Income Subject to Taxation

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.

Annotations

Building upon definitions formulated in cases construing the Corporation Tax Act of 1909,¹⁴ the Court initially described income as the “gain derived from capital, from labor, or from both combined,” inclusive of the “profit gained through a sale or conversion of capital assets”;¹⁵ in the following array of factual situations it subsequently applied this definition to achieve results that have been productive of extended controversy.