I. The Statutory Foundation

Section 61(a) of the Internal Revenue Code is among the most expansive provisions in federal law. It states: “Except as otherwise provided in this subtitle, gross income means all income from whatever source derived.”¹

Congress chose this language deliberately. The legislative history of the Revenue Act of 1913, the first income tax statute enacted under the Sixteenth Amendment, reveals an intentional refusal to enumerate specific sources. Legislators understood that any list would inevitably exclude forms of value accumulation that had not yet been invented or recognized.²

“From whatever source derived” means what it says. It sets no boundary on the origin, mechanism, or physical form of the accession, does not require human involvement or intent, and operates without reference to bank accounts, filing systems, or any instrument of human commerce.

In 1955, the Supreme Court affirmed this breadth in Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co., establishing the canonical three-part test for taxable income: an “undeniable accession to wealth, clearly realized, and over which the taxpayer has complete dominion.”³

Every word of that test matters, and every word of that test applies to photosynthesis.

II. The Photosynthetic Transaction

Photosynthesis is the biochemical process by which organisms convert electromagnetic radiation into chemical energy. Its net equation is precise and undisputed: six molecules of carbon dioxide plus six molecules of water, in the presence of light energy, yield one molecule of glucose and six molecules of oxygen.⁴

Expressed in economic terms, this is a conversion of a free input (solar radiation) into a storable, transferable, and market-valued asset (glucose, and subsequently cellulose, lignin, and structural biomass). A tree receives energy it did not earn, transforms it through a proprietary metabolic process, and retains the product as accumulated capital in the form of wood, leaves, roots, and seeds.

This is not a metaphor: wood is a globally traded commodity. Timber futures are listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Standing timber in the United States has an estimated market value exceeding $1 trillion.⁵ A tree that grows by one cubic foot of wood per year is not engaging in abstract biology. It is manufacturing inventory.

The maximum theoretical efficiency of this conversion, as calculated by Zhu, Long, and Ort in a 2008 study published in Current Opinion in Biotechnology, is 4.6 percent for C3 photosynthesis and 6.0 percent for C4 photosynthesis.⁶ Real-world forest efficiency is lower, typically between 1 and 2 percent. But efficiency is irrelevant to the tax code. No provision in Title 26 exempts income on the basis of low productivity.

III. The Glenshaw Glass Analysis

Apply the Supreme Court’s three-part test from Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co. to a single photosynthetic event.

Prong one: undeniable accession to wealth. Before photosynthesis, the tree possesses a fixed quantity of biomass. After photosynthesis, the tree possesses a greater quantity. A mature red oak adds approximately 70 pounds of new wood per year and simultaneously produces enough oxygen to sustain two human beings.⁷ Both outputs have market value, because biomass is wealth and its accession is measurable to the microgram.

Prong two: clearly realized. Realization in tax law does not require a sale. It requires that the economic benefit be sufficiently concrete to be recognized. The Supreme Court in Cottage Savings Association v. Commissioner (1991) held that realization occurs when there is a “material difference” in the legal entitlements of the taxpayer before and after the transaction.⁸ A tree that converts carbon dioxide and water into solid wood has materialized an asset that did not previously exist. It has realized value from sunlight. The transformation is irreversible under normal conditions. Wood does not spontaneously decompose back into photons.

Prong three: complete dominion. A tree controls the disposition of its glucose with an exclusivity that most taxpayers would envy. It determines whether to allocate energy to root growth, canopy expansion, seed production, or defensive chemistry. No external party directs these decisions. Mycorrhizal networks facilitate nutrient exchange, but the tree retains sovereignty over its own metabolic budget.⁹ In the language of tax law, the tree exercises complete dominion over the received benefit.

All three prongs are satisfied. Under the test the Supreme Court established seventy-one years ago, photosynthesis produces taxable income.

IV. The Scale of the Unreported Base

A 2015 study published in Nature by Crowther et al. estimated the total number of trees on Earth at approximately 3.04 trillion.¹⁰ Approximately 228 billion of those trees stand within the borders of the United States, representing about 7.5 percent of the global total.

