Amendment, Sixteenth

Amendment to the US Constitution, ratified in 1913, that guarantees the right of the federal government to levy income taxes.

Court cases dating back to the Civil War had conflicting outcomes about the legality of a federal income tax. In 1894, Congress passed an income tax law, but the following year the US Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in the case Pollock v. Farmer's Loan and Trust. With the financial security of the nation under threat, the Sixteenth Amendment reversed the Supreme Court decision.