The 16th Amendment is just that... and Amendment to the Constitution.  It is just as much the law as every other part of the Constitution.  It clearly makes the graduated income tax constitutional.  You don't want to argue the law, so much as you want to ignore it. 

I have Epstein's book.  It was a primary resource of my Constitutional Law paper on the 5th Amendment.  He does make a lot of comparisons to eminent domain and taxes.  He does argue that a tax can be a taking, just like using eminent domain to take a home is a taking.  However, this is largely academic and used primarily as a way to illustrate the 5th Amendment.  I could be wrong, but I don't think even Epstein would argue that the 16th Amendment is irrelevant or that the graduated income tax is unconstitutional.  He does, however, point out several ways that a tax could be struck down as unconstitutional, e.g. taxing blacks different than whites, creating a special tax on newspapers, or a 100% tax. 

In fact, at one point he even writes:

A general taxation scheme that imposes differential tax burdens on blacks and whites, or men and women, will be struck down under the equal protection clause, but a uniform, higher-level tax upon both blacks and whites is invulnerable to attack.

I understand your reluctance to pay more tax - I'd much prefer to see tax cuts for everyone.  Unfortunately, with our current national debt and growing deficit, it would be irresponsible to cut taxes and continue borrowing more money to run the government.  Before we can cut taxes, we need to reduce spending and start paying down our HUGE debt.

Best,
Robert A. Franco
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