This is interesting (and timely): 1040 Form and Instructions circa 1913, Only 4 Pages 1. Taxes were only paid on income above $3,000, equivalent to $61,000 in today's dollars, at the initial rate of only 1%. 2. The highest marginal tax rate in 1913 was 6%, which applied to income above $500,000, equivalent in today's dollars to about $10 million. The entire 1040 tax form in 1913, including all forms and instructions, was only 4 pages, click here to view. All instructions in 1913 were contained on a single page, compared to the 2006 1040 Instructions, which run 143 pages long, without any forms.
Ford Motor Company circa 1913: "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black". My, how times have changed.
Interesting: Ford circa 1913.... in the black. Ford circa 2006... a staggering $12 billion in the red.
Ahhh. How the 16th amendment has grown up. How many states would have ratified it back then if they knew what it would become. Then again, it's not like it was ratified legally or anything. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_pr...at_the_Sixteenth_Amendment_was_never_ratified
Good point... on the top of your head. Never mind how you feel about the income tax (I'm pretty sure I can guess), but why can't you acknowledge it is overly complex?
The 16th amendment was passed as "tax on the rich" that would never affect the working man. One look around at these boards and there is no doubt it would be ratified overwhelmingly today.
Funny. Isn't that what was said about the AMT as well? Without question the 16th is the most unamerican, thuggish, oppresive, invasive perversive amendment in the constitution. It created the only organization in the United States government in which you are guilty until proven innocent. Meanwhile, this suspension of habeus corpus is just fine with people of a certian POV around here.
From these hippies: http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=19 Check out the rates from the Eisenhower years. And from the Reagan and Bush years! Lowering the top rate, but really lowering the top bracket level? Wow, Republicans like to dick over the middle class, don't they? Moral: shut up and pay your damned taxes, you freaking whiners.
Psychedelic red herrings! Too Cool but not to tasty! Maybe you can address the main point?: The entire 1040 tax form in 1913, including all forms and instructions, was only 4 pages, click here to view. All instructions in 1913 were contained on a single page, compared to the 2006 1040 Instructions, which run 143 pages long, without any forms. Of course if you don't actually pay income taxes I guess none of this matters?
She wouldn't be in that shape if her house wasn't forclosed on due to an invasive income tax lein. We need to replace the income tax with a fair national sales tax with automatic rebates. That way everyone pays by how they spend. And no deductions.
Look up, that's the point going over your head... It's "Flat and simple", stupid. Oh, and BTW God Bless JFK and RR!
You've just abolished the American middle class. Nice job. On the bright side, you've also made sure no one in poverty ever gets out of poverty, so well done there. Oh, and every small business just got F'd in the A. Nothing encourages spending like increasing the price of every good and service in the entire country overnight. Your basic multinational could handle it, but your basic Main Street business trying to compete? Not so much. Everyone paying a mortgage can just lube themselves up, too. There's a good reason Steve Forbes gets his ass kicked in New Hampshire every four years. EDIT to respond to VFish - yeah, the Harding and Coolidge administrations, what a bunch of Reds. Ever think the tax code has been tinkered with over the years because of the wishes of the voting public?
If the problem is that we have an overly-consumptive economy (and we do), then they way to solve it is to tax consumption, not to tax wages.
So? It isn't like it is possible to change. Every one of those twists in the tax code was put there because some powerful interest wanted it there. And every interest is going to say "the flat tax is great... except keep the deduction for mortgage interest" (or losses to disaster, or for giving to charity, or for whatever). Even if the majority of people don't like the overall complexity, there is no majority for removing any one of the items.
Wishes of the voting public? Seriously? No. You ever think it might be lobbists, lawyers, and special interest groups that created this mess?
U R Nuts. I am middle class. I have run a small business. I pay a mortgage. I'd love to see a national sales tax replace the income tax. And while I don't speak for the poor, the national sales tax proposals would be the best thing that ever came their way.