Published
May 18, 2026
As the American colonies found their footing on the path to revolution, taxation without representation was an early flashpoint. In the decade before independence, Parliament passed the trio of laws some of us may recall being quizzed on in elementary school—the Sugar Act of 1764, the Stamp Act of 1765, and the Townshend Acts of 1767. These laws taxed everyday items like sugar, paper goods, and tea in an effort to pay off England’s debts lingering from the French and Indian War.
Colonists were outraged. They were not represented in Parliament and saw these acts of direct taxation as brazen violations of the fundamental principle that legitimate government requires—or as the Declaration’s preamble put it, “deriv[es] … from”—the “consent of the governed.” The Stamp Act Congress, convening in 1765, explained in its Declaration of Rights and Grievances that “it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people” that taxes be imposed only with either their personal consent or the consent of their chosen representatives. In 1774, the First Continental Congress declared the principle of political participation to be the “foundation … of all free government” and insisted that it entitled the colonies to maintain their own representative legislatures to make laws covering “taxation internal or external.”
These values, much bigger than complaints over transitory sugar and tea prices, led to the Declaration’s seventeenth grievance—which states that the King had “imposed taxes on us without our consent”—and ultimately to the U.S. Constitution’s Origination Clause, which requires that revenue-raising bills originate in Congress’s most representative chamber, the House of Representatives.
The Litigation Center continues to champion the principle that the government’s tax power be circumscribed and clearly authorized by the consent of the governed. In one recent brief we argued that the Constitution requires realization before income can be taxed, a rule crucial to forestalling confiscatory wealth taxes—an issue the Supreme Court ultimately declined to reach. We have also filed multiple briefs fighting against states’ attempts to tax other states’ citizens. We even filed a Supreme Court brief in 2012 against a tax that nobody knew was a tax.
We have continued the fight against unlawful taxing authority, with notable success in opposing agency efforts to impose taxes without statutory authority. In Amazon.com, Inc. & Subsidiaries v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, our amicus brief challenged the IRS’s effort to impose retroactive tax liability on businesses by unlawfully reinterpreting a longstanding tax regulation, and we argued that the IRS had violated the safeguards against unlawful agency action that Congress enacted in the Administrative Procedure Act. Agreeing with our position, the court rejected the agency’s effort to rewrite the regulation, refusing to defer to the agency.
The Supreme Court subsequently limited this kind of deference—which we had long opposed—in Kisor v. Wilkie, making it more difficult for unaccountable agencies to change the rules businesses must follow. Further, in the landmark case Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, in which we also filed an amicus brief, the Supreme Court repudiated courts’ practice of reflexively deferring to agencies’ interpretations of Congress’s statutes. This outcome helps ensure that unelected agency staff do not trespass into the people’s representatives’ lawmaking domain.
So too for elected officials: the Supreme Court recently held, with the Chamber’s encouragement, that even the President needs clear statutory authority to impose tariffs, which are taxes paid by the American people. Back in the trenches, we have also been filing amicus briefs in a series of cases urging the courts not to defer to agencies’ tax regulations.
In the taxation context as in all others, the Litigation Center will continue to fight for these foundational principles and for outcomes that honor the Founders’ insistence on accountable government rooted in the consent of the governed. No taxation without representation!
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About the authors
Daryl Joseffer
Daryl Joseffer is president at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the litigation arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A former principal deputy solicitor general, Joseffer has argued 12 cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and briefed many more. He has argued dozens of appeals in other courts across the country.
Audrey Dos Santos
Audrey Dos Santos is counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, the litigation arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In this capacity, she handles a variety of litigation matters for the Chamber.
