Tax Historians Urge Supreme Court to Uphold Foreign Earnings Law

The US Supreme Court should uphold the constitutionality of a multibillion-dollar foreign earnings tax because it isn’t subject to the Constitution’s apportionment clause, scholars said in an amicus brief filed Monday.

The high court agreed to hear a challenge to a 2017 tax law provision that collects on 30 years of deferred foreign income as though it was repatriated. The provision shouldn’t be considered a direct tax, according to constitutional historians Akhil and Vikram Amar, because only head taxes and real-estate taxes were considered direct taxes at the time of the nation’s founding.

That means the mandatory repatriation tax escapes ...