Why do laws that give penal fines or fees not specify that the amount be adjusted for inflation? For example, the United States National Firearms Act of 1934 specified that anyone wanting to buy a machine gun had to pay a $200 fee for a tax stamp. According to this inflation calculator, that was equivalent to $3274.69 today. Thus the fee has gone from a significant deterrent to legal machine gun ownership to a minor inconvenience. Rather than periodically updating fees and fines for inflation, as legislatures often do, why not specify that the fine be an amount with equivalent buying power to x amount on the date the legislation takes effect?
Australian jurisdictions have overcome this by setting fines in ”penalty units” - they then periodically revise how much a penalty unit is.
So what causes the heavy handed enforcement of US tax laws, but near-total non-enforcement of Cannabis as a Schedule 1 Federal drug? Tax Enforcement In The U.S. Is Not Particularly Heavy Handed First of all, enforcement of U.S. tax laws is not, contrary to your perception, heavy handed. In fact, tax law non-enforcement is one of the most well quantified circumstances in which there are good estimates of how often tax laws aren't enforced. For example, as of 2001, the federal income tax tax gap (i.e. the difference between taxes paid and taxes owed) was summarized as follows: About 44% of [the tax gap] ($148 billion a year) comes from income and self-employment taxes owed by closely held businesses. About 16% comes from understated non-business income (disproportionately from investment income not subject to information return requirements such as capital gains and rental income), and about 9% comes from overstated deductions, exemptions and credits. About 33% comes from other sources (mostly underreporting of corporate income taxes and employment taxes). Non-compliance rates vary greatly by type of income. About 1.2% of potential wage and salary tax revenue are not collected. About 4.5% of potential dividend, interest, pension and taxable Social Security income tax revenue are not collected. About 8.6% of potential tax revenue alimony, partnerships, S-corporations, capital gains, and overstated deductions and exemptions are not collected. And, about 53.9% of potential tax revenues from farms, rents and royalties, and sole proprietorships are not collected. The biggest factor in tax law compliance is the degree to which income appears on information returns. Taxpayers whose income isn't reported by third parties are much more likely to cheat. More than a third of returns with capital gains incorrectly report that amount of the gain. Independent contractors omit on average 17% of income not subject to information returns, but just 3% of income subject to information returns. The I.R.S. is not funded at at level that maximizes compliance. It estimates that for every additional dollar spent on enforcement, it could collect about $14 of additional tax revenues. (Source: Senate Finance Committee testimony in 2005 summarized here) Since 2001 the amount of enforcement done by the IRS has significantly declined due to reduced IRS funding. According to the U.S. Treasury Department (which includes the IRS), in 2019, the tax gap was as follows: Today, the “tax gap”—the difference between taxes that are owed and collected—totals around $600 billion annually and will mean approximately $7 trillion of lost tax revenue over the next decade. The sheer magnitude of lost revenue is striking: it is equal to 3 percent of GDP[.] While there are countries with low tax compliance (e.g. Greece and Italy) those countries have serious public finance problems as a result, and internationally, U.S. tax law enforcement is weak. See, e.g. here (quantifying tax gaps in E.U. countries and in the chart below from this source): (The U.S. estimate of 3% of GDP is not a fair comparison to these figures which include all taxes in a country, not just federal income taxes as in the U.S. figure). U.S. expats are, in part, unhappy, because U.S. citizens are taxed as a matter of substantive U.S. tax law on foreign income that many other countries do not tax their citizens upon. But, expat tax enforcement in the U.S. is hardly comprehensive and is generally speaking, less vigorous and less consistent than tax enforcement in domestic cases. Cannabis Law Enforcement In The U.S. The shorter story of cannabis law enforcement is that historically, most enforcement of marijuana laws has been by state and local governments, since federal, state and local governments had parallel and similar laws on the subject. Some localities and states deprioritized enforcement or legalized it under state or local law. The federal government did not want to spend the money to replace the state and local enforcement that ceased to be present. Several U.S. attorneys (the federal DA for a U.S. District Court District) decided to allow the state legalization experiment to proceed and to not be arbitrary in making cannabis