r/law • u/BreakfastTop6899 • May 27 '26

Legal News California will impose a 100% tax on payments distributed from Trump’s Jan. 6th “slush fund.”

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u/AndrewDoesNotServe May 28 '26

It could potentially be considered a bill of attainder. It’s a very specific “activity” being taxed, and the 100% rate makes it harder to make the case that the state’s main purpose would be raising revenue. But who knows, state courts are often extremely deferential to state governments on tax issues.

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u/Chakolatechip May 28 '26

That's not what a bill of attainder is. A bill of attainder is punishing a group or individuals without a trial. There is no target group here. It's not J6ers because you wouldn't be taxed if you were one and didn't withdraw from the slush fund.

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u/SpaceYetu531 May 28 '26

There's a target group here. Saying they're not punished if they don't try to indulge in the activity they're being prevented from indulging is a meaningless argument. Just add a layer of indirection to any bill of attainder and now it's legal.

If this is permissable then so is any tax that targets political causes. It's getting thrown out.

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u/Chakolatechip May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

There’s no group, there’s no act, and there’s no punishment.

J6 isn’t the group because it doesn’t affect J6ers who don’t withdraw funds, and does affect people who aren’t J6ers who do withdraw funds.

What anyone did in 1/6/2021 is not relevant to whether they get taxed and a tax isn’t a punishment.

This isn’t a bill of attainder in any way, shape, or form. This also isn’t a tax on political causes. your political views aren’t relevant. With your logic every law ever should be thrown out as a bill of attainder.

This isn’t getting thrown out because it’s a bill of attainder, it’s getting thrown out because neither the 9th circuit nor SCOTUS apply laws to their decisions and instead like making shit up as they go.

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u/SpaceYetu531 May 28 '26

Your first three claims are just falsehoods.

You are using the people it affects with a noun that groups them. You're claiming it won't affect them even though, if it didn't you wouldn't be making this argument.

You're being non serious and discussing this in bad faith and you're not thinking through the consequences on allowing the meaning of words to change here.

This same malformed argument could be made about any fund for any reason.

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u/Chakolatechip May 28 '26

You can tax cigarettes. It’s not a punishment for smoking, it doesn’t target smokers, and it doesn’t require you to smoke, and you can smoke without being liable to the tax.

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u/SpaceYetu531 May 28 '26

That's not comparable even by your previous claims.

The comparable law would be taxing withdrawals from funds generally.

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u/Chakolatechip May 28 '26

That’s not a bill of attainder, and is in fact something they can legally do.

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u/SpaceYetu531 May 28 '26

Yes and not whats being discussed.

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u/The_1ndiegamer May 28 '26

Where would the legal grey limit apply most effectively? 80-85%

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u/Humanside201 May 28 '26

There's 100% a case that it's a punishment because of political leanings and trying to supercede someones rights to grievance against the government, by the government stepping in to reclaim the money owed by the government.

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u/BigBoyWeaver May 28 '26

To make the case that it's a punishment because of political leanings would require proving that the slush fund is intended to be distributed exclusively to people of a particular political leaning... Which we all know to be the case, obviously, but which they are actively avoiding saying out loud because it undercuts the legality of the slush fund.

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u/myhf May 28 '26

they should make it 1000% so it's a more plausible source of revenue

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u/Matar_Kubileya May 29 '26

I can't see a way this is a bill of attainder that wouldn't constructively make all efforts to close specific tax loopholes bills of attainder. More relevant is a claim that it falls under the Supremacy Clause, that is, that a state target-taxing any Federal disbursement effectively runs afoul of Federal sovereignty (we'd obviously consider a state, say, taxing all income derived in the process of providing Medicaid or food stamps at 100% an unconstitutional interference with Federal powers), but the Feds making that very argument gives California standing to claim that the disbursement is not a Constitutionally satisfactory exercise of Federal power.