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Happy Anniversary? |
| Section: CURRENT ISSUES / SPECIAL REPORT--TAXES: HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH? |
| Author: Richard E. Wagner |
| Publication: The world & I online |
| Issue Date: 4/1/2003 |
| Size: 1,834 Words, 11,496 Characters |
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You can blame it on Jeff Davis! Or Abe Lincoln, depending on your point of view.
Before 1860 the U.S. government depended on two major sources of income: tariffs and sales of federal lands, but once Confederate guns opened fire, the fiscal situation changed dramatically. By 1863 the first federal income tax was enacted, imposing a 3 percent tax on all incomes over $800. Since the average yearly income at that time was less than $400, barely 1 percent of the Northern population was affected by the tax. It was eventually repealed in 1872 on the grounds that it was unnecessary, based on the existing fiscal surplus.
After a series of financial crises in the 1870s and '80s, the revenue-yielding potential of the tax attracted attention. Congress enacted another income tax in 1894, only to ...
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...r the income tax, we find that the lowest third pays no income tax, the next third pays 10 percent of the total tax revenue, and the highest third pays 90 percent. Two-thirds of the citizenry are getting practically a free ride when it comes to the federal income tax. This is a situation that clashes sharply with the ideology of liberal democracy, but so too, for that matter, does direct taxation.
(812 of 11,496 characters)
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