prosecutions. When they did this they issued statements stating that they would not enforce federal cannabis laws in places where it was legalized where the violators were in compliance with state and local law and where the additional conditions imposed by federal prosecutors were met. This also reflected the fact that with state legalization, the risk of jury nullification in federal prosecutions for marijuana offenses that were legal under state law became much greater reducing the value of attempting such prosecutions. This was later rescinded (at least at the national level) but was replaced by Congressional language in appropriations bills deprioritizing such criminal enforcement and not authorizing federal funds to be spent for this purpose. CBD and hemp (which are cannabis products that are not psychoactive) have effectively been legalized nationally, although THC has not and is only tolerated at the federal level where states have legalized it. Is Prosecutorial Discretion Subject To Judicial Review? Can someone sue the DEA for refusing to enforce Cannabis laws? No. Another answer correctly cites the U.S. Supreme Court case of Town of Castle Rock vs. Gonzales as the basis for this realty. In some cases, however, individuals can bring a private cause of action against a cannabis law violator under RICO (the Racketeering And Corrupt Organizations Act) if they can show particularized damages to them from this activity. Similarly, can someone sue the IRS for heavy handed enforcement of tax laws? No. The IRS has to prove that taxes are owed, in every cases where the taxpayer contests the liability, in either tax court (prior to payment of the tax) or in U.S. District Court (after payment of the tax in a refund lawsuit). But, there is no private cause of action related to the level of enforcement of meritorious cases that the IRS can bring. That is a political decision for the Secretary of the Treasury, the President, and Congress in funding the IRS. Claims that equal protection of the laws are violated under the 14th Amendment with discriminatory enforcement choices of prosecutors and law enforcement are almost completely (although not quite entirely) barred. Certainly, such suits are not permitted in the context the question raises.
There are a number of issues here. The question mentions: Taxes, which I presume must be authorized and regulated by the US Constitution, but I don't know the details Not exactly. The states existed before the Federal government. They are not created by the Federal Constitution, nor authorized by it. A number of restrictions on state powers and actions are specified by the Federal Constitution, and a number of others are imposed by Federal law. (the Federal courts have found implied restrictions beyond the explicitly stated ones.) But there is no Federal provision granting states the power to impose taxes, only restrictions on that pre-existing power. States cannot impose taxes so as to violate rights federally guaranteed, or to place unreasonable burdens on the exercise of those rights. For example, states cannot impose different taxes or tax rates on a racial basis. States cannot impose different taxes on residents of other states temporarily present in, or doing business in the state. States cannot impose different taxes on people newly moved there from other states, compared to long-established residents. State taxes must not violate the Equal Protection clause. However, states may choose the type and amount of taxes to impose. They can use sales tax, VAT tax, property tax, income tax, excise tax, flat tax, or any combination that their legislatures pass. Different taxes may be imposed on different professions or kinds of businesses. Does the US Constitution guarantee all citizens have the natural right to conduct their own business affairs? Not as such, no. The Due Process and Equal Protection clauses limit to some extent the ability of a state to prohibit a particular business on a whim. But when a state asserts that a particular business is harmful, and demonstrates a plausible basis for that view, so that the law passes "Rational basis" review, the state can prohibit it, or heavily regulate it, or license it. If so, does a citizen lose the right to legally own and operate a business if they cannot afford requisite state or local business license fees? A state may require a license to engage in a particular occupation, and may require a fee, one-time or recurring, high or low, for that license. In addition, a tax may be imposed on those in a particular business or profession, which is not imposed on other kinds of business. For example, in many states, lawyers must pay an annual license fee, or they are not allowed to practice. So must many other regulated professions, such as hairstylist. One who cannot afford the fee may not engage in the business or profession. The state may waive or reduce fees for those too poor to afford them, but need not do so, and many states do not so so. Similarly, the state