ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the general constitutional restrictions on the power to tax and how they actually restrict the US Congress hardly at all. It analyses the application of the guarantee of equal protection of the laws to the federal tax laws. The chapter explains how the legal schema in tandem with academic discussions of tax fairness relegates invidious discrimination perpetrated through the tax laws to the tax closet and explores both the nature of that closet and the rhetorical tapestry that is used to hide it from view. It explores concrete examples of the extraordinary deference that courts afford to tax classifications. The chapter examines equal protection challenges to obvious discrimination in the tax laws on the basis of race, gender, and sexual orientation. In essence, the courts have relegated the guarantee of equal protection of the laws to the tax closet. The federal courts have fashioned a schema in which they police only the most blatant instances of discrimination.
