“America is the land of opportunity, Everyone can become a taxpayer”.
Time’s Up! Today is April 15th and as most Americans know, today is Tax Day. If you have not yet filed a federal tax form by midnight tonight, you will not have a pleasant tomorrow. So get the glue off your behind and go to the IRS website to print all the forms you need, and get busy! Here’s another absolutely awesome site! Tax Act will let you do it yourself for about $17 bucks, plus your federal is FREE. I paid $160 at H&R Block. Next time, I’ll take my own advice.
It’s April 15th, the day the boss giveth, but the IRS taketh away.
Income Tax Day — the deadline for filing income tax returns is tonight at midnight. While Abraham Lincoln was President, an act of Congress in 1862 imposed the first federal income tax on the U.S. to finance the Civil War. It provided a 3% tax for people making $800 to $10,000 dollars ayear. 5%, for those that made over $10,000 a year. By the way: Lincoln died on April 15, 1865.
History of the Income Tax:
- 1862: The newly created Bureau of Internal Revenue collects taxes to finance the Civil War.
- 1913: The Constitution is amended to allow Congress to collect income taxes.
- 1934: Treasury goes after its former chief, Andrew Mellon, after learning he had asked the BIR for a memo on “the various ways in which an individual may legally avoid tax” and then used five of the ten methods on his personal return.
- 1942: FDR declares, “In this time of war, no American citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000.”
- 1981: Congress cuts the top tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent, the largest cut in U.S. history. The following year it passes the largest peacetime tax hike in U.S. history.
- 1986: The IRS begins requiring tax-payers to give Social Security numbers for dependents listed as deductions. The next year, 7 million “children” disappear.
Useless Tax Trivia:
- In ancient Roman Days, they used to tax urine since it was a highly valued cleaning agent.
- Unshaven Russians used to pay a tax on their beards.
- An average of 3 hours of each workday, go to pay your taxes.
- One out of every 5 Americans wait until the last day to turn in their forms.
- 2 million documents are lost by the IRS each year.
Tax Quotes:
- “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.” –Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice
- “The power of taxing people and their property is essential to the very existence of government.” –James Madison, U.S. President
- “To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.” –Edmund Burke, 18th Century Irish political philosopher and British statesman
- “I am proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is – I could be just as proud for half the money.” –Arthur Godfrey, entertainer
- “People who complain about taxes can be divided into two classes: men and women.” –Unknown
- “Like mothers, taxes are often misunderstood, but seldom forgotten.” –Lord Bramwell, 19th Century English jurist
- “The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return. It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.” –Arthur C. Clarke, author
- “Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying as an income tax refund.” –F.J. Raymond, humorist
- A tax loophole is “something that benefits the other guy. If it benefits you, it is tax reform.” –Russell B. Long, U.S. Senator
- “Few of us ever test our powers of deduction, except when filling out an income tax form.’ –Laurence J. Peter, author
- “Taxation with representation ain’t so hot either.” –Gerald Barzan, humorist
- “Where there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.” –Plato
- “Income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf.” –Will Rogers, humorist