 On APRIL 15, 1865, President Lincoln died. He was shot the night before in Ford's Theater.
On APRIL 15, 1912, the Titanic sank. It struck an iceberg the night before.
In 1954, APRIL 15 became the deadline for filing Income tax returns.
Though
the Constitution banned a Federal Income Tax (Art.1,Sec.9), Lincoln
passed an emergency income tax to pay for the Civil War.
It was repealed in 1873.
An income tax was attempted in 1894, but the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in Pollock v Farmers' Loan.
With World War I threatening, Woodrow Wilson thought ending tariff taxes on imports between countries would bring world peace.
As
tariffs were the Federal Government's main source of revenue, Wilson
proposed replacing tariff revenue with a Federal income tax, passed in
1913 with the 16th Amendment.
Originally,
it was just a one percent tax on the top one percent richest people,
intended only to 'soak-the-rich' of the likes of the Rockefellers and
the Carnegies, which they avoided by moving their money into tax-free
foundations, such as the Rockefeller Foundation and Carnegie Foundation.
In 1942, with World War II, Franklin Roosevelt increased and
expanded the Federal Income Tax with "the greatest tax bill in American
history." This began the trend of companies outsourcing their
manufacturing to other countries to avoid taxes in order to stay
competitive globally.
John F. Kennedy stated February 6, 1961:
"I
have asked the secretary of the treasury to report on whether present
tax laws may be stimulating in undue amounts the flow of American
capital to the industrial countries abroad."
John F. Kennedy stated April 20, 1961:
"In
meeting the demands of war finance, the individual income tax moved
from a selective tax imposed on the wealthy to the means by which the
great majority of our citizens participate in paying."
When the
economy slowed, Kennedy's stimulus plan was to lower taxes on everyone,
as he suggested at a news conference, November 20, 1962:
"It is a
paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too
low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut
the rates now...
Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget
deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can
bring a budget surplus."
On January 17, 1963, JFK stated:
"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 - not a reduced - flow of revenues to the federal
government."
John F. Kennedy stated in his Annual Message, January 21, 1963:
"In
today's economy, fiscal prudence and responsibility call for tax
reduction even if it temporarily enlarges the Federal deficit - why
reducing taxes is the best way open to us to increase revenues...
It
is no contradiction - the most important single thing we can do to
stimulate investment in today's economy is to raise consumption by major
reduction of individual income tax rates."
JFK mentioned in his Message to Congress on Tax Reduction, January 24, 1963:
"Our
tax system still siphons out of the private economy too large a share
of personal and business purchasing power and reduces the incentive for
risk, investment and effort-thereby aborting our recoveries and stifling
our national growth rate."
On September 18, 1963, JFK stated in a national radio and TV address:
"A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced Federal budget.
Every
taxpayer and his family will have more money left over after taxes for a
new car, a new home, new conveniences, education, and investment.
Every
businessman can keep a higher percentage of his profits in his cash
register or put it to work expanding or improving his business, and as
the national income grows, the Federal Government will ultimately end up
with more revenues...
Prosperity is the real way to balance our
budget. Our tax rates are so high today that the growth of profits and
pay checks in this country have been stunted.
Our tax revenues
have been depressed and our books for out of the last 10 years have been
in the red. By lowering tax rates, by increasing jobs and income, we
can expand tax revenues and bring finally our budget into balance."
In 1988, President Reagan said:
"I
believe God did give mankind unlimited gifts to invent, produce and
create. And for that reason it would be wrong for governments to devise a
tax structure that suppresses those gifts." |
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