may charge a fee for a driver's license, and one who cannot pay it may not legally drive. Likewise, does a citizen lose the right to utilize the court system to petition for a redress of grievances, if they cannot afford the requisite court fees? Many states have provisions waiving or lowering court fees for those who cannot afford them, but in most cases this is applied only in severe cases, say where a person would have to go without food to afford court fees. There have been a few federal cases requiring fee waivers for those who cannot afford court fees, mostly in connection with criminal defendants. There is not currently a general federal rule requiring court access for those who cannot afford court fees. Perhaps there should be. A case could be made that Equal Protection requires this, but Federal Courts have not so held. Federal courts have held that holding people in jail or prison because they truly cannot afford fines, bail, or court fees is an unconstitutional denial of Equal Protection. But states need not waive such fees; they can be deferred and charged should the person earn enough money to (just barely) afford them. Even this rule is not yet invariably enforced, and many state courts routinely ignore it. By the way "petition for a redress of grievances" doe snot normally refer to bringing a court case, but to asking a legislature to change a law, or asking an administrator or executive to exercise permitted discretion in a particular way. And lastly, if a citizen is convicted of a crime or infraction, and the sentence requires the convict to utilize government services (e.g. prison services, probation services, registration services, etc.); under the US Constitution, can state government agencies providing these services legally require the convict to pay fees for these services (e.g. prison service fees, probation service fees, registration service fees), if these fees were not explicitly included in the sentence as fines? Yes it can impose such fees, but usually only when neither the convict nor his or her dependents will be impoverished by such fees, as I understand it. If a state attempts to pass or enforce state legislation dictating such fees, should this legislation generally be struck down as unconstitutional? Such laws will not be held unconstitutional by US Federal courts under the Federal Constitution, unless they are found to violate Equal Protection, Due Process, or other specifically imposed restrictions on the state. For example, fees which were in practice imposed on people of one religion, but not those of another, would be struck down. But a fee imposed on everyone will not usually be overturned. "The law in its majestic equality forbids the rich as well as the poor to steal bread from shops, beg in the streets, and sleep under bridges." -Anatole France
This article surveys the law, as of 2014. The answer is "yes or no, depending on which circuit". In US v. Chafin 423 F. App’x 342, the court decided that although the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms, it does not necessarily give rise to a corresponding right to sell a firearm drawing an analogy to US v. 12 200-Foot Reels of Super 8mm. Film, 413 U.S. 123 "the protected right to possess obscene material in the privacy of one's home does not give rise to a correlative right to have someone sell or give it to others". Likewise the 9th weighs in, in Montana Shooting Sports Association v. Holder, 727 F.3d 975: Heller said nothing about extending Second Amendment protection to firearm manufacturers or dealers. If anything, Heller recognized that firearms manufacturers and dealers are properly subject to regulation Contrarily, in the Northern Illinois district in Illinois Association of Firearms Retailers v. City of Chicago, the court finds in response to a ban on the sale of firearms in the city that. the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense under the Second Amendment. This right must also include the right to acquire a firearm...the ordinances are declared unconstitutional The same court in Kole v. Village of Norridge determined that the would-be operator of a gun store, thus has derivative standing to assert the subsidiary right to acquire arms on behalf of his customers both decisions relying on Ezell v. City of Chicago, 651 F.3d 684, where the city sought indirect means to encumber the exercise 2nd of Amendment rights (banning shooting ranges). The final answer will have to be made by SCOTUS, and so far there is nothing on the docket that could decide the matter. Instead, the question will be answered based on level of scrutiny for firearms regulations and whether " the government can establish that the challenged law regulates activity falling outside the scope of the right as originally understood"; and if it is not outside the scope of the 2nd Amendment, "then there must be a second inquiry into the strength of the government’s justification for restricting or regulating the exercise of Second Amendment rights".
