Moore v. United States

Questions presented

SCOTUS records, cert granted 26 Jun 2023

The Sixteenth Amendment authorizes Congress to lay "taxes on incomes ... without apportionment among the several States." Beginning with Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189 (1920), this Court's decisions have uniformly held "income," for Sixteenth Amendment purposes, to require realization by the taxpayer. In the decision below, however, the Ninth Circuit approved taxation of a married couple on earnings that they undisputedly did not realize but were instead retained and reinvested by a corporation in which they are minority shareholders. It held that "realization of income is not a constitutional requirement" for Congress to lay an "income" tax exempt from apportionment. App.12. In so holding, the Ninth Circuit became "the first court in the country to state that an 'income tax' doesn't require that a 'taxpayer has realized income."' App.38 (Bumatay, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc). The question presented is: Whether the Sixteenth Amendment authorizes Congress to tax unrealized sums without apportionment among the states.

Opinion summary

Etalia.ai summary of the majority opinion

The case addressed the constitutionality of a provision in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which imposed a one-time mandatory repatriation tax on U.S. shareholders' foreign earnings that had not been previously taxed by the United States. The plaintiffs, Charles and Kathleen Moore, argued that this tax violated the Constitution's Apportionment Clause because it was effectively a direct tax without apportionment among states based on population. The Supreme Court upheld the law, ruling that Congress has broad authority to regulate taxes under its power to lay and collect taxes as outlined in Article I of the Constitution. The decision emphasized precedent allowing for flexibility in taxation methods concerning income derived from international sources or investments abroad.