One of the most evil branches of the government is the IRS. They are about to turn 150, so I thought I would jot down a few notes about the agency.
- Started by Abraham Lincoln (and the Congress) to pay for Civil War (emergency and temporary tax) in 1862
- New concept: We copied a new British system of taxing income, instead of taxing trade and property.
- Rate started at 3%, quickly went up to 10%
- Declared unconstitutional in 1894
- The Socialist Party advocated a graduated income tax in 1887. (see plank #2 of The Communist Manifesto)
- The Democratic Party proposed an income tax in its 1908 platform.
- The 16th Amendment was passed in 1913 (1913 was a terrible year for liberty) asserting the authority of the federal government to tax individual incomes
- The income tax rate for everyone making less than $453,292/yr (adjusted for inflation) was 1% in 1913. (from Tax Foundation)
- Rates quickly increased, and reached 94% in some brackets.
- Today, something like 97% of the federal income taxes paid come from only 50% of the population, 70% of the taxes come from 10% of population, and 37% of the taxes come from 1% of the population. (about 1/2 of US ‘taxpayers’ do not pay any federal income tax) (from NTU)
- An estimated 22% of the cost of everything we buy (including services), has a hidden ‘IRS tax’ built in. This cost is what the it takes to comply with the over-complicated tax laws. (from FairTax)
- The tax law contains 72,536 pages of rules, regulations, and rulings. (from Cato)
- Tax law is the number one target of government lobbyist and special-interest groups.
- Tax law is the most used method of using the force of government to pick winners and losers.
- The ATF (BATF/BATFE) was born out of the IRS, and has grown to liberty-stomping size as aspiring bureaucrat leaders figured out ways to grow their gangs of thugs in the name of War on Drugs, War on Guns, and the War on Terror. As far as I can tell, the BATFE focuses on killing innocent people and covering up the truth more than protecting the interests of us citizens.
