Abstract
The Supreme Court granted certiorari in Moore v. United States to consider whether realization is a requirement to have income within the meaning of the Sixteenth Amendment. Both a district court and a panel of the Ninth Circuit had concluded that the Mandatory Repatriation Tax enacted in 2017 was valid even though a married couple was taxed on undistributed earnings of a controlled foreign corporation and the earnings may have been attributable to tax years going back as far as 1987. This article describes the basics of the controversy and considers some of the issues associated with the case, including whether a Court holding that realization is required might call into question the constitutionality of many other Code provisions; whether such a holding would automatically make an unapportioned wealth tax possible; and what effect we should give to the fact that not everyone in 1913, when the amendment was ratified, understood the meaning of income in the same way.
Keywords
Moore v. U.S., mandatory repatriation tax (MRT), Sixteenth Amendment, direct taxes, indirect taxes, duties, imposts, excises, direct-tax apportionment rule, uniformity rule, Eisner v. Macomber, Pollock v/ Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., NFIB v. Sebelius
Publication Date
2023
Document Type
Article
Publication Information
Journal of Taxation of Investments, Summer 2023, at 39
Repository Citation
Jensen, Erik M., "Is Realization Necessary to Have Taxable Income? The Supreme Court Might Tell Us" (2023). Faculty Publications. 2346.
https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/faculty_publications/2346
