The Sixteenth Amendment

The Text

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.

What It Says

Congress may tax income directly, without dividing the burden among the states by population as the original Constitution required for direct taxes.

What It Protects Against

Nothing. This amendment removes a limit rather than imposing one, which makes it the structural opposite of most entries in this record and the reason it belongs here.

Protocol Media reading. Not sourced to a ratification-era document.

Problem Addressed

The Supreme Court held in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co. in 1895 that a tax on income from property was a direct tax requiring apportionment, which effectively blocked a federal income tax until the Constitution was amended.