A key subject in Moore v. United States is whether or not revenue needs to be realized to be taxable. An amicus transient within the case was filed by Professors of linguistics who did a 1913 search of using the phrases “income” and “derived” from the Sixteenth Modification and located that overwhelmingly People thought revenue needs to be realized to be taxable. The net dictionary of etymology concurs as follows:
On-line Etymological Dictionary:
revenue (n.)
- 1300, “entrance, arrival,” actually “a coming in;” see in(adv.) + come(v.). Maybe a noun use of the late Outdated English verb incuman “come in, enter.” That means “money made through business or labor” (i.e., “that which ‘comes in’ as payment for work or business”) first recorded c. 1600. Evaluate German einkommen “income,” Swedish inkomst. Revenue tax is from 1790, launched in Britain in the course of the Napoleonic wars, re-introduced 1842; in U.S. levied by the federal authorities 1861-72, licensed on a nationwide stage in 1913.
additionally from c. 1300
The USA ought to lose this case. Revenue actually has to “come in” earlier than it’s taxable each because the phrase was utilized in 1913 and based mostly on its etymology.