Taxation – America’s Disdain II

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Until the Civil War, the United States government relied heavily on tariffs (the taxes on imported goods) for revenue. Although the Constitution prohibited the government from imposing a direct tax on citizens, in 1862, during the Civil War, Congress passed an act which authorized the collection of the income tax in order to help finance a war that was costing the United States treasury one million dollars a day by 1862. With the Republic under threat, resistance to the income tax was not widespread. The wartime emergency income tax was reduced after the war and repealed in 1872.