A Constitutional amendment specifically authorizes income taxes, so it's pretty impossible for them to be unconstitutional. Or are are you referencing one of the theories [1] that the 16th amendment was never ratified?
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
It quite clearly states exactly the opposite of what you claim.
A Constitutional Amendment cannot, by definition, be unconstitutional. Please take your FUD back to reddit or whatever bridge you crawled out from under.
You see there wasn't suppose to be any "Constitutional Amendment" that is exactly the point you moron. Pick up a history book and stop watching fox news
Sales tax may not apply to online sales in the US (that is changing, and depends on the state involved and whether the company has any presence in the state). Income taxes are never incurred because of sales, only because of income. To oversimplify: no net income -- no income tax.
That's not quite true. I believe in every state you are supposed to declare goods you buy online and didn't pay sales tax for in your end of year taxes. I don't think anyone really does this and it hasn't been enforced.
The current fight isn't over whether online sales should pay sales tax, but over who should be in charge of collecting that tax: the seller or the buyer.
It's more complicated than that. Absent SSTP, if I live in a town with a special sales tax, and I buy furniture from the next town over and have it shipped to my house, I get to pay a lower tax rate. With SSTP, they furniture store has to track my address and charge me the higher rate. I don't think use tax has ever been a factor in intrastate sales tax rate variations so this does change what sort of taxes are required.
If I sell something on eBay do I pay income tax on it? No, though I suppose I would if I were selling a whole lot of stuff. Similarly, I don't pay sales tax on things I buy on eBay even though I'm supposed to.
1) eBay reports aggregate sales >$600 to the I.R.S.
2) Most items sold on eBay are sold for less than they were purchased (i.e., anything used), so the likelihood of recognizing gain on any sale is low. No gain recognition = no taxes incurred.
3) Sale of items above (your) purchase price do incur taxable income. If you do not report such income, your tax year never closes. That means there is no deadline as to when the IRS can go after you for penalties and back interest.
4) Sales tax is collected by the seller on behalf of the buyer. You mean "use taxes", which are paid by the buyer himself.
Without sales tax your income tax would "look insane", and you'd complain just as much. It's just another way to bring in taxes in a way that evenly distributes it among people.
This is about income tax, not sales tax. It being a sale is important because if it weren't one, it would be a gift, and gifts aren't subject to income tax.
Fwiw, the test for gifts under the tax code is payments motivated by "detached and disinterested generosity". So if you get something in return, it's hard for it to count as a gift. It doesn't have to even be a sale per se; for example, tipping at a restaurant is technically a voluntary payment for which you receive nothing in return, but it's not considered sufficiently detached/disinterested to count as a gift.
That's what I was arguing, that you can't classify something as a gift just because technically there is no exchange of consideration. Even though tips formally have no consideration, they still fail the detached/disinterested test, and count as income.
