The Interesting History of Income Tax William J. Federer "The only things certain are death and taxes" - Benjamin Franklin Yet few know America's interesting history of Income Tax, such as: *1787 - U.S. Constitution prohibited a "direct" Federal tax *1862 - "Revenue Tax" on incomes went into effect to finance the Union during the Civil War *1895 - Supreme Court made Income Tax unconstitutional *Woodrow Wilson thought tariffs on imports caused wars, so he worked to replace them with an Income Tax. *1913 - Income Tax was only a 1% tax on the top 1% richest people in America. *1943 - Paycheck Withholding began as an emergency effort to get funds to finance WWII. John F. Kennedy - "Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased flow of revenues to the Federal Government." (Annual Budget Message, Jan. 17, 1963) Thomas Jefferson - "It is an encouragement to proceed as we have begun in substituting economy for taxation" (2nd Annual Message, 1802) (176 pages, includes pictures)
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I cannot imagine why a publisher agreed to publish this book. Of the purported 166 pages of text, from page 69 onwards are the text of three speeches to Congress. Of the 60 pages before that, every second page is a poorly reproduced picture. The result is that there is only 30 pages of actual material, and those are written in large font.
The book stats show that there are 5647 words in total in this book - maybe enough for a first year tax essay, but he would have failed on content. There is nothing to learn from this waste of paper. It should have been 15 pages long and given away as a pamphlet.
This "book" takes the least possible information that you could source and still call it a book. In fact, the publisher has done the history of income tax a disservice by foisting this material on us. Neil Boortz with his Flat Tax and Steve Forbes with his Fair Tax, for their diatribes, depend on the public staying uninformed about the matters that determine public policy. Mr. Federer has not enlightened us at all. He has taken two or three statements made by John Kennedy and tried to stretch it into a book. Save yourself the time and read any financial history by Steele or Bernstein or the Wiley Investment Series and you'll learn more about income tax and other historical matters of interest. This is about the only book I ever returned to Amazon.
The income tax is not necessarily an investigative matter, and this small booklet bares this out. The purpose of this book is to show that an income tax was deemed contrary to the principles established in the US constitution in 1787. With numerous presidents and statesmen declaring that such a tax would bring the young republic right back to the doorstep of tyranny (which is exactly what has happened), the idea is to stimulate debate as to why, then, do we have an income tax in the US today. It's simple, it's short, and it's essential reading for anyone who pays a US income tax. Additionally, the book reveals why Congressman RON PAUL is right on the money with his platform of abolishing the income tax.