Back in April, when the Supreme Court denied certiorari for Murphy v. IRS, a lot of people were upset. Whistleblowers and other civil rights leaders knew that the DC Court of Appeals’ terrible opinion (ruling that the 16th Amendment of the Constitution gives government the power to tax court-awarded compensatory damages as if they were income) was a slap in the face to victims of discrimination. We knew that this ruling would be a disincentive for people to blow the whistle or report civil rights violations.
We are finding out that we aren’t the only ones who disagreed with the decision. There are a lot of scholars out there who feel that income tax itself is illegal under the Sixteenth Amendment, and they are speaking up as well. One of these individuals is a state representative from Ohio named Phil Hart, who wrote this article on the Murphy decision. Although Mr. Hart disagrees with the DC court for different reasons than the whistleblower/civil rights community, his article rightly points out how the "Murphy Court" disgracefully bowed to political pressure when they flip-flopped from their original decision (which was in favor of Ms. Murphy) to a more pro-government stance.