Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company
POLLOCK V. FARMERS' LOAN AND TRUST COMPANY
POLLOCK V. FARMERS' LOAN AND TRUST COMPANY, 157 U.S. 429 (1895), was a case in which the Supreme Court ruled that the income tax provision of the Gorman-Wilson tariff (1894) was unconstitutional because it was a direct tax and hence subject to the requirement of apportionment among the states according to population. In a prior hearing, only the tax on real
estate income had been declared unconstitutional, and the Court was divided evenly, four to four, regarding other forms of income. On a rehearing, the Court decided five to four against the income tax on personal property because one justice, probably David J. Brewer, reversed his earlier decision and opposed the income tax, and another, Howell E. Jackson, who had not participated in the earlier hearing, voted with the minority in the rehearing. This decision inspired a popular attack on "judicial usurpation," resulting in the Democratic income tax plank of 1896 and leading ultimately to the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment (1913).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Paul, Randolph E. Taxation in the United States. Boston: Little, Brown, 1954.
HarveyWish/a. r.
See alsoIncome Tax Cases ; Springer v. United States ; Taxation .