Pollock Case

From the Hylton to the Pollock Case

The result of the Hylton case was not challenged until after the Civil War. A number of the taxes imposed to meet the demands of that war were assailed during the postwar period as direct taxes, but without result. The Court sustained successively, as “excises” or “duties,” a tax on an insurance company's receipts for premiums and assessments,1 a tax on the circulating notes of state banks,2 an inheritance tax on real estate,3 and finally a general tax on incomes.4 In the last case, the Court took pains to state that it regarded the term “direct taxes” as having acquired a definite and fixed meaning, to wit, capitation taxes, and taxes on land.5 Then, almost one hundred years after the Hylton case, the famous case of Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.6 arose under the Income Tax Act of 1894.7 Undertaking to correct “a century of error,” the Court held, by a vote of five-to-four, that a tax on income from property was a direct tax within the meaning of the Constitution and hence void because not apportioned according to the census.

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References

This text about Pollock Case is based on “The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation”, published by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

[Footnote 1] Pacific Ins. Co. v. Soule, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 433 (1869).

[Footnote 2] Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 75 U.S. (8 Wall.) 533 (1869).

[Footnote 3] Scholey v. Rew, 90 U.S. (23 Wall.) 331 (1875).

[Footnote 4] Springer v. United States, 102 U.S. 586 (1881).

[Footnote 5] 102 U.S. at 602.

[Footnote 6] 157 U.S. 429 (1895); 158 U.S. 601 (1895).

[Footnote 7] 28 Stat. 509, 553 (1894).

Tables of Contents

• Pollock Case and other Topics in the Contents – Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution
• U.S. Constitutional Law Category
• List of amendments to the U.S. Constitution
• Pollock Case and other Topics in the Constitution Contents
• Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution (Table of Contents)
• Clauses of the Constitution (Table of Contents)