Short Answer Would a federal tax plan that simply took the amount required to run the government and divided that amount across the states based on population and directly charged the states likely to survive a legal challenge? A federal tax plan along these lines is expressly authorized by Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 of the United States Constitution, but the federal government has never actually imposed taxes on this basis. But, this has never actually been done because there is no practical way to enforce an obligation of a state to pay a capitation tax. It has also not been done because it is politically unpopular with members of Congress from states that have a lower per capita income whose support would be necessary to pass such a tax. This is because a tax effectively imposes a higher tax rate relative to ability to pay on poor states than it does on more affluent states and there has always been a significant disparity between more affluent and less affluent states in the United States). For example, Massachusetts, the U.S. state with the highest per capita GDP ($65,545 in 2018) has more than twice the per capita GDP of Mississippi ($31,881), but would pay the same tax per capita, and, the District of Columbia, which would owe nothing under an Article I, Section 9 capitation tax had a per capita GDP of $160,472 in 2018. Instead, until the income tax was expressly authorized constitutionally in 1913, the federal government was financed mostly with customs duties and to a lesser extent some select excise taxes (also here and here), with several exceptions, some direct property taxes from 1789 to 1802; a short lived Civil War era income tax on the very affluent (1861-1872), which was reimposed briefly from 1894-1895 before being declared unconstitutional; and some estate taxes, either on the theory that they were excise taxes, or in parallel to the income taxes, until the 16th Amendment's authorization of the federal income tax was found to extend to authorization for federal gift and estate taxation. As noted here from 1789 to 1860: Customs duties as set by tariff rates up to 1860 were usually about 80–95% of all federal revenue. Thus, customs duties were as dominant a source of revenue for the federal government for roughly the first third of the history of the United States, as income and payroll taxes are today. I have tried to find examples of direct taxation of the states[.] While what you mean is clear, to avoid confusion, it is important to understand that the phrase &quot;direct taxes&quot; is used in the U.S. Constitution to mean taxes that are imposed directly upon individuals, businesses and private property. The &quot;direct taxation of the states&quot; to which you refer is a form of indirect taxation. Long Answer Sources Most of the discussion in this answer which are not specifically referenced with links or citations to the United States Constitution, is based upon a political science textbook entitled &quot;Congress&quot; that I used in college, an introductory federal income taxation textbook I used as a law school student, and an estate taxation textbook that I used to teach estate taxation when I was a professor for a financial planning program for master's degree students. All are hard copies for which no internet link to the materials themselves is available. Applicable Constitutional Law The United States Constitution (which took effect in 1789) has several provisions related to the federal government's power and the power of the states, respectively to impose taxes: Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 states: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; Imposts and duties are taxes on imports into the United States, while excises are “taxes on the manufacture, sale, or consumption of goods, or upon licenses to pursue certain occupations, or upon corporate privileges[.]&quot; Among the taxes that aren't &quot;imposts, duties or excises&quot; are income taxes, payroll taxes, gift taxes, estate taxes. For constitutional purposes, payroll taxes, gift taxes, and estate taxes are considered forms of income taxes. It isn't entirely clear if a general sales tax of the kind adopted by most U.S. states, or a value added tax, is a constitutional excise tax or income tax, as this question has never been tested (such taxes, when collected in the District of Columbia or Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands by &quot;local governments&quot; fall under the power of the federal government to govern federal territory rather than the taxation power of Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 and the 16th Amendment). Until 1802 (i.e. for the first 13 years of the current constitution), Congress imposed what amounted to property taxes of various kinds under its excise tax power, but the constitutional validity of these taxes has never been established definitively before they were repealed and those taxes have never been reinstated. Imposes, duties and excises could be imposed directly by the federal government on private citizens, so long as they were uniform, while &quot;taxes&quot; prior to 1913, were subject to Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 discussed below. Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution which was in effect until 1808 when importing slaves was banned stated that a customs duty could be imposed on imported slaves: The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person. Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 of the U.S. Constitution states that: No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken. The only &quot;tax&quot; other than imposts, duties and excises that could be imposed by the federal government at uniform national rates prior to 1913, was a &quot;capitation&quot; tax imposed directly upon state governments, in proportion to the most recent census. But, no such such capitation tax was ever imposed upon the states. Congress clearly had and still does have the power to impose such a tax, but it didn't and it still doesn't, for political reasons and for reasons of the enforceability of such a tax. Wikipedia notes that: The United States government levied direct taxes from time to time during the 18th and early 19th centuries. It levied direct taxes on the owners of houses, land, slaves and estates in the late 1790s but cancelled the taxes in 1802. And, none of these direct taxes were capitation taxes. The main reason that this wasn't done is that even though these kinds of taxes were mandatory under the Constitution of the United States adopted in 1789, unlike the 1776 Articles of Confederation which did not have any enforcement mechanism to make states pay their share, enforcement