Come April 15, don't blame the IRS: Blame Congress
Five myths about taxes
By Steven R. Weisman, WashPost, Published: April 11
Steven R. Weisman, author of “The Great Tax Wars: Lincoln to Wilson — The Fierce Battles over Money and Power That Transformed the Nation,” is editorial director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
“I paid my income tax today!” So went one of Irving Berlin’s lesser-known patriotic jingles. “I never felt so proud before/To be right there with the millions more/Who paid their income tax today!” Few share Berlin’s enthusiasm, as grumbling about taxes reaches a crescendo on April 15. Let’s topple some tall tales about taxes before writing checks to — or getting refunds from — the dreaded Internal Revenue Service.
1. The income tax is a big-government Democratic scheme.
The first income tax in the United States was enacted under the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. Before the Civil War, Republicans were the party of big government, supporting high tariffs, infrastructure spending and centralized bank regulations.
Once the war began, Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase feared that mounting deficits would spur inflation. Banks, which were funding the war, demanded action to ensure U.S. solvency, and tariffs, the country’s main source of revenue, had reached a peak. “Chase has no money, and he tells me he can raise no more,” Lincoln complained in 1862.
Initially 3 percent on incomes above $600 and 5 percent on incomes above $10,000, the income tax was intended to assuage class resentment of industrialists getting rich by supplying the Union. The tax was repealed after the Civil War, reenacted in 1894, declared unconstitutional in 1895, then reinstated with Theodore Roosevelt’s support. Republican William Howard Taft backed the ratification process that led to the Sixteenth Amendment, adopted in 1913. Democrat Woodrow Wilson signed the tax into law that year — and Democrats have been more inclined than Republicans to raise rates since.
(More here.)
Steven R. Weisman, author of “The Great Tax Wars: Lincoln to Wilson — The Fierce Battles over Money and Power That Transformed the Nation,” is editorial director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
“I paid my income tax today!” So went one of Irving Berlin’s lesser-known patriotic jingles. “I never felt so proud before/To be right there with the millions more/Who paid their income tax today!” Few share Berlin’s enthusiasm, as grumbling about taxes reaches a crescendo on April 15. Let’s topple some tall tales about taxes before writing checks to — or getting refunds from — the dreaded Internal Revenue Service.
1. The income tax is a big-government Democratic scheme.
The first income tax in the United States was enacted under the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. Before the Civil War, Republicans were the party of big government, supporting high tariffs, infrastructure spending and centralized bank regulations.
Once the war began, Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase feared that mounting deficits would spur inflation. Banks, which were funding the war, demanded action to ensure U.S. solvency, and tariffs, the country’s main source of revenue, had reached a peak. “Chase has no money, and he tells me he can raise no more,” Lincoln complained in 1862.
Initially 3 percent on incomes above $600 and 5 percent on incomes above $10,000, the income tax was intended to assuage class resentment of industrialists getting rich by supplying the Union. The tax was repealed after the Civil War, reenacted in 1894, declared unconstitutional in 1895, then reinstated with Theodore Roosevelt’s support. Republican William Howard Taft backed the ratification process that led to the Sixteenth Amendment, adopted in 1913. Democrat Woodrow Wilson signed the tax into law that year — and Democrats have been more inclined than Republicans to raise rates since.
(More here.)
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