U.S. Congressman LOUIE GOHMERT: Proudly Serving the First District of Texas

Today, Rep. Louie Gohmert (TX-01) released the following statement on his ‘No Taxation Without Representation Act’ - which would amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to insure that there is no taxation without representation and to make tax law regarding residents of the District of Columbia consistent with tax law affecting of territories of the United States that also do not have a voting member of the US House of Representatives:

“The license plate motto, ‘taxation without representation’ raised eyebrows when I first saw it, but then I recalled the revolutionary slogan – ‘taxation without representation‎ is tyranny.’ The Washington D.C. residents were paying income tax without having a federal representative with full voting rights.

Regardless of who agrees or disagrees now, in the late 1970's people both for and against Washington, D.C. having its own U.S. Representative all agreed that it would take a Constitutional amendment to change the statement in the Constitution that the Representatives would come from the ‘states.’  That Constitutional amendment passed both the House and Senate back then but failed to ever get the requisite state ratification.

After looking at the situation of U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico, Guam, or Samoa, I found that the residents there paid local taxes, but none paid federal income tax. It occurred to me after researching the situation still further that until when or if the citizens of Washington, D.C. have a full voting representative, they should not have to pay any federal income tax. So I have filed that bill again today hoping that this Congress will do the right thing by the citizens of the District of Columbia and end the federal income tax. It is the fair, just and right thing to do.”

 To read the full text of the bill, click here.

Congressman Gohmert is the Vice Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security and the Chairman of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Prior to being elected to serve in Congress, Louie was elected to three terms as District Judge in Smith County, Texas. He was appointed by Texas Governor Rick Perry to complete a term as Chief Justice of the 12th Court of Appeals.

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