of a capitation tax on states was still impractical in reality. This is because state governments do not have income or property that is amenable to being seized for payment of taxes in a manner that prevents mass chaos from breaking out (e.g. if the federal government tried to seize a state capitol building or court house for failing to pay its federal capitation tax). Instead, the premise of a capitation tax is that states will use their taxation power to impose taxes upon their citizens, businesses and the private property in their jurisdiction and then would hand over some of those tax receipts to the federal government until the state's quota for the year, set by Congress, was met. But, since there is no really viable democratic way for a federal court to direct a state legislature to impose and collect any particular kind of taxes to raise those funds, this nominally mandatory tax obligation of the states was economically and legally impotent, and was still mandatory in name only. The other problem with a capitation tax is that for almost all of the time period prior to 1913, there was a great disparity between the per capita GDP of the various U.S. states. For the vast majority of that time period, the commerce and industry of the north (powered to a great extent by hydro power prior to the widespread adoption of coal as a fossil fuel) produced much higher GDP per capita than the agricultural economies of the South, particularly because the infamous &quot;three-fifths compromise&quot; that gave the South Congressional representation based in part upon the number of slaves who lived there (30% or more of the population of many states) did not apply to capitation taxes. After the Civil War, what little commerce, industry and infrastructure that the South had had going in the war was massively degraded, and the population of able bodied men of prime working age was greatly reduced, rendering the South even more poor relative to the North. Even in the heyday of Reconstruction, capitation taxes were not imposed because it was obvious that the South could not afford to pay any significant share of its obligations on that basis. Thus, the South was mostly poorer per capita to start with, and had a higher share of capitation taxes than it did of Congressional seats and electoral votes, which was not a recipe for building Congressional support for a major new tax. Because some Southern political support was necessary to impose new taxes for most of U.S. history and because capitation taxes demanded more taxes relative to ability to pay from Southern states than from Northern one (as customs taxes already did to a lesser extent), these taxes never had the political support needed to be adopted by Congress. Article I, Section 9, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution states that: No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State. So custom's duties can be imposed on imports of goods to the United States, but not on exports of goods from the United States. This isn't a big deal today, where only a tiny portion of federal revenues come from customs duties, but it was a big deal prior to the U.S. Civil War. Historically, this limitation was enacted mostly to prevent the North from burdening the export oriented cash crop agriculture (mostly tobacco and cotton) of the Southern states. Article I, Section 10, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution states that: No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Control of the Congress. Many people are surprised to learn that states have a right to impose both import and export duties. But, since they can collect no more than the cost of carrying out their inspection laws and must turn the balance of any such revenues over to the federal government, there is no incentive for states to have significant taxes of this type. The &quot;weigh stations&quot; found on major highways for large trucks, which are mostly used to gather data used to allocate registration fees for trucks among the states based upon economic reality, are the main practical residuary impact of this constitutional provision. The 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution ratified in 1913 states that: The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. The power of Congress to impose federal income and payroll taxes encompasses employees of state and local governments, as well as private sector employees, even though this means that state and local governments have to file federal withholding tax returns on a regular basis. But, state and local governments are not taxed on their own income (just like other non-profits) and state and local governments are allowed to establish state and/or local employee retirement systems in lieu of FICA taxation on its employees for employees who participate in those programs. State and local governments are also not subject to FUTA (federal unemployment taxes). FUTA taxes are in any case de minimis because state unemployment taxes are a credit against federal unemployment taxes dollar for dollar except for a very small minimum per employee FUTA tax (0.6% of the first $7,000 per year of wages for each employee, for a maximum FUTA tax of $42 per year per employee in most cases), because state unemployment taxes are almost always higher than federal FUTA taxes. Historically, some tax policy makers believed that it was unconstitutional to tax interest from municipal bonds (a.k.a. bonds issues by state and local governments) for federalism reasons. But, case law starting in the late 20th century established that the exclusion of municipal bond interest from taxation is strictly a statutory feature of the Internal Revenue Code and does not have a constitutional dimension. In other words, it is constitutional for the federal government to tax all income derived from municipal bonds, even though it declines to do so for municipal bonds that meet a variety of federal tax law tests. The History of U.S. Taxation From 1789 until 1860, the tax revenue of the United States government (as opposed to the states) came predominantly from customs duties on imports and from some select excise taxes (e.g. on alcohol), and in into the mid-1800s with revenues from federal property such as grazing rights and mineral rights, and federal enterprises (mostly the U.S. Postal Service and profits from manufacturing coins and currency). During the U.S. Civil War, the scope of federal government activities grew dramatically and these were ultimately paid for with an income tax and an estate tax were imposed briefly over constitutional objections but were repealed shortly thereafter, with increased customs duties and excise tax rates, and with confiscation of Confederate property. (The