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certain things he will be made to suffer in this or that way by
judgment of the court”. Id. at 458. Although these formulations
may be somewhat simplistic, they have “a valid core”, Reich v.
Continental Cas. Co., 33 F.3d 754, 757 (7th Cir. 1994). Our
opinion in Talmage v. Commissioner, supra, cites numerous other
cases, in addition to those cited in VonDyl v. Commissioner,
supra, in which this Court and the Courts of Appeals have
invariably rejected arguments that wages are not income for the
purposes of the income tax law. The information given to
petitioners before and at the hearing should have made clear to
petitioners that their case is a sure loser.
The fact that “income” is not a defined term in the Internal
Revenue Code is of no moment. The lack of a definition does not
make the 16th Amendment or the Internal Revenue Code inoperative.
As Judge Learned Hand stated in United States v. Oregon-
Washington R.R. & Nav. Co., 251 F. 211, 212 (2d Cir. 1918), the
meaning of the word “income” is “not to be found in its bare
etymological derivation. Its meaning is rather to be gathered
from the implicit assumptions of its use in common speech”. The
term "income" as used in the 16th Amendment and in the Internal
Revenue Code "carries the meaning which an intelligent layman,
not an economist or a lawyer, would ascribe to it”. Magill,
Taxable Income 19 (1945 rev.). Although there was a time in the
early days of the Federal tax laws when the Supreme Court
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