The plaintiffs’ arguments in Moore v. United States have little basis in law — unless you think that a list of long-ago-discarded laissez-faire decisions from the early 20th century remain good law. And a decision favoring these plaintiffs could blow a huge hole in the federal budget. While no Warren-style wealth tax is on the books, the Moore plaintiffs do challenge an existing tax that is expected to raise $340 billion over the course of a decade.
But Republicans also hold six seats on the nation’s highest Court, so there is some risk that a majority of the justices will accept the plaintiffs’ dubious legal arguments. And if they do so, they could do considerable damage to the government’s ability to fund itself.
Er, no?
I’m saying that the Constitution, Article I Section 9, imposes a limit on Congress’s ability to issue taxes. The Sixteenth Amendment was passed to specifically exempt income taxes from that limit, which is what authorized the federal income tax. There is a very real legal argument that a wealth tax, which is a fundamentally different kind of tax, does not fall under the Sixteenth Amendment exemption and thus is constitutionally restricted.
I might not have explained that super clearly, so genuinely, feel free to ask if I was confusing at all.