As Tax Day 2013 dawns on the morrow, what better to do than celebrate the Federal Income Tax's centennial anniversary allowed, of course, by the ratification of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, giving the federal government the arbitrary power to forcefully tax its citizens...
A federal income tax was first seriously considered to finance the war of 1812, but that war ended before the effort gained steam. But then came America's next war - the so-called Civil one - and Lincoln, Republican, all by his Executive lonesome, dictated the very first income tax and created the Office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue to finance the War and collect taxation for it to exist; the South, meanwhile, countered by creating its own income tax the next year for the very same purpose.
Ahhh, war...
...don't you just love the friggin' smell of it.
10 years after the War and Lincoln ceased to be, so did that initial chapter of the income tax as it's law was reversed, and it was back to tariffs only to finance the limited government which also returned after Lincoln's colossal statist adventure...
...by 1884, eg, federal government revenue was outpacing outlays by 35%, the surplus being used to continue to pay down Lincoln's War debts from more than 20 years earlier.
Alas, America's nirvana of existing in its original untaxed state was quickly threatened as the progressive political philosophy of Europe's statists began in earnest invading these great shores and another war began - this time a war of socialist class variety that continues into this very day...
...for all of a sudden in America it wasn't fair that less-incomed folks had to share the cost of goods equally with their more-incomed fellow citizen, so Democrats proposed America's first peace-time income tax while dressing it as tariff-reduction legislation to ease the politically-perceived financial burden of one class at the increased expense of another class. The legislation passed both chambers of Congress, and Republican President Grover Cleveland allowed it to become law in 1894 without his signature because even though he didn't like the Democrat version, he thought it better than nothing.
Yet, a bit of fight was still left in class-warfareless Americana: the Supreme Court stepped-in the next year, 1895, and struck-down the legislation by its Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. ruling...
...but the progressives were only beginning to fight, and with over the next decade+ of stern statist championing of the twin imperial racists Republican Teddy Roosevelt and Democrat Woodrow Wilson, in 1913 the 16th Amendment was ratified, making the federal income tax the law of the land.
The highest arbitrary rates at which American citizens have been taxed to keep military and class wars alive began at 2% on the most wealthy; it reached 94% during-right after WWII; today it stands @ 39.6% (although I believe I recently read that President Obama - as staunch a class warfarist and progressive income tax champion as has ever lived - somehow managed to arrange his income to only be taxed this year at a 18% rate).
So, there you have:
Involuntary federal income taxation arbitrarily decided by the whim of government, the Constitutional power to collect that tax guaranteed by the 16th Amendment 100 years old this year, military and class warfare eternally demanding annual payment now...
...yet, the USSA is minimally over $16 trillion in debt today.
< enter PT Barnum, stage left <
A federal income tax was first seriously considered to finance the war of 1812, but that war ended before the effort gained steam. But then came America's next war - the so-called Civil one - and Lincoln, Republican, all by his Executive lonesome, dictated the very first income tax and created the Office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue to finance the War and collect taxation for it to exist; the South, meanwhile, countered by creating its own income tax the next year for the very same purpose.
Ahhh, war...
...don't you just love the friggin' smell of it.
10 years after the War and Lincoln ceased to be, so did that initial chapter of the income tax as it's law was reversed, and it was back to tariffs only to finance the limited government which also returned after Lincoln's colossal statist adventure...
...by 1884, eg, federal government revenue was outpacing outlays by 35%, the surplus being used to continue to pay down Lincoln's War debts from more than 20 years earlier.
Alas, America's nirvana of existing in its original untaxed state was quickly threatened as the progressive political philosophy of Europe's statists began in earnest invading these great shores and another war began - this time a war of socialist class variety that continues into this very day...
...for all of a sudden in America it wasn't fair that less-incomed folks had to share the cost of goods equally with their more-incomed fellow citizen, so Democrats proposed America's first peace-time income tax while dressing it as tariff-reduction legislation to ease the politically-perceived financial burden of one class at the increased expense of another class. The legislation passed both chambers of Congress, and Republican President Grover Cleveland allowed it to become law in 1894 without his signature because even though he didn't like the Democrat version, he thought it better than nothing.
Yet, a bit of fight was still left in class-warfareless Americana: the Supreme Court stepped-in the next year, 1895, and struck-down the legislation by its Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. ruling...
...but the progressives were only beginning to fight, and with over the next decade+ of stern statist championing of the twin imperial racists Republican Teddy Roosevelt and Democrat Woodrow Wilson, in 1913 the 16th Amendment was ratified, making the federal income tax the law of the land.
The highest arbitrary rates at which American citizens have been taxed to keep military and class wars alive began at 2% on the most wealthy; it reached 94% during-right after WWII; today it stands @ 39.6% (although I believe I recently read that President Obama - as staunch a class warfarist and progressive income tax champion as has ever lived - somehow managed to arrange his income to only be taxed this year at a 18% rate).
So, there you have:
Involuntary federal income taxation arbitrarily decided by the whim of government, the Constitutional power to collect that tax guaranteed by the 16th Amendment 100 years old this year, military and class warfare eternally demanding annual payment now...
...yet, the USSA is minimally over $16 trillion in debt today.
< enter PT Barnum, stage left <
