To: lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com From: "eichraoren" <eichraoren at yahoo com> Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 14:53:43 -0000 Subject: [lpaz-discuss] Re:Taxpayer Bill of Rights & Corporations As found at Original Article This is the text of the 1886 Supreme Court decision granting corporations the same rights as living persons under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Quoting from David Korten's The Post-Corporate World, Life After Capitalism (pp.185-6): In 1886, . . . in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a private corporation is a person and entitled to the legal rights and protections the Constitutions affords to any person. Because the Constitution makes no mention of corporations, it is a fairly clear case of the Court's taking it upon itself to rewrite the Constitution. Far more remarkable, however, is that the doctrine of corporate personhood, which subsequently became a cornerstone of corporate law, was introduced into this 1886 decision without argument. According to the official case record, Supreme Court Justice Morrison Remick Waite simply pronounced before the beginning of arguement in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company that The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does. The court reporter duly entered into the summary record of the Court's findings that The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteen Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Thus it was that a two-sentence assertion by a single judge elevated corporations to the status of persons under the law, prepared the way for the rise of global corporate rule, and thereby changed the course of history. The doctrine of corporate personhood creates an interesting legal contradiction. The corporation is owned by its shareholders and is therefore their property. If it is also a legal person, then it is a person owned by others and thus exists in a condition of slavery -- a status explicitly forbidden by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. So is a corporation a person illegally held in servitude by its shareholders? Or is it a person who enjoys the rights of personhood that take precedence over the presumed ownership rights of its shareholders? So far as I have been able to determine, this contradiction has not been directly addressed by the courts. This file is mirrored from: http://laws.findlaw.com/us/118/394.html --- In lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com, "Kent Van Cleave" <kvc@t...> wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Terry > To: lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com > Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2005 12:51 AM > Subject: Re: [lpaz-discuss] Fwd: [WesternLibertarian] Fwd: Taxpayer Bill of Rights--Meeting Feb. 24 > > > Other graphs show that since the early part of the 19th century, the > income tax burden has shifted from corporations at 100% to individuals > at over 84% today. In addition, even though corporate receipts are > nearly 3 times greater than individual receipts, individuals receive the > lions share of IRS audit & enforcement attention. > > Other graphs break down enforcement activity by region along with > comparing the different categories of initiated enforcement activity > against successful prosecutions. > > Interesting stuff. > > > ------------ > > Interesting indeed. A corporate income tax would seem a reasonable trade-off for the limited liability that otherwise gives corporations an advantage over their unincorporated competition (those who accept responsibility for their actions). Furthermore, since corporations aren't persons, there's no violation of "corporate rights" involved with such an arrangement. That's the sort of taxation I could live with. > > Kent > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]