[Retric]

> they are not applied to all income.

To show why this is a logical fallacy.

The US definition of income taxes also excludes gifts received even though that’s also “income.” As such by your definition they aren’t income taxes. Of course you could just define gifts as not income and things are ok, except if you continue to define income taxes as taxes based on a specific system then the definition is only applicable to that system at a specific point in time.

For example, is money received by tax free investments income? That’s now undecided until you determine the specific source, time period, and country involved. And as soon as you have statements that are both true and false you have a problem.

Even if you want to stick with US definitions, the states and federal government have different rules. As such the exact same transaction can be both income and not income. Which is about the clearest example of Doublethink I can think of.

PS: Instead, if you say for purposes of X it’s defined as Y then you don’t have this issue. But, then it’s very clear that specific things are exceptions. (To be clear I kept adding to this comment.)