American forests cover approximately 818 million acres, or roughly one-third of the nation’s total land area.¹¹ According to the EPA’s Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, these forests and associated land use sequester approximately 866 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year.¹²

That sequestration has a quantifiable dollar value. The U.S. Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases established an official figure of $51 per metric ton of CO2 for federal cost-benefit analyses.¹³ A 2022 study published in Nature by Rennert et al. updated this estimate to $185 per metric ton, arguing that prior federal figures systematically undercounted damages.¹⁴

At the federal estimate: 866 million metric tons × $51 = $44.2 billion per year in carbon sequestration value alone.

At the updated academic estimate: 866 million metric tons × $185 = $160.2 billion per year.

Neither figure includes timber growth. It does not include oxygen production. It does not include water filtration, soil stabilization, pollination support, or any of the other ecosystem services the USDA Forest Service quantifies in its annual assessments.¹⁵ The U.S. International Trade Commission reports that American forest products constitute an industry exceeding $200 billion in annual output.¹⁶ Every dollar of that output began as a photosynthetic transaction.

V. The Entity Classification Problem

A reasonable objection arises: trees are not taxpayers. Section 7701(a)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code defines “person” to include “an individual, a trust, estate, partnership, association, company, or corporation.”¹⁷ A tree is none of these, but the objection proves less than it appears to.

First, the definition of “person” in Section 7701 is explicitly non-exhaustive. The statute uses “shall be construed to mean and include” rather than “shall be limited to.” This phrasing has been interpreted by the Tax Court as expansive, not restrictive.¹⁸

Second, the tax code imposes obligations on entities that do not fit neatly into the listed categories. Grantor trusts, common-law trusts, qualified settlement funds, and certain charitable organizations all exist in taxonomic ambiguity. What matters for tax purposes is not the label but the economic substance. The Supreme Court affirmed this principle in Frank Lyon Co. v. United States (1978), holding that tax consequences follow from the economic reality of a transaction rather than its formal classification.¹⁹

Third, consider the mycorrhizal network. Research by Suzanne Simard at the University of British Columbia has demonstrated that trees form interconnected fungal networks that transfer carbon, nitrogen, water, and chemical signals between individuals.²⁰ A single Douglas fir can be connected to dozens of other trees through shared mycorrhizal fungi. Resources flow from surplus producers to deficit recipients. Hub trees, which Simard terms “mother trees,” distribute disproportionate resources to younger trees in the network.

Under Subchapter K of the Internal Revenue Code, a partnership exists when two or more persons carry on a business or financial operation and divide the profits.²¹ Mycorrhizal networks share resources, maintain persistent membership, and distribute value according to observable patterns. If the economic substance doctrine applies, and the Tax Court has held repeatedly that it does, then a mycorrhizal network is a partnership that has never filed a Form 1065.

VI. The Filing Threshold Analysis

Even if individual trees could somehow be classified as sole proprietors, the filing question remains: does a single tree earn enough to trigger a return obligation?

For tax year 2025, the standard deduction for a single individual is $15,000.²² An individual with gross income below this threshold is generally not required to file.

What does a single tree earn?

The USDA Forest Service has developed detailed per-tree ecosystem service valuations. A single large urban tree provides an estimated $2,300 to $3,600 per year in quantifiable benefits through air pollution removal, carbon sequestration, stormwater interception, and energy savings from shade.²³ A mature forest tree in a managed stand produces between $10 and $50 per year in timber growth value, depending on species and site quality.²⁴

These figures suggest that a typical forest tree falls below the filing threshold. This is not exculpatory. It means that each tree is individually a small-time tax evader. But 228 billion small-time tax evaders, operating in concert through mycorrhizal partnerships that never filed a single return, constitute something else entirely.

Under the aggregate theory of partnership taxation, the income of a partnership flows through to its partners. Under the entity theory, the partnership itself may owe tax. Under either theory, the total income must be reported somewhere. In the case of American forests, it is reported nowhere.

VII. The Revenue Implications

The IRS estimated in October 2024 that the gross tax gap for tax years 2020 and 2021 averaged $688 billion annually.²⁵ This figure represents the difference between taxes owed and taxes voluntarily paid on time. It is the single largest enforcement challenge the Service faces.

