Abstract
The Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Moore v. United States was a disappointment. The Court upheld the constitutionality of the so-called mandatory repatriation tax, a result that may or may not be defensible. But the Court didn’t resolve what was supposed to be the “question presented” in the case: “Whether the Sixteenth Amendment authorizes Congress to tax unrealized sums without apportionment among the states.” As a result, more than a century after ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, we still don’t know whether realization of some sort is necessary to have income within the meaning of the Amendment. This article describes and criticizes the decision in Moore.
Keywords
Moore v. United States, mandatory repatriation tax, Sixteenth Amendment, realization, the meaning of “incomes, ” Eisner v. Macomber, Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co.
Publication Date
2024
Document Type
Article
Publication Information
Journal of Taxation of Investments, Summer 2024, at 55
Repository Citation
Jensen, Erik M., "The Supreme Court Punts on the Realization Issue in Moore" (2024). Faculty Publications. 2347.
https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/faculty_publications/2347
