Will Federal excise tax on new guns and ammunition be ruled unconstitutional?

C

Crosshair

New member
OK, here in the US we currently have a 10% excise tax on new handgun sales, and an 11% excise tax on new long gun and ammunition sales.

Now it seems that Heller will go in our favor, only variable is the wording of the ruling. Could we use DC v. Heller (2nd amendment is an individual right) and Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (Taxing a right, specifically poll taxes in this case, is unconstitutional.) to remove these double digit taxes from the US code? A 10% tax can be quite high for some people, thus why poll taxes were declared unconstitutional. By the same logic, could we argue that these Federal excise taxes are unconstitutional?

Just wondering if I am missing something or if I am onto something.
 
dream on

Federal excise taxes are here to stay. If anything there are going to be more of them added every year by the Feds and the States. It is the trend: reduce income taxes and come back with excise taxes claiming those only affect the users/purchasers and not everyone.


Poll taxes were eliminated becasue it was a way to stop you from excercising your right to vote. You can always make your own firearms and produce your own ammo.
 
One thing to remember is that, at least, some of the excise goes to habitat for game animals and birds. Some other goes to hunter training, and range development.

http://www.alabamawildlifeadvocates.org/PittmanRobertsonAct.html
In 1937, Congress passed the Federal Aid in Wildlife Resoration Act, better known as the Pittman-Robertson Act. This law placed an 11 percent excise tax on rifles, shotguns and ammunition.

In 1970, Congress amended the act to include a 10 percent tax on handguns and archery equipment.

Like hunting license fees, Pittman-Robertson revenues do not go into the general treasury; they go directly to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service where,
by law, they must be apportioned to the states according to a formula that depends on the amount of land a state has set aside for conservation purposes and the number of hunting licenses the state sells.
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I get a giggle out of using an anti-hunting site as that source. :D

That said, I do believe that there is a question on the Constitutionality of the taxes.

Pops
 
I can't see how.

US Constitution, Article I, Sec. 8:

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States...."

If the tax on handguns is an excise tax (which is how the original poster described it,) that is pretty much that.

As for Harper, note that the decision came after the passing of the 24th amendment (which barred the use of poll taxes in federal elections; Harper itself applied to poll taxes used in state elections,) and further that the poll taxes themselves were being used in a discriminatory way.

I just don't see how an excise tax applied to all firearms/ammunition for all citizens would be unconstitutional.
 
There are taxes on pens and computers... does that affect the first amendment?


I do see maybe attacking 922r because "sporting use" would not be the only way to measure a firearms importability.

However if the taxes are unduly burdensome thus preventing people from buying a firearm, then you may have something. Like that ammo serial numbering, it would force you to pay a fee to use your right (if reloading is restricted).
 
It should be illegal to tax a right.

There should be no taxes.

The government should run strictly on donations by the people. That is your budget you work with.

Look at the millions of dollars Americans donate to charitable organizations.

If the government was forced to live on the donations of its citizens, do you think it would be pissing away billions of dollars a year on wars? Do you think it would spend $2500 on a $12 stapler?
 
There are taxes on pens and computers... does that affect the first amendment?
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There is a difference. Those taxes are general sales taxes. Perfectly reasonable and OK to have them. I pay sales tax if I am buying a computer, a set of dinnerware, a ream of paper, a new sofa, or pens. I do not have to pay a 10% excise tax on pens and an 11% excise tax on paper IN ADDITION to the 6.75% sales tax.

Actually, this issue was brought before the Supreme court as well. On March 29, 1983 the SCOTUS ruled in favor the Appellant in Minneapolis Star v. Minnesota Commissioner of Revenue. The case was about a state tax on paper and ink used in newspaper publication. The Minneapolis Star & Tribune Company argued that this unfairly targeted the press and was a violation of the 1st amendment. The Supreme court agreed.

Minneapolis Star v. Minnesota Commissioner of Revenue

The ruling found that state tax systems cannot treat the press differently than any other business unless substantial justification exists. The state of Minnesota could demonstrate no compelling reason to justify imposing a special use tax on a select few newspaper publishers. Therefore, the tax was in violation of the First Amendment's Press Clause. The ruling was unique in subjecting state laws to strict scrutiny based on mere potential for censorship.
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Replace "the press" with "gun and ammo manufacturers" and "First Amendment's Press Clause" with "Second Amendment" as well as a few bits and you would have a good argument against it.
It should be illegal to tax a right.
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I see where you are going and it is good for you to make me justify my view.

It isn't illegal to tax a right. However it is illegal to pass a tax that SPECIFICALLY targets a right. A general sales tax on all new products, guns and ammo included, OK. A hidden excise tax that only applies to guns and ammunition, not OK.

We have the right to freedom of movement. A general tax on gasoline is OK. A tax for leaving and reentering your home state would be illegal. The SCOTUS defined freedom of movement in Paul v. Virginia as "right of free ingress into other States, and egress from them."

As for "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States...." in the US constitution. The above court cases have established that there are limits in HOW the government can levy taxes.

Poll taxes were eliminated becasue it was a way to stop you from excercising your right to vote. You can always make your own firearms and produce your own ammo.
Click to expand...

Ah, the same could have been said in "Minneapolis Star v. Minnesota Commissioner of Revenue". The state could have said, "You don't HAVE to buy paper and ink, you could always make your own."

That statement also has the same flaw as poll taxes. To make your own firearms requires significant amounts of money. Money that only the well off can afford. The poor could never afford such things. Same could be said about a reloading setup. What if the excise tax was 50%, 100%?

I'm not trying to be snarky or anything. Just poking and prodding everyones brains to see what we all come up with.:D
 
Minneapolis Star concerned a special State excise tax that was applied only to certain products involved in the functioning of the press. In addition to the First Amendment being incorporated to the states via the XIV Amendment, there exists a whole host of precedent concerning regulations and taxation of that press.

None of those issues, however, have anything to do with the U.S. Congress' Article I power to levy an excise tax on any product that it wants to -- including firearms and ammunition manufacturers.

And, all of this is premature in a much larger sense: the Court has not ruled in Heller. We really don't know what it's going to say because it has not spoken yet. Even if it did find an individual right in the II Amendment, and even if it incorporated that right to the States, I STILL don't see how the federal excise tax would be unconstitutional. Congress clearly has the power to levy excise taxes. If that wasn't enough, it also has the power to discipline the militia (U.S. Const. Art. I, sec. 8), implying that regulation from Washington might be acceptable on this issue in a way that it may not be for other industries. And further, there is absolutely no precedent concerning a special Constitutional protection for the gun industry as there is for the press. If I were a betting man, I'd say that the Court would not find anything Constitutionally suspect with the excise tax.

Your energies and money would be more profitably spent in lobbying Congress to repeal the tax rather than trying to achieve your goal by judicial fiat.


(DISCLAIMER: None of this is legal advice. If you want legal advice, hire and consult your own attorney.)
 
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