If you are like most people you probably dread the month of April specifically the 15th. It’s pay day to Uncle Sam! Tax Day this year falls on a Monday. I already hate Mondays!
So, it you ever wanted to know how taxes all came about, I did a little research on the subject. Of course, there is way more than what I have included in this blog and it’s truly interesting.
The federal government imposed its first income tax in 1861 to pay the mounting costs of the Civil War. The war ended in 1865, and the income tax was repealed in 1872, once the debts incurred during the war had been paid. The U.S. went back to excise taxes until 1894, when Congress passed a second income tax.
According to the Tax History Project, the idea of taxing income had a broad-based popular support in the 1890s. In an era of soaring income inequality, excise taxes were eating up a significantly greater proportion of income for people at the bottom of the economic ladder than for those at the top. And as Paul Harvey used to say, “and now you know the rest of the story”.
So, like it or not, you must pay your taxes. If it’s that time of year and you’re drowning in paperwork and trying to make sense of the new tax laws etc., take a minute and read these funny tax quotes over a cup of coffee and share a laugh with someone who’ll appreciate the humor?
John S. Coleman The point to remember is that what the government gives it must first take away.
Robert Dole The purpose of a tax cut is to leave more money where it belongs: in the hands of the working men and working women who earned it in the first place.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest number of feathers with the least amount of hissing.
Happy Tax Day!