timing was financed with Treasury bonds issued to support the war.) After the Civil War the scope of U.S. federal government activity returned to pre-war levels, and only started to ramp up again with the Progressive era in the early 1900s followed by World War I, which were financed with the newly authorized federal income tax and an estate tax, at quite low rates by modern standards. Per the same Wikipedia link referenced above: Until a United States Supreme Court decision in 1895, all income taxes were deemed to be excises (i.e., indirect taxes). The Revenue Act of 1861 established the first income tax in the United States, to pay for the cost of the American Civil War. This income tax was abolished after the war, in 1872. Another income tax statute in 1894 was overturned in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan &amp; Trust Co. in 1895, where the Supreme Court held that income taxes on income from property, such as rent income, interest income, and dividend income (however excepting income taxes on income from &quot;occupations and labor&quot; if only for the reason of not having been challenged in the case, &quot;We have considered the act only in respect of the tax on income derived from real estate, and from invested personal property&quot;) were to be treated as direct taxes. Because the statute in question had not apportioned income taxes on income from property by population, the statute was ruled unconstitutional. So, income taxes had been adjudicated by the Courts to be unconstitutional from 1895 to 1913. Federal income tax withholding taxes are younger than the federal income tax which initially applied with any bite only to very high income individuals (rhetorically, if not mathematically, the equivalent of today's &quot;one percenters&quot;), although the income tax base had widened greatly by the end of the New Deal through World War II and its aftermath. The U.S. federal government didn't begin to approach its modern scale of activity until the New Deal following the Great Depression in the 1930s, which was financed with very high income taxes and estate taxes, high customs duties such as the Smooth-Hawley tariffs imposed not long after the crash of 1929 (which were so high that they reduced customs revenue rather than increasing it), and newly imposed payroll taxes. Information tax return reporting (the infamous Form 1099), which dramatically improved income tax collection rates beyond mere wage and salary withholding, was a late 20th century innovation that was adopted based upon the recommendation of free market economist Milton Friedman. Since the 16th Amendment was adopted, the federal income tax (and later federal payroll taxes on certain kinds of income) became the dominant source of income in short order, with customs duties and excise taxes and other forms of government rents and enterprise income (including income from the Federal Reserve also created before the New Deal in the early 1900s) came to be comparatively insignificant sources of income for the federal government. One notable exception was that the excise tax on gasoline and other petroleum based fuels, established as a de facto users fee and significant source of revenue to finance the Interstate State Highway system starting in the Eisenhower Administration, did create a significant source of new excise tax revenues. Federally owned oil and gas mineral interests also became a much more important source of federal revenues after World War II. The automobile had been invented and entered mass production in the early 1900s, but just as the internal combustion engine started to prevail over electric cars at that time and mass production took hold with Ford's Model T bringing some cars and trucks into upper middle class households and into use by businesses and farms, the Great Depression and World War II dramatically reduced private personal consumption, so for the two decades from about 1929 until the several years after World War II that it took to convert factories from war production to civilian peacetime production, the automobile industry's private sector sales were greatly suppressed, domestic civilian road and bridge construction came to a near halt during World War II as government funds were diverted to the war effort, and domestic oil consumption was likewise suppressed. Footnote On Collecting Debts From State And Local Governments In General The same issue comes up at the state level when a court awards a money judgment against a state or local government with taxing power, or holds that a state government has insufficiently funded education as required by a state constitution. Generally, in those cases, a legislative body has to authorize the appropriation &quot;voluntarily&quot; from whatever source of funds it choses to impose, and usually, when push comes to shove, state and local governments do pay the judgments they owe (there are limited federal bankruptcy options for municipalities and states), although there are instances of state governments stubbornly refusing to take the actions necessary to comply with court orders directing that public schools be funded for many, many years. For the most part, however, because enforcing debts against state governments is so difficult, transactions are structured as much as possible to prevent the need to enforce debts in that way through (1) legal limitations on governmental liability, (2) legislative budget rules requiring interest on debt and currently due principal payments to be made first, (3) third-party bonding of state and local governmental construction projects, (4) the creation of publicly owned corporations whose debts can only be collected out of the corporation's assets and revenues, and (5) avoidance of trade credit obligations by paying bills in cash. In connection with the legal limitations on liability, it is also worth noting that, as a general rule, state governments cannot be sued for money damages in any federal court other than the U.S. Supreme Court without their permission, and cannot be sued in the U.S. Supreme Court except by the United States government or another state government or perhaps by another country. So, when a money judgment is entered against a state government (which does not include local governments for this purpose) this happens only with multiple layers of state government consent to the process and the exact source and timing of the appropriation to pay it. When push comes to shove, as they did in California a few years back when it couldn't make payroll, it forced its employees and creditors to accept IOUs in lieu of cash payments, and while they may not have the legal right to do so, they have the economic power to force people to ignore that right.
