TAXATION-POWER TO DETERMINE INCOME TAX RATE OF HUSBAND ON BASIS OF COMBINED INCOME OF HUSBAND AND WIFE

Authors

Abstract

The plaintiff and his wife had separate incomes and estates. The Wisconsin income tax law provided that married persons living together might make separate returns, but that the tax rate should be that rate which would apply had their incomes been combined in a single return. Wis Stat., 1927, c. 71.05 (2) (d), c. 71.09(4) (c). Income tax rates, under the Wisconsin law, are graduated according to the size of the income. Married women are given equal property and contract rights with men under the Wisconsin statutes. The plaintiff, protesting against payment of a higher rate than that prescribed for incomes the size of his separate income, brought suit to recover part of the tax collected. The Wisconsin supreme court sustained the levy. An appeal was taken from In re Hoeper, 202 Wis. 493, 233 N. W. 100 (1930). Held, collection of a tax, computed as the statute provides, violates the Fourteenth Amendment. A state has no power to fix the tax rate, not by the individual's income, but, in part, by the income of another. The fact that such a procedure is necessary to prevent evasions cannot in itself justify an otherwise unconstitutional levy. Mr. Justice Holmes was joined by Justices Brandeis and Stone in a dissenting opinion. Hoeper v. Tax Com. (U.S. 1931) 52 Sup. Ct. 120, 76 L. ed. 145.

Recommended Citation

TAXATION-POWER TO DETERMINE INCOME TAX RATE OF HUSBAND ON BASIS OF COMBINED INCOME OF HUSBAND AND WIFE, 30 Mich. L. Rev. 810 (1932).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol30/iss5/29