Income tax in the United States including limited liability companies (LLCs), may elect to be treated as a corporation or as a partnership. Distributions from partnerships are not taxed as dividends. Corporate tax is imposed in the U.S. at the federal, most state, and some local levels on the income of entities treated for tax purposes as corporations. Shareholders of a corporation wholly owned by U.S. citizens and resident individuals may elect for the corporation to be taxed similarly to partnerships. Corporate income tax is based on taxable income, which is defined similarly to individual taxable income. Shareholders (including other corporations) of corporations (other than S
Legal history of income tax in the United States (1916), the 1913 Act was ruled to be constitutional. A separate excise tax was also imposed on corporations. Subsequent legal actions were concerned with what should be counted as "income" under the 1913 Act. In "Eisner v. Macomber" (1920), the Supreme Court ruled that proportionate stock dividends were not taxable as income, on the grounds that the dividend income was not "severable" from the capital holding from which it was derived. Later decisions, however, have tended to limit this view of "severability," and to uphold the federal statutes as exertions of the power of Congress to tax. The first attempt