Fairness In Federal Tax Law In The United States(1865-1945)

The tax law system created by the United States is quite mature and complete in today's world.From the historical context of the coordinated development of American society and tax law,we find that tax law takes fairness as its institutional feature and injects it into all links of normative text and law implementation.It has made outstanding achievements in the core areas of national governance,such as safeguarding the financial basis of national sovereignty,guiding the distribution of market economy and social wealth,balancing regional development differences and the unification of governmental powers and financial rights at all levels.Of course,the structure of American tax law is complex.There are also fairness issues such as infringement of civil liberties and equal rights in the implementation of the tax law.However,from both positive and negative perspectives,the most prominent attribute of the United States federal tax law is undoubtedly fairness.In other words,the prudence of tax fairness constituted the institutional cornerstone of the rapid development of capitalist economy and its rise as a world superpower in the half century from the end of the Civil War to the end of World War II.Based on the related works from the Gilded Age of the United States in the second half of the 19 th century to the expanding and rising period in the first half of the 20 th century,this paper divides the study of the fairness in the United States federal tax law into seven parts,including the introduction,the basic expression of fairness in the United States federal tax law,the era of the United States federal tax law system,the fairness norms of the federal tax law,the fairness implementation of the federal tax law,value extraction of the fairness in the federal tax law in the United States,and the conclusion.Through the systematic discussion of the seven chapters above,the purpose is to describe the historical track of the establishment,development,and maturity of the fair value attribute in the United States' federal tax law.In particular,the object of this study is limited to the federal tax law.Although the tax laws at the state and local levels also have prominent research value,as the embodiment and extension of the fiscal function of the federal constitution,the federal tax law is more obvious and important,whether it is the dominant role of the fiscal power of the states and local governments or the international influence in the world.The introduction mainly elaborates the research topics,research status,research framework and purpose,and focuses on the current research status of the fairness in the United States federal tax law in domestic and foreign academic circles.Firstly,the number of domestic academic research results on the fairness in the United States tax law is extremely scarce,and even the results of relatively broad topics such as the United States tax law are very limited.From the perspective of historical evolution,no paper explores the causes and characteristics of the emergence,development and perfection of American tax law.Secondly,there are no research results directly related to the topic in foreign academic circles.The relevant references are scattered and disordered.Most of them are works on the history of tax revenue in the United States or are subordinate to individual chapters of American general history,constitutional history and judicial system history.Some of them have very concise historical facts,some of them are even monologues.It concludes that there are two shortcomings in the study of American tax law and its fairness: one is that the existing research results have not made a detailed analysis and elaboration on the historical reasons for the formulation of various tax laws in the United States,and have not clearly pointed out the theoretical origin,political demands and economic needs of the formation of American tax law;the other is that the existing research results have not released important principles and legal values of American tax law.There is a lack of research and investigation on social energy and its follow-up effects.In summary,the purpose of the study is to explore the evolution of the tax law system in the United States in a specific period(1865-1945,the period from the Gilded Age after the Civil War to the rise of the end of the Second World War)from the perspective of jurisprudence,combining with the distinct fairness of the tax law in the United States and the current situation of domestic and foreign scholars.On explanations,it explores the legislative environment,collection procedures and main connotations of judicial remedies of the federal tax law,presents the historical process of its emergence,development and perfection,then summarizes its value law.Chapter ? aims to clarify the connotation of fairness in the context of the federal tax law in the United States.As the core concept of this paper,the semantics of fairness must be clearly defined.In the selected historical period,fairness and justice can be synonymous,both of which are the meanings of “deserving”,but fairness emphasizes that the way to achieve “deserving” must be “equal treatment”;and there is a coincidence between equality and freedom and fairness,and the realization of fairness needs to be achieved without distinction.Equal results,while freedom is the conditional procedure to ensure the above objectives,that is,fairness contains equal results and forms of freedom.On this basis,it further explores the historical origin of the western tax fairness thought.The value idea evolved from the simple fair view of ancient Greece,through the practice and abstraction of the early French rulers and British politicians,gradually clarifies the process of the fair view rising to the ideological theory.Combining with the federal tax law in the United States studied in this paper,the connotation of fairness will be amended and expanded: the tax legal relationship reflecting fairness should be the unity of three elements: equal subject,relative object and equivalent content.The tax law norms constructed by this method should shape equal