Historical and Personal Facts about Income Taxes
With the income tax return filing deadline of April 15 now one month away, here’s our effort at making taxes interesting.
Did You Know…
- The first income tax was enacted during the Civil War, but it expired a few years after the war ended.
- The first peacetime income tax was passed in 1894, an effort of the Populists to get the wealthy to pay a greater share of the cost of the national government. It was a two percent tax on incomes over $4,000 (worth about $108,000 in today’s dollars), which at the time affected only about the top two percent of wage earners.
- The next year the U.S. Supreme Court overturned this law as unconstitutional, in a 5-4 decision. Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., 158 U.S. 161 (1895).
- A constitutional amendment to allow an income tax was proposed by the Republican President William Howard Taft, and the resolution for that amendment was passed by Congress with the Republicans in control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
- The entire Sixteenth Amendment states: “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.”
- After the required 3/4ths of state legislatures (36 of the 48 then-existing states) ratified it, on February 25, 1913 the Sixteenth Amendment was proclaimed ratified and became part of the Constitution.
So February 25, 2013 was the 100 year anniversary of the income tax becoming constitutional. Funny, I don’t remember any anniversary celebrations!
The MOST Interesting Facts
As the blogs in this series on taxes have been describing, bankruptcy can help you with income tax debts in a variety of ways. If it’s true that in life the facts that are most interesting to you are those that are going to help your pocketbook, then check out the following facts:
- Some income taxes CAN be forever discharged (legally written off).
- Taxes can be discharged under either Chapter 7 or Chapter 13, depending on which is right for you based on your other circumstances.
- The protection from creditors you receive by filing bankruptcy—the “automatic stay”—protects you from the IRS (and other tax creditors) like any other creditor.
- In a Chapter 13 payment plan, that protection can last for 3 to 5 years, giving you that much time to pay taxes that can’t be discharged.
- Even if you owe a tax that can’t be discharged, a Chapter 7 bankruptcy can put you in a much better position afterwards either to enter into a payment plan or negotiate a settlement.
- Chapter 13 usually stops accruing interest and penalties on tax debts that can’t be discharged, reducing the overall amount you have to pay.
- If you owe a number of years of income taxes, Chapter 13 is often an excellent tool because all your taxes—as well as all your other debts—are handled in one tidy package.
Taxes and bankruptcy DO mix, often greatly in your favor.
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