History Of Income Tax

As we make sure our taxes are filed today, there are some great tidbits of history to go along with it. I like the one on the list from 1942. It might interest you to know:

1862: The newly created Bureau of Internal Revenue collects taxes to finance the Civil War.

1913: The Constitution is amended to allow Congress to collect income taxes.

1942: FDR declares, "In this time of war, no American citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000." (I think that still stands today!)

1981: Congress cuts the top tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent, the largest cut in U.S. history. The following year it passes the largest peacetime tax hike in U.S. history.

1986: The IRS begins requiring tax-payers to give Social Security numbers for dependents listed as deductions. The next year, 7 million "children" disappear.