Blogosphere Commentary on Murphy

Blogosphere commentary on yesterday's bombshell tax decision in Murphy v. United States, No. 03cv02414 (D.C. Cir. 8/22/06) (blogged here):

• Appellate Law & Practice:  CADC: § 104 Unconstitutional as Applied to Emotional Distress and Loss of Reputation:

It is pretty rare to see a tax provision struck down on constitutional grounds. Even rarer to see one which goes to the theoretical question of income.

• Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA), ProfessorBainbridge.com:  This One's for the Tax Nuts:

Let 1000 lawsuits bloom. Evey tax nut in the country is probably getting ready to file suit challenging some tax or another using Murphy as a template.

• Will Baude (UConn Law Student), Crescat Sententia:  Is the Internal Revenue Code Unconstitutional?:

[M]y favorite case in Federal Income Tax was Eisner v. Macomber, since I frankly found the boundaries of Congress's taxing authority far more interesting than hair-splitting about life insurance, sale-lease-backs, or the characterization of loss. So I am quite interested to see . . . that the D.C. Circuit has declared a small portion of the Internal Revenue Code to exceed Congress's power to tax income.

• Orin Kerr (George Washington), The Volokh Conspiracy:  Constitutional Limits on the Power to Tax:

I know essentially nothing about the Sixteenth Amendment, but it will be interesting to see if the SG petitions for certiorari in this case (assuming it doesn't go en banc). I suspect the Supreme Court would take the case.

• Joe Kristan, Roth CPA:  Murphy's Law, Indeed:

With a night to sleep on it, I am more convinced that yesterday's D.C. Circuit decision in Murphy is unlikely to stand. I think there are two major flaws in the decision....

The first flaw is the decisions conclusion that the "framers" of the 16th amendment authorizing the modern income tax would have not considered damages for emotional distress "income." Joseph M. Dodge, in his essay in Tax Stories, notes that there were at least two competing conceptions of income at the time. One concept was based on the "principal and income" concepts of trust law. One was the "Haig-Simons" concept, which is more or less covers most of what we think of as income now. Murphy ignores this debate entirely and concludes on the thin evidence of an Attorney General opinion and a House committee report that "income" was a settled concept....

Once the Murphy court decided that damages for personal injuries weren't "income," they concluded that the tax on them was unconstitutional without further analysis. This appears to be the weakest part of their analysis. The federal government has broad taxing powers. The courts struck down the pre-1913 income tax as a violation of the constitutional requirement that "direct" taxes be apportioned among the states based on population. Many non-income taxes are recognized as constitutional, including gift, estate and excise taxes....My point? Even if it's not income, compensatory damages are still subject to Congress's power to tax unless they are a "direct" tax, which they probably aren't.

• Marty Lederman, Balkinization:  Is a Federal Tax on Damages for Emotional Distress Unconstitutional?:

Assuming the court is correct that such an award is not "income" for purposes of the Sixteenth Amendment -- which I will assume because I don't know enough about the meaning of "income" in that Amendment -- why does it follow that the tax is unconstitutional? ...

in order to invalidate the tax in the Murphy case, it is not enough to hold that the award is not "income." It would be necessary further to hold that the tax is a "direct" one, prohibited by Article I -- and to explain why it is not otherwise authorized by the Necessary and Proper Clause. The court of appeals did not peform these analyses, and thus its opinion is woefully incomplete. My very rough sense is that the tax on the award in Murphy is authorized by Article I, section 8, and by the Necessary and Proper Clause, and, more importantly, is not a prohibited "direct" tax under Article I, section 9, just as with estate taxes (see Manufacturers National Bank, 363 U.S. 194) and gift taxes (see Bromley v. McCaughn, 280 U.S. 124). If I'm correct about this, then the tax on the award of damages therefore is constitutional, wholly without regard to whether it is a tax on "income" -- although, again, I caution that I'm out of my league on this question, and would appreciate further information or clarification in the comments.

• Robert Loblaw, Decision of the Day:  Bombshell Tax Decision: Section 104(a)(2) of the Code is Unconstitutional:

This will probably simplify life for employment lawyers, since savvy plaintiffs have been claiming all kinds of strange physical injuries to try to justify a non-taxable verdict or settlement.

• Chris Mckinney, The HR Lawyers' Blog:  DC Circuit: Mental Anguish Damages Not Taxable Income:

The D.C. Circuit is the most important circuit court when dealing with federal agency and IRS issues so this opinion will be given a great deal of deference by the other circuits. As important an issue as this is, I would expect the IRS to appeal it to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, employment attorneys need to rethink the way they are structuring settlements for tax purposes and inform clients (and past clients) about this decision so that they can consult with their tax advisors and determine if the filing of an amended tax return is in order.

• RedState, Even the Taxman has Limits:

[I]t is heartening to see a court take seriously the principle of enumerated powers with regard to federal legislation.

• The Settlement Channel:  Portion of Section 104(a)(2) Deemed Unconstitutional by DC Circuit Court:

[A]n utterly stunning and unexpected decision ... [W]e will be doing a special podcast with Attorney Rob Wood on this ruling tomorrow, and will rush to get it up and on the system for you to listen to by late Wednesday or first thing Thursday. I expect interest will be high and we plan on getting you the facts as quickly as we can. Clearly, section 104 (a)(2) is the very foundation of the settlement industry and anything that impacts it at the lower court level is going to be a matter of intense focus and interest.

• Eugene Volokh, The Volokh Conspiracy:  Income Tax and Sanctity of Property in Our Constitutional System:

I don't have much to say about the opinion but one thing did strike me. The court writes:

The Sixteenth Amendment simply does not authorize the Congress to tax as "incomes" every sort of revenue a taxpayer may receive.... [B]ecause the "the power to tax involves the power to destroy," it would not be consistent with our constitutional government, and the sanctity of property in our system, merely to rely upon the legislature to decide what constitutes income.

Yet "the sanctity of property in our system" does not generally protect people from taxes on their capital. Not only may the federal government impose taxes on transactions involving property (such as importation, gift, or disposition on death), but state governments are free to tax property in a wide range of ways, including by imposing a percentage tax on all possessed property....

Rather, the limits on the federal income tax are limits specific to the federal government — limits that originated in the Direct Tax Clause and were then made much looser by the Sixteenth Amendment. They stem from concerns about federal power, not about government power more generally. And they thus have to do not with "the sanctity of property" as such, but rather with what only states and not the federal government should be able to do as to that property.