Notwithstanding the authorization contained in the Sixteenth Amendment to tax income "from whatever source derived," Congress has been held not to be precluded thereby from granting exemptions.[40] Thus, the fact that "under the Revenue Acts of 1913, 1916, 1917, and 1918, stock fire insurance companies were taxed * * * upon gains realized from the sale * * * of property accruing subsequent to March 1, 1913," but were not so taxed by the Revenue Acts of 1921, 1924, and 1926, did not prevent Congress, under the terms of the Revenue Act of 1928, from taxing all the gain attributable to increase in value after March 1, 1913 which such a company realized from a sale of property in 1928. The constitutional power of Congress to tax a gain being well established, Congress, was declared competent to choose "the moment of its realization and the amount realized"; and "its failure to impose a tax upon the increase in value in the earlier years * * * [could not] preclude it from taxing the gain in the year when realized * * *"[41] Congress is equally well equipped with the "power to condition, limit, or deny deductions from gross incomes in order to arrive at the net that it chooses to tax."[42] Accordingly, even though the rental value of a building used by its owner does not constitute income within the meaning of the amendment,[43] Congress was competent to provide that an insurance company shall not be entitled to deductions for depreciation, maintenance, and property taxes on real estate owned and occupied by it unless it includes in its computation of gross income the rental value of the space thus used.[44]
In United States v. Sullivan[45] the Court held, in 1927, that gains derived from illicit traffic in liquor were taxable income under the Act of 1921.[46] Said Justice Holmes for the unanimous Court: "We see no reason * * * why the fact that a business is unlawful should exempt it from paying the taxes that if lawful it would have to pay."[47] But in Commissioner v. Wilcox,[48] decided in 1946, Justice Murphy, speaking for a majority of the Court, held that embezzled money was not taxable income to the embezzler, although any gain he derived from the use of it would be. Justice Burton dissented on the basis of the Sullivan Case. In Rutkin v. United States,[49] decided in 1952, a sharply divided Court cuts loose from the metaphysics of the Wilcox case and holds that Congress has the power under Amendment XVI to tax as income monies received by an extortioner.
Notes
[1] Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429 (1895); 158 U.S. 601 (1895).
[2] 28 Stat. 509.
[3] The Court conceded that taxes on Incomes from "professions, trades, employments, or vocations" levied by this act were excise taxes and therefore valid. The entire statute, however, was voided on the ground that Congress never intended to permit the entire "burden of the tax to be borne by professions, trades, employments, or vocations" after real estate and personal property had been exempted. 158 U.S. 601, 635 (1895).
[4] Springer v. United States, 102 U.S. 586 (1881).
[5] 13 Stat. 223 (1864).