social effects,and the implementation of tax law should respect free individual choices.Chapter ? mainly describes the main sources and institutional framework of the federal tax law in the United States during the period from the Civil War to the end of World War II.This chapter is divided into three sections,explaining the original intention of the provisions and institutional measures of fairness embodied and implemented in the federal tax law in the United States from the normative documents promulgated by the federal legislature,the judgments of the supreme court in judicial cases and the enforcement safeguard mechanism of the tax authorities.In addition,the theme of this chapter is to highlight the era of fairness.Before outlining the tax law system,it emphasizes the social revolution and law-making operation experienced in the 19 th and 20 th centuries.When the basic natural rights stipulated in the constitution can not clearly define the obligations of the subject and the status of the law,the legislature begins to enact a large number of laws.At the same time,the supreme court actively participates in enacting the judicial power to participate in the legislative power.The new law has achieved coordination and complementarity,thus creating favorable historical conditions and social environment for fairness to be fully displayed in the federal tax law.Chapter ? discusses the two earliest taxes in the United States federal taxation based on the simple fairness appeal,tariffs and consumption taxes.With the help of the federal constitution,congressional acts and supreme court jurisprudence,this paper examines how the legal norms shaped the fairness of social equality in the United States in the Gilded Age in the second half of the 19 th century.This chapter is divided into three sections.The first section,explains how the tariff contradiction between the North and the South has risen to a fierce civil war around tax fairness,then summarizes its historical experience and the follow-up adjustment of U.S.tariff policy.Section two describes the social pressures of consumption taxes.After people's constant struggle,the United States congress and the federal government have to carefully formulate consumption tax policies to ensure that they remain within the reasonable limits of the demand for social equality.As a summary of this chapter,the third section considers that there are still many inequities based on the substantive result-oriented equality requirements after the aforementioned investigation of the legal norms related to tariffs and consumption taxes.Tax laws and regulations on tariffs and consumption taxes can only guarantee the fair connotation at the basic and macro levels,and can not achieve the goal of distribution and adjustment of social wealth.This also provides a new topic and challenge for the creation and practice of the tax law in the United States.Chapter ? is intended to solve the problem of how the United States federation copes with the challenge of equity brought about by the rapid rise of the United States in the 20 th century: the focus of equity attributes has gradually shifted from static single text of tax law norms to dynamic and pluralistic process of tax law implementation.This chapter is divided into four sections.The first section,the fairness mechanism of the income tax act 1913 and the second section,the fairness crisis caused by progressive tax rate,focus on the core income tax in the American tax system.Since the tax category was incorporated into the legislative process,the fairness of the new tax law is the primary consideration.Income tax,which was born of the principle of fairness,has deteriorated in the process of its implementation,and has evolved into a tyranny of freedom under strict tax inspection.The fair crisis has puzzled the legal practice process including income tax,social security tax and inheritance and gift tax mentioned in the third section.Therefore,in the summary of the fourth section,it holds that the embodiment of fairness in the implementation of tax law must pay attention to the protection of personal privacy and freedom,and always respond to the people's demands for the connotation of fairness and freedom.Chapter ? is divided into three sections,which abstracts and excavates the fairness of federal tax law from the perspective of American norms and implementation.The first section reveals the historical process of coordination between individual equity and social equity.American tax law first protects individual rights through the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments,and then focuses on the social wealth regulations through the Sixteenth Amendment.The second section,the complementation of formal fairness and substantive fairness reveals that,for the United States federal tax law,its core value is to guide the allocation of social resources,so it was originally limited to the formal fairness provisions in the legal texts,and was replaced by the concrete substantive fairness content in the implementation of the federal tax law.The third section,shows the trend of application of the federal tax law in the United States from the second half of the 19 th century.Static justice value is endowed with specific historical meanings through judicial decisions and tax collection management.Finally,under the interaction of the above three levels,the fairness in the United States federal tax law can be fully presented.The conclusion is a summary and extension of the main content of this article.Firstly,the institutional control of social environment by the United States federal tax law during 1865-1945 created a space for individuals and businesses to fully release their economic energy.Secondly,in order to balance the interests of all sectors of society,the content and implementation of tax law pay more attention to creating a pragmatic and scientific fair environment.Thirdly,in shaping and annotating the fairness in the federal tax law in the United States,it fully embodies the innovative spirit of the common law with the characteristics of Americanization,which is dominated by the statutes of Congress and judicial precedents.