According to a recent AP story, nearly half of American households do not pay any federal income taxes. In other words, half of the American people have been liberated from the worst form of legal plunder the federal government can impose on the people. The federal income tax should-must-be abolished for all Americans. That’s what I advocated in my 1995 book, Tax Free 2000.
The income tax began nearly one hundred years ago, after the U.S. Constitution was amended, in 1913, giving the federal government the power to levy a direct tax on the American people. The American people supported the “revolution” of 1913 because only two percent households were subject to tax.
The progressive income tax began at one percent and rose to seven percent, exempting the first $4,000 of income for a family. Now that was the “good old days” of taxation. In 1917, however, the United States entered World War I and the highest marginal tax rate was hiked to 77% to help pay for the war, and now virutally all Americans had to pay tribute to the federal government.
After rates were lowered during the 1920s, helping generate an economic boom–the Roaring 20s–tax rates reached a peak during World War II at 94% and have fluctuated downward ever since. Nevertheless, with the federal government running one trillion budget deficits for at least another decade, there is a real possiblity that income tax rates will rise very soon for the remaining Americans who still pay the income tax in order to close the projected budget gaps.
With another tax filing deadline approaching next week, except for taxpayers living in storm ravaged areas–they have until May 11th to file–the income tax is indeed the “root of all evil,” as Frank Chodorov described nearly sixty years ago.
We are half way toward eliminating the federal income tax. Let’s finish the job and bury the income tax once-and-for all, so the worst form of legal plunder is relegated to the dust bin of history.