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“Happy” Tax Day

  • April 15, 2009

If you haven't already done so, the deadline for filing your taxes with the IRS is today. The IRS estimates that roughly one out of every seven tax filers will submit their return today.

In honor of Tax Day, I put together a short list of things you probably didn't know about America's tax history.

  • The official Tax Day was moved to April 15 in 1955. Prior to that, income tax reports were due a month earlier on March 15.
  • The IRS was originally created as the Bureau of Internal Revenue in 1904. The Bureau's name was changed to the Internal Revenue Service in 1953 in an effort to stress the "service" aspect of the Bureau.
  • Congress was given the permanent power to tax income with the passing of the 16th Amendment in 1913. At the time, the average income was only $1,296 and tax rates were between 1 and 5 percent.
  • The Revenue Act of 1932 was the largest peacetime tax increase in the nation's history, pushing top tax rates up to 63 percent. A few years later, the Wealth Tax Act of 1935 increased the top tax rate to 75 percent. By 1945, top earners paid as much as 94 percent of their income back to the government.
  • Denmark has the world's highest personal tax rate at 63 percent. Denmark also has the highest rate of tax revenue as a percentage of GDP coming in just under 50 percent.
  • The first 1040-forms were introduced in 1914 but were only used for record keeping purposes.
  • Lincoln passed the Tax Act of 1862, instituting the nation's first progressive income tax rate in order to pay for the Civil War. Once the war was over, the tax was repealed.


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