It’s almost here, folks. America’s most hated, unofficial holiday, Tax Day, is just around the corner.
So how’s that filing coming along? Can you sit back, with a smug look on your face because you’re already done filing, and enjoy the spectacle on the news of your fellow Americans standing in line at the post office at a quarter till midnight in the hopes of snagging the last of the tax forms?
Or are you going to be part of that spectacle on the news?
Don’t worry, you won’t be alone. It happens every year.
But at some point, you’ve probably asked yourself, “Why the hell am I doing this!? Whose bright idea was it to start this tradition anyway?”
How did it all begin?
It wasn’t always like this. At one time, personal income taxes were ruled as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, despite the many times such a tax was introduced. Politicians have been battling to get their hands on your personal incomes for centuries. Obviously, they’ve succeeded. So how did they do it?
The following is a tale of trickery, deception and class warfare that is guaranteed to make you angry.
While the fight for a personal income tax has raged since the Revolutionary War, where it has see-sawed between being passed, then being repealed by the Supreme Court several times, in the interest of keeping you from falling asleep, I’m going to focus on the point in history where it was finally passed and ratified for the final time. I have provided links at the end of this article that explain the history of the income tax more thoroughly.
According to one source, the beginning of the end was started by a Democratic Senator named Joseph Bailey, who introduced a bill for an income tax (and he wasn’t the first one to do so. Remember, the battle for an income tax went all the way back to the Revolutionary War). Sen. Bailey’s original plan was a ruse to get the Republicans to rush forward to block the bill, so that the Democrats could once again claim that the Republicans didn’t care about the poor and “unfortunate” and cared only for the wealthy and privileged.
But to his surprise, President Teddy Roosevelt, while a Republican, was also a liberal and actually supported the bill.
Ain’t that a kick in the head?
Anyway, real Republicans, namely conservative ones, saw the threat of this bill actually passing into law with Roosevelt’s support, so they came up with a plan that on paper, sounded foolproof; they would only support an income tax if it became an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which at that time had no stipulations for a personal income tax.
There was no way that this would happen. The American people had a history of fighting against any form of income tax. The bill would never get three fourths of the states for ratification.
At least, that’s what they thought… right until the bill passed through the House and Senate with little effort.
The Republicans, while nervous, were still reasonably certain that the bill wouldn’t receive three fourths of the states votes for ratification.
But the Democrats had one powerful ace up their sleeves… class warfare.
Remember, the Democrats have always portrayed themselves as the “enemy of the evil wealthy, champions of the less fortunate”, and they played it to the hilt. They heavily campaigned for the income tax on the promise that it would only affect the wealthiest of the populace in the north-eastern United States. The poor and middle class, particularly those living in the southern and western areas of the country (where the wealthy were much less common) would never be touched by it.
I bet you can guess what happened next.
Ladies and gentlemen… I present to you the 16th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, ratified on February 12th, 1913:
“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.”
Just to help you understand just how far from the original intent of our founding fathers we’ve gone, let me give you a quote from one of them, Thomas Jefferson, when he was referring to income taxes for the purpose of promoting the “general welfare” of the public:
“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, ‘to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by It’."
What would they think of us now? What would they have to say to us?
“But wait!” you say…
“I’m not wealthy, I don’t live in the north-eastern United States… so why am I paying income taxes!? I thought you said it was only for those wealthiest Americans in that area!”
Well, to put it simply… as time went on and one financial crisis after another popped up (WW I, The Great Depression, WW II), the government, feeding on Americans’ sense of duty and patriotism, found more and more excuses to pass laws and amendments to gradually not only raise the taxes, but to widen the range of who they could tax to “keep our nation going”. I’d like to remind you that this would not have been possible if it had not been for the 16th Amendment. The Supreme Court could no longer judge these personal income taxes as “unconstitutional” because well… now it is.
The greatest irony is that the liberals of today, who frequently scream about raising the taxes on “the evil rich” so that they pay their “fair share”, are those whose ancestors were the very people who contributed to the passing of an amendment that made it possible for the government to tax their incomes.
So remember my friends, be sure to thank your liberal ancestors for that wonderful “anti-wealth” 16th Amendment that they were so eager to see pass.
Are you angry yet? Wait until I tell you the story about how “withholding” got started.
By the way, special thanks and apologies to talk show host Neal Boortz, whose shtick I kinda-sorta stole. He’s told this story in his book (“The FairTax Book”) and radio program so well, that he inspired me to do my own version.
Happy Tax Filing Day!
Links:
History of the U.S. Tax System: United States Department of Treasury website
History of Income Tax: Richard M. Chapo, Directory M Articles website
How Income Tax Came to Be: Roberto Garabell, Inet Capital
The 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: Wikipedia
The FairTax Book: Saying Goodbye to the Income Tax and the IRS: Neal Boortz & Congressman John Linder