Tax Day Blues

Tax Day, which should really be called Tax Return Filing Day, annually brings anxiety to millions of American citizens. This year, due to the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have a short reprieve:

Both the federal tax-filing deadline and that of Massachusetts have been moved from April 15 to July 15. See https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus and https://www.mass.gov/info-details/important-covid-19-coronavirus-response-update-from-dor

But why April 15 to begin with?

Income tax was first levied in the US during the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln was president and our government had a new branch, called the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The IRS wanted money for the war effort against the Confederacy, so in 1861 it decided to tax American households with annual incomes over $800 3% of that income. But Americans of the mid-19th century didn't like taxes any more than their 21st-century counterparts and there was a great outcry. Eleven years later in 1872 the tax was declared unconstitutional.

But then Congress passed a bill, called the Revenue Act of 1894, to levy a 2% tax. However, it wasn't until the 16th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified in 1913 that we had a law that empowered Congress to tax citizens' income. The management of this program was assigned to the IRS.

In 1913 Tax Day was March 1 and five years later, with the Revenue Act of 1918, it was moved to March 15. In 1955, under President Eisenhower, that fraught day was pushed back to April 15, the date we've all come to dread. Why was Tax Day a moving target? Because for years the IRS had difficulty collecting what it claimed it was due, while Americans felt they didn't have enough time to prepare their tax returns. Even as the filing date was eased, the tax code became more encompassing.

Here are some eBooks on Money Management: eBooks on Money

The WPL, a Government Document repository, has many digital documents on Congress' tax-related deliberations. Try exploring these search results, which you can download from home: Tax-Related Gov Docs

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