Fordham Law Professor John Brooks, a tax law and policy expert, was quoted in a Wall Street Journal article discussing what would happen if the U.S. Supreme Court rules in President Donald Trump’s favor on tariffs.
Third, while the law never mentions tariffs, it says the president can “regulate…importation…or transactions involving any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest.” The court would thus have to agree with Trump that “regulate” includes tariffs.
If “regulate” can include tariffs, it could, according to several legal scholars, include any tax. “Any tax with foreign-policy implications would be within his authority,” said John Brooks, professor of tax law at Fordham University. “Why wouldn’t that apply to any tax he can conceive of, not just the tariffs?”
He added that as recently as last year, the Supreme Court affirmed that the Constitution treats tariffs and income taxes similarly, that is, as “indirect taxes.” It would be hard for a court to argue “there is something legally or politically different about tariffs from capital taxes, or financial-transaction taxes,” Brooks said.
Read “Tariff Case Could Give Trump Massive New Fiscal Powers” in The Wall Street Journal.