16th Amendment
Sixteenth Amendment
Ratified February 3, 1913
Verbatim
Exact text as ratified.
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.
Plain English
A translation that drops archaic words but keeps the meaning, including the parts courts still argue about.
Congress has the power to tax incomes from any source, without apportioning the tax among the states based on population, and without regard to any census.
About
The Sixteenth Amendment was ratified on February 3, 1913. It overruled the Supreme Court's decision in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. (1895), which had held that a federal income tax was unconstitutional because it was a "direct tax" that had to be apportioned among the states by population. Apportionment by population is impossible for an income tax — different states have different income levels — so the Pollock ruling effectively prevented Congress from taxing income. The Sixteenth Amendment removed this obstacle by exempting income taxes from the apportionment requirement.
The federal income tax is the largest single source of federal revenue. The amendment did not create the income tax — Congress did that through legislation — but it removed the constitutional barrier that had blocked an effective federal income tax for nearly two decades.