Some Income Tax History

The first known income tax that Americans were legally required to pay was enacted during the 1860s and the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln. The Civil War proved very costly to fund, and the President and Congress created the Commissioner of Revenue and enacted a law requiring citizens to pay income tax.

Initially, the deadline for completing and filing your individual income tax was not April 15th. In the beginning, it was first set for March 1st. Then, during 1918, Congress pushed the date out to March 15th. Then, in the significant overhaul of 1954, the date was moved forward to April 15th, which is where it remains today. But, it has only been set this way for a little over 50 years. That’s not very long, in historical terms, and it could be changed again.

If you are an individual taxpayer, you must file either a return or an extension of time to file (Form 4868) by April 15th. Corporate and other legal entities are required to file their tax return by March 15th, and if not, they also must file an extension of time to file. This extension does not extend the amount of time you have to pay any taxes due to the government. So, if you cannot ready your personal or business financial information on time and have no reasonable estimate as to the amount of tax you may owe, you can expect to pay some form of penalty.

In WWII, the burden of tax responsibility was shared fairly equally by the corporate world and the individual taxpayer. Today, however, the shift has been toward more responsibility on the part of the individual and less on the business backs. To demonstrate how special interests have begun to overtake American politics, during 1867, public opinion was so strong, and the general public’s outcry so loud that the President and Congress repealed the income tax law. From 1868 until 1913, almost all of the revenue for government operation came from selling liquor, beer, wine, and tobacco.

During the formation and eventual taxation of America, an exciting time occurred in 1918. Until that time, the vast majority of revenue for government funding came from alcoholic beverage sales. In 1919, Congress passed an amendment to the Constitution that made it illegal to manufacture or sell alcohol; what would replace the revenue? American income tax was the proposed solution, and we’ve been paying since. Although during the great years known as Prohibition, many “revenue agents” spent their days tracking down “moonshiners,” not tax evaders, the American citizen, the individual taxpayer took on the heavy burden of supporting government revenue heavier with each passing year.

Then, during 1942, the Revenue Act of 1942 was passed, and the “New Deal” era was begun. Since that time, government control, power, and expenditures have continued to increase at a phenomenal rate. Today, the American taxpayer supports a trillion-dollar giant known as the United States government. This ravenous beast consumes more than 10% of our earned income each year, and if the Social Security Administration has its way, it will continue to consume even more of our weekly earnings. We can foresee no other relief in sight.

Currently, all the tax regulations for this country are the responsibility of the Internal Revenue Service, and there are four major divisions of this government office: the Wage and Investment, Small/Business Self-Employed, the Large and Midsize Business, and the Tax Exempt and Government Entities. Each division has responsibilities as they pertain to their specialty.