It's Tax Day: Is Paying Taxes Doing Your Duty or Just Plain Depressing?

According to the History of the Income Tax in our almanac, the federal income tax was first enacted in 1862 to support the Union's Civil War effort. It was eliminated in 1872, revived in 1894, then declared UNCONSTITUTIONAL by the Supreme Court the following year. In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system.

That's why I'll post it again for you if you don't know what I'm talking about:

It wasn't until after the Federal Reserve was created in 1913 when it became compulsory for Americans to pay an income tax. Basically bankers formed a cabal with politicians to fleece the American public so it could finance the expansion of government intervention into places that was never authorized by the constitution.

Not only that, income taxes is relatively a new invention in America:

Income taxes are a relatively new annoyance. The bane of the working person didn't become law until the 16th Amendment was ratified in February 1913. You'd think this amendment, the granddaddy of tax laws, would have been written in a needlessly complicated manner. Not so. In fact, it's only 30 words long:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
So the modern federal income tax didn't become law until the early 20th century. However, a similar law known as the Revenue Act was introduced decades earlier during the American Civil War. Its purpose was to help pay the North's war expenses. The act was repealed 10 years later, but the income tax eventually made a comeback, thus proving that Ben Franklin was right all along.