controlled, according to the same maxim, by the law of the domicile of the owner, and not by that of its situs.

In [876] the changed condition of wealth and property, such a fiction, however suitable and useful in primitive times, would now, in many cases, work the greatest injustice, and impair the supremacy which every government should maintain over everything within its territory, both on the ground of public expediency and the private interests of its citizens. And according to Wharton (Treatise on the Conflict of Laws, 1872), this fiction of law has been universally abandoned upon the continent of Europe, except in cases as to rights in respect to personalty, which spring from marriage and succession. (Hutchinson, Southern Law Review.

)

-Finally, the attention of the reader or student should be asked to another interesting point in connection with this subject; and that is, that if this article were to have been written by a European, for incorporation into any foreign publication, this discussion of the taxation of extra-territorial property by a state would have no place, except possibly in review of curious tax experiences; for the reason, that nowhere, except in the United States, is there any such system of taxation, or any tolerance given to the ideas upon which it is founded.

-Legitimate Taxation Limited to Public Purposes. Although this proposition has rarely received any notice or consideration by writers on the subject of taxation, and under despotic governments (where there is no restraint on the adoption of any economic policy on the part of the state) would obviously be regarded as of no consequence, or, if conceded, would be nullified by regarding the wishes or whims of the ruler and public purposes as matters synonymous, the experience of the United States, and the decisions of its highest courts, have nevertheless combined to establish it as an economic and legal principle under a free government of the very first importance. The record of this experience may be told as follows: In 1872 the legislature of the state of Kansas passed a law authorizing counties and towns of that state to encourage the establishment of manufactories and such other enterprises as may tend to develop such counties or towns by the direct appropriation of money, or by the issue of bonds to any amount that the local authorities might consider expedient; and under this act the city of Topeka created and issued its bonds, to the extent of $100,000, and gave the same as a donation, a majority of voters approving, to an iron-bridge company, as a consideration for establishing and operating their shops within the limits of the city. The interest coupons first due on these bonds were promptly paid by the city out of a fund raised by taxation for that purpose, but subsequently, when the second coupons became due, and the bonds had passed out of the possession of the bridge company by bona fide sale to a loan association, the city repudiated its obligations, on the ground that the legislature of Kansas had no authority, under the constitution of the state, to authorize the issue of bonds, the interest and principal of which were to be paid from the proceeds of taxes, for any such purpose as the encouragement of manufacturing enterprises. Legal proceedings to enforce payment were thereupon commenced by the bondholders in the United States circuit court, and judgment having been there given for the city, the case was appealed to the United States supreme court, where, with only one dissenting voice, the judgment of the lower court was affirmed, and the following opinions or statement of principles involved given:

It must be conceded, said the court, through Mr. Justice Miller, that there are rights in every free government beyond the control of the state. A government which recognized no such rights, which held the lives, the liberty and the property of its citizens subject at all times to the absolute disposition and unbounded control of e

Author of this text: David A. Wells.

Taxation in 1899 (United States)

The following information about Taxation is from the Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States by the Best American and European Writers.

TAXATION, National and Local. (See REVENUE, PUBLIC; TAXATION.)

Taxation Meaning

Taxation Related Meanings in the World Legal Dictionary

Taxation Related Concepts in other Law Encyclopedias

Other Popular Tax Concepts

Taxation Meaning

Taxation Related Meanings in the World Legal Dictionary

Taxation Related Concepts in other Law Encyclopedias

Other Popular Tax Concepts

Taxation and Corporate Law

This section provides basic coverage of Taxation in relation to U.S. state and federal corporate law. For comprehensive coverage, please visit the main entry.

Taxation (Related Legal Issues)

This section introduces, discusses and describes the basics of taxation. Then, cross references and a brief overview about Related Legal Issues is provided. Finally, the subject of Communications Law in relation with taxation is examined. Note that a list of cross references, bibliography and other resources appears at the end of this entry.

Taxation (Bankruptcy Law)

This section introduces, discusses and describes the basics of taxation. Then, cross references and a brief overview about Bankruptcy Lawin relation to taxation is provided. Note that a list of bibliography resources and other aids appears at the end of this entry.

Taxation (Internet Law)

This section introduces, discusses and describes the basics of taxation. Then, cross references and a brief overview about Internet Lawin relation to taxation is provided. Note that a list of bibliography resources and other aids appears at the end of this entry.

Finding the law: Taxation in the U.S. Code

A collection of general and permanent laws relating to taxation, passed by the United States Congress, are organized by subject matter arrangements in the United States Code (U.S.C.; this label examines taxation topics), to make them easy to use (usually, organized by legal areas into Titles, Chapters and Sections). The platform provides introductory material to the U.S. Code, and cross references to case law. View the U.S. Code’s table of contents here.

Taxation

In Legislation

Taxation in the U.S. Code: Title 43, Chapter 12, Subchapter VIII

The current, permanent, in-force federal laws regulating taxation are compiled in the United States Code under Title 43, Chapter 12, Subchapter VIII. It constitutes “prima facie” evidence of statutes relating to Public Lands (including taxation) of the United States. The reader can further narrow his/her legal research of the general topic (in this case, Reclamation and Irrigation of Lands of the US Code, including taxation) by chapter and subchapter.

Taxation

In Legislation

Taxation in the U.S. Code: Title 12, Chapter 4

The current, permanent, in-force federal laws regulating taxation are compiled in the United States Code under Title 12, Chapter 4. It constitutes “prima facie” evidence of statutes relating to Banking Law (including taxation) of the United States. The reader can further narrow his/her legal research of the general topic (in this case, Taxation of the US Code, including taxation) by chapter and subchapter.

Resources

See Also

  • Corporate Law

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