"The Congress shall have
Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay
the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of
the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform
throughout the United States;"
[U.S.
Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1]
"Mr. William Guthrie
argued...Had the first Congress deliberated at length upon the choice
of a provision which would be more effective than any other to prevent
an abuse of the taxing power, it could not have selected one more appropriate
than "due process of law." The phrase "due process of law," or
its equivalent, "The law of the land," long antedated the establishment
of our political institutions. It embodied then, as now, the most
fundamental and far-reaching maxim of constitutional law and political
justice, and it represented the broadest and most comprehensive guaranty
of personal and property rights. In fact, there are no words in
our language which signify or mean more in respect of the rights and
liberties of the individual."
"The prohibition against
the deprivation of property without due process of law cannot mean one
thing under the 5th Amendment and another thing under the 14th Amendment,
"Any provision of an
act of Congress imposing an unequal and discriminatory tax by means
of unreasonable and arbitrary selection among those of the class taxed
would conflict with the provisions of the U.S Const. 5th Amendment,
by depriving the individual of property without due process of law,
or taking private property for public use without just compensation."
"The grant of power
to tax in and of itself implies the limitation that a tax must necessarily
be a common burden equally imposed upon all of the same class, owning
the same kinds of property, having the same kind of income, ding the
same acts, exercising the same privileges. [Cites omitted.]"
[Dodge v. Brady, 240 U.S.
122, 36 S.Ct. 277; 60 L.Ed. 560 (1916)]
The Washington State Supreme Court has decided that graduated
federal income taxes are unconstitutional within states of the Union
because they do not meet the requirement for uniformity. See:
Culliton v. Chase, 25 P.2d.
81 (1933)
Jensen v. Henneforc, 53 P.2d. 607 (1936)