Child Labor Tax Law example essay topic

Child Labor Tax Case No. 657, Bailey vs. Drexel Furniture Co. Citation 259 U.S. 20 (1922). The case was argued March 8, 1922, and decided on May 15, 1922. This case asks the question of the constitutional amendment of the Child Labor Tax Law. Drexel Furniture Co., the plaintiff, was a manufacture of furniture in the Western District of North Carolina.

On the day of September 20, 1921, Drexel received a notice from Bailey. Bailey was the United States collector of internal revenue for the district. Drexel had been charged $6312.79 in 1919 due to the fact that he had employed or allowed a boy less than 14 years of age to work in his factory. Along with that he was charged an extra ten percent on its profit for that year. Drexel paid the tax under protest, after asking for a refund, they brought this suit.

Congress enacted the Revenue Act of 1919, also known as the Child Labor Tax Law, to exercise the taxing power of congress. With this law, companies that have employed and children under the age of 14 years old would be charged ten percent of the company's annual profit. This act is to provide revenue for other purposes. This act title is "Tax on Employment of Child Labor". It starts with section 1200 and includes 8 sections. The Constitutional question of this case was decided under the Tenth Amendment.

Did Congress violate the Constitution by adopting the Child Labor Tax Law in order to attempt to regulate the employment of children, which is a power reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment? In Sec. 1200, it states that every person operating any mine or excavation located in the United States in which children under the age of sixteen years have been employed or allowed to work during any part of the taxable year; or any mill, factory, or manufacturing establishment situated in the United States in which children under the age of fourteen years have been employed or permitted to work, or children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen have been employed or permitted to work more than eight hours in any day or more than six days in any week, or after the hour of seven o'clock post meridian, or before the hour of six o'clock ante meridian, during any portion of the taxable year, shall pay for each taxable year, in addition to all other taxes imposed by law, an excise tax equivalent to 10 per centum of the entire net profits received or accrued for such year from the sale or disposition of the product of such mine, quarry, mill, cannery, workshop, factory, or manufacturing establishment' (web U.S. Supreme Court). The courts decided Yes. The Court found that the Child Labor Tax Law was violating the Constitution as it intruded on the power of states to accept and put into effect child labor codes. Chief Justice Taft argued that the tax law did much more than simply imposes a "small restraint" but exerted a "prohibitory and rigid effect" in an area over which Congress had no influence.

Taft feared that keeping this law would destroy state sovereignty and destroy "all constitutional control of the powers of Congress" by allowing it to cover up any future regulatory legislation in the cover up of taxes. I agree with the courts because the power of the states must never be violated. If they were to be violated, then the Congress would eventually over run the states powers. The powers that are given to the states are designed so that the state can regulate what takes place within it. Therefore the Congress should never interfere with the states powers.