It is the job of the judge to instruct the jury about the law. If Texas had pattern instructions I'd look up what the instruction is for this matter, but you don't, so I don't know what the judge would say. But it is the judge's sole prerogative to instruct the jury in the law. If the question is a "commitment question", then it is an improper question and should be disallowed, see Stendefer v. State. The question "Would you presume someone guilty if he or she refused a breath test on their refusal alone?" is such a commitment question, and is disallowed. Similarly, "If the evidence, in a hypothetical case, showed that a person was arrested and they had a crack pipe in their pocket, and they had a residue amount in it, and it could be measured, and it could be seen, is there anyone who could not convict a person, based on that" (Atkins v. State, 951 S.W.2d 787). An improper commitment question could be of the type "could you refrain...": Let us assume that you are considering in the penalty phase of any capital murder case, okay? And some of the evidence that has come in shows that the victim's family was greatly impacted and terribly grieved and greatly harmed by the facts․Can you assure us that the knowledge of those facts would not prevent you or substantially impair you in considering a life sentence in such a case (Penry v. State, 903 S.W.2d 715). One way in which a commitment question can be legal is if it asks basically "can you uphold the law?", for example "can you consider probation in a murder case?", or "are you willing to consider mitigating circumstances". The wrong answer to those questions will lead to a for-cause dismissal. The third question is flagrantly improper, the first is rather improper, and the second probably is. If the question can be framed in terms of a candidate's willingness to follow the law, then it should be legal.
The core principle of stare decisis is that the law should not depend on what judge you got; two cases with the same facts should have the same outcome. In the common-law tradition, there weren't really written statutes; there was only "what's been done in the past," and so the only reference you'd have to what the law should be in some situation is past court decisions. If judges didn't have some constraints to rule similarly to before, there really wouldn't be any legal standards (because there was no written law to go back to; in civil-law countries, there always has been a written law, so precedent isn't so important). Stare decisis doesn't actually directly stop a judge from entering a decision that goes against binding precedent. However, judges are expected to obey precedent, and for the most part do what they're supposed to do. If they don't, the case will likely be reversed on appeal. Binding precedent only applies within the area a court serves; a court doesn't have to listen to precedent from a different court that has nothing to do with the case. The rule is that precedent from any court up the appeals chain is binding; federal district courts are bound by their circuit court and SCOTUS, state courts are bound by higher state courts and SCOTUS (but not other federal courts, as the case can't be appealed to them). A court can sometimes overrule its own precedent, but the cases where it can do that are rare (and so applying a higher court's precedent can also be viewed as "if you appeal to them they'll say X, so we're saying X.")
If the situation described is accurate, then maybe First, let's deal with the implicit assumption that sales tax is not payable on gifts. Whether that is true or not depends on the law in your jurisdiction. For example, in australia there is no Goods and Services Tax (GST) payable on a gift because a gift is not a &quot;supply&quot; under the law. Technically, a value-added tax like the GST is not a sales tax but close enough. However, exchanging a &quot;gift&quot; for something of value (airline points, for example) is not a gift. Of course, Australian States and Territories levy Stamp Duty on the transfer of a vehicle's registration, and this is calculated on the sale price or the market price whichever is the greater. Also, technically, that's not a sales tax either. If it's a tax avoidance scheme, then no and it's a crime Assuming that there is no sales tax payable on a gift; if John and David entered into this arrangement (not a contract because of its illegal purpose) to avoid tax, then tax is payable and they are now criminals. If the relevant tax authority learns what happened and decides to investigate, then John and David might have some explaining to do. If David can show that he has routinely given John large cash gifts on John's birthday, then they may convince the authority not to prosecute. If they can't, then they get to try to convince a judge. It is not atypical for tax law to reverse the onus of proof: the government doesn't have to prove tax is payable, John and Dave have to prove it isn't.