NFIB

We Americans tend to scan the things we read, a skill taught in most secondary schools. While that’s a worthwhile timesaving talent that enables us to lead more efficient lives, it can have a somewhat detrimental impact on the understanding of our history.

Most of the U.S. population has heard of the Bill of Rights, but few have actually taken the time to read it. These rights, we assume, come with our citizenship. They were the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The fact that they were almost literally written in the blood of our forefathers is something to which we rarely give full consideration. After all, our minds are preoccupied with today’s challenges. Something adopted almost 214 years ago is ancient history.

The danger of falling into that mind-set revealed itself recently when it became frightfully evident that history was beginning to repeat itself in a little-noticed corner of the federal government known as the U.S. Tax Court. Certainly the tax court wasn’t plotting to repeat the oppressions of Great Britain’s King George III, who set in motion the American Revolution by enabling his government to impose a variety of taxes. But when the court denied small businesses due process of law, it trampled upon some of the basic rights of all American citizens.

Ignoring those rights in the case of Ballard v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, the tax court refused to allow the small-business defendant access to reports prepared by special trial judges. Without that information, the defendant lacked the tools and information needed to mount a fair fight.

Fortunately, the National Federation of Independent Business’s Legal Foundation stepped in, filing a friend-of-the-court brief last summer that challenged the tax court by showing that the small firm’s rights were not only being violated, but that the court’s stand was unconstitutional.

When the issue reached the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices overwhelmingly agreed, striking down the tax court’s unfair practice by a 7-2 vote and overturning a 1983 decision that unfairly denied the rights of small businesses and other litigants. Now, special trial judges will be required to reveal their reports.

This is crucial to the American small-business sector because 85 percent of those who own Main Street firms file their taxes as individuals, and the tax court is the only place where they can contest an income tax levy without first paying the full amount.

But the celebration of this important victory won’t last long. True, it is a burden lifted from the shoulders of small-business owners, but the challenge that all Americans face is to remain vigilant. It’s far too easy for a government as large as ours to forget the lessons of history and tread on those rights that we assume came with the territory.

With summer vacations on the horizon, it might be a good idea for all Americans to forego reading the latest novel and get a copy of a document that begins: “We, the People of the United States.”