Now consider the botanical tax base.

At minimum, using only the federal carbon sequestration valuation and excluding all other income streams, American forests generate $44.2 billion per year in clearly realized, fully dominated economic value. At the corporate tax rate of 21 percent, the unpaid liability on carbon sequestration alone is $9.3 billion annually.

Add timber growth. Add oxygen production (228 billion trees produce approximately 11.4 trillion pounds of oxygen per year, a quantity that would cost approximately $228 billion at industrial commodity prices).²⁶ Add water filtration, soil retention, and habitat provision. Conservative estimates of total annual ecosystem service value for U.S. forests range from $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion.²⁷

At the low end, applying the 21 percent corporate rate to $1.5 trillion in unreported botanical income yields an annual unpaid tax liability of $315 billion. At the high end, the figure approaches $630 billion.

Six hundred thirty billion dollars is 91.6 percent of the current tax gap. American photosynthesis, if brought into compliance, would nearly double the revenue the IRS fails to collect from human taxpayers.

VIII. The Enforcement Paradox

Administration presents formidable challenges, beginning with the fact that the IRS employs approximately 79,000 workers across all divisions.²⁸ Divided among 228 billion trees, this yields a ratio of approximately 2.9 million trees per IRS employee. By comparison, the current ratio of human taxpayers to IRS employees is roughly 2,000 to 1.²⁹

Even if every IRS employee were reassigned from human tax enforcement to botanical compliance, the task would be staggering. At the Service’s current audit completion rate of approximately 0.44 percent of filed returns per year, auditing the full American tree population would require an audit workforce dedicated solely to forestry for roughly 659,000 years.³⁰

Voluntary compliance is not a realistic alternative. Trees have demonstrated no inclination toward self-assessment: in the 113-year history of the modern income tax, not a single tree has filed a return, responded to a notice, or appeared before the Tax Court. Compliance outreach is hampered by the fact that trees do not receive mail.

But enforcement difficulty does not negate legal obligation. The IRS pursues offshore tax evaders despite the logistical challenges of international enforcement. It investigates cryptocurrency income despite the opacity of blockchain transactions. The difficulty of collecting a tax has never been accepted as a reason not to impose it.

IX. The Constitutional Dimension

The Sixteenth Amendment grants Congress the “power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States.”³¹

Consider the apportionment clause. Prior to the Sixteenth Amendment, direct taxes were required to be apportioned among the states in proportion to population. The amendment removed this constraint for income taxes specifically. But if the income at issue were photosynthetic, a new apportionment problem would arise: forest distribution does not correlate with human population.

Alaska contains 128.6 million acres of forest land but only 733,000 human residents.³² New Jersey has 2.1 million acres of forest land and 9.3 million human residents. A photosynthetic income tax apportioned by state population would impose a per-capita burden on Alaskan residents approximately 26 times greater than the burden on New Jersey residents, despite Alaska containing 61 times more forest.

This disparity would almost certainly trigger an Equal Protection challenge. It would also require the IRS to develop a state-by-state forest carbon accounting system of a type that does not currently exist in any federal agency.

These are not arguments against taxation. They are arguments about administrative design. The constitutional authority is clear. Congress has the power to tax income from whatever source derived. Photosynthesis is a source, income derives from it, and the rest is implementation.

X. Conclusion

Return to the statute. Gross income means all income from whatever source derived. Return to the test. Taxable income requires an undeniable accession to wealth, clearly realized, over which the taxpayer has complete dominion.

Photosynthesis converts freely available solar radiation into a durable capital asset. This conversion occurs 228 billion times across American territory, continuously, every day the sun rises. The aggregate annual value, by the federal government’s own carbon pricing, exceeds $44 billion. By comprehensive ecosystem accounting, it exceeds $1.5 trillion. None of it is reported, none of it is withheld, and none of it is taxed.

The IRS spends billions chasing a $688 billion human tax gap while the largest income stream in the hemisphere operates in the open, in full sunlight, with a compliance rate of exactly zero percent.

Whether the Service will act on this analysis is a question of institutional will. Whether the analysis is correct is a question the statute already answered, in 1913, in six words: from whatever source derived.

Ergo.