-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Jim Choate wrote:
ARTICLE XVI.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. [25 February 1913.]
Notice the date of implimentation, considerably before WWII, it is in fact the year before the US became involved in WWI. Perhaps you meant WWI instead of WWII? Citizens of the US have been paying taxes since 1914.
True, but a lot less citizens were paying income taxes in 1914 than in 1941. Following are some figures that I extracted from the "Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970", published in 1975 by the US Dep't of Commerce's Bureau of the Census: [Note: in a previous post I had said that the initial income tax was 1% on any person earning more than $4,000 per year. This is incorrect. It was 1% on any person earning more than $20,000 per year, or roughly $400,000 in today's money. Hardly the makings for a public outcry to the new "constitutional amendment." Let's face it: the American public was just as complacent toward unconstitutional legislation then as it is now.] In 1916, this figure was increased to 2%. The total US gov't income tax revenue for that year was $68 million. By 1940, the first income tax bracket had reached 4.4% on any person earning more than $4,000 per year for total yearly income tax revenue of $982 million. The numbers increased dramatically during World War II: Year % Income Total Individual Income Tax Revenue - ---- -- ------ ----------------------------------- 1941 10 2,000 $1.4 billion 1942 19 2,000 $3.2 billion 1943 19 2,000 $6.6 billion 1944 23 2,000 $18.2 billion 1945 23 2,000 $19 billion That's an increase of roughly 2000% in a very short span of time (1940-45). Who says war is not a lucrative business for gov't?
Monty Cantsin wrote:
I doubt very much that income tax withholding would have been accepted if the War were not used to justify it. ("You don't want to pay taxes? What are you, a traitor?")
What war? The taxes came about because of issues other than fighting a war which hadn't even happened yet.
Withholding was not implemented until 1943, smack in the middle of WWII. In 1943, $686 million of the $6.6 billion was collected by withholding, or just over 10%. By 1945, $10 billion of the $19 billion was collected by withholding, more than 50%. In 1970, $103 billion was collected in individual income tax, $77 billion by witholding (75%). In summary, WWII was a convenient way for the US gov't to tighten the screws on its citizens, and it continues to do so to this day. But I've discussed this already in a previous post. "Check the archives." :-) Nerthus -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBNHtaqRa1d3zm4nqOEQIQKgCeN48fnrn5pDzUe/LZhvjJxzU3DKMAn2lT ZTERt+yWGwZTI6xV3qbQ/MsL =DpCh -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----