The United States Tax System

In the early 1600’s, English people, attempting to escape the economic crisis that had plagued England, began migrating to the Americas and establishing colonies. The New England colonies and the Chesapeake region were both settled largely by populations of people of English origin. Despite this similarity, by 1700 the regions had evolved into two distinct societies. The difference in the kind of people that settled, the shared communal values, and the profitability of the land in these areas are what shaped these regions into contrasting societies.

1. In the 1500’s many Europeans began to sail across the Atlantic Ocean to settle in the New World and there were many reasons for the settlement in the New World. The primary motivations for the settling of the New England colonies and the Mid Atlantic colonies were similar while the colonies in the South had different motivations for doing things. The New England colonies included New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, and the New England Colonies searched for religious freedom and new economic routes and also for the natural resources. The Puritans who resided in Massachusetts were the primary example. After leaving Europe due to their differences in religious views, then

The first proposal to impose an income tax on Americans occurred during the War of 1812. After two years of war, the federal government had accumulated a whopping $100 million of debt. To fund the war against Britain, the government doubled the rates of its major source of revenue, customs duties on imports, which obstructed trade and ended up yielding less revenue than the previous lower rates. At the height of the war, excise taxes were imposed on goods and commodities, housing, slaves and land were taxed. Finally when the war ended in 1816, these taxes were abolished. A high tariff was then passed to retire the accumulated war debt. Thankfully, the notion of an income tax was conquered (Young, 2004). However, the thought of the income tax reappeared as an idea to fund the Union armies in the war to prevent the secession of the Confederacy. The war was expensive, costing on average $1,750,000 a day. Struggling to meet these expenses, the Republican Congress borrowed heavily, doubled tariff rates, sold off public lands, imposed a maze of licensing fees, increased old excise tax rates and created new excise taxes. But none of this was enough to fund the debt (Young, 2004)..

In 1861, Lincoln levied the first federal income tax by signing the Revenue Act. Needing cash with which to fund the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln and the Congress agreed to impose a 3 percent tax on annual incomes over $800.00. The wording of the Revenue Act was broadly written to define income as a monetary gain derived from any kind of property, or from any specialized trade, employment, or vocation carried on in the United States or elsewhere or from any source whatever. (A&E Television Networks, 2014)

The worst thing I think America ever did is putting way too many taxes on the poor. One of my reasons is that the poor can’t afford a lot of things with taxes and if the poor buy something they also have to pay taxes, which will make everything more Expensive. My Second reason is that the government should make a rule for taxes based on the person's income. My Third reason is that because of the taxes the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer. Those are my three reasons for why taxes on the poor is the worst thing America did.

Have you heard of the Boston Tea Party? Well, it was a protest to the taxation of the tea that was being imported into the country. This event happened a little while before The American Revolution. The date was December 16,1773. The Boston Tea Party helped bring together the people. It also was one of the major causes of the American Revolution. The Boston Tea Party also made a lot of people think about taxation in a different way.

About a decade before the American Revolution happened in 1775, there were lots of tension building up between the colonists and the British. The colonists did not like being under British rule and control because they liked freedom and wanted independence. However, the British government attempted to raise tax revenues by imposing more taxes on the colonists to pay for the leftover debts from the Indian-French War. Some of the laws passed include the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townshend Tariffs of 1767, and the Tea Act of 1773. Some events that escalated the tension include the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, etc. The colonists were justified in rebelling against Britain.

In January of 2005, President George W. Bush appointed a bipartisan committee to propose new income tax policies; they were referred to as the “President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform”. The goal of the panel was to advise new options in an attempt to make filing of the United States personal income tax simpler. The made a statement about the difficulty that normal citizens have when filing their tax returns, “For millions of Americans, the annual rite of filing taxes has become a headache of burdensome record-keeping, lengthy instructions, and complicated schedules, worksheets, and forms – often requiring multiple

In 1700s, our country was not called the United State of America. It was divided into thirteen colonies. The British control the colonies. People from Europe traveled to America to start a new life. Some of them came for freedom to worship who they wanted . Some of them came for land

Throughout the years, tensions started growing between colonists and English soldiers. At the same time, the French and Indian war waged on between England and the people occupying modern day Canada. The loss of the French and Indian war meant that England had spent a lot of money that they now needed to salvage. As a result, King George III started taxing the colonists; he also used the taxes to try to regain control that he had lost (The Boston Tea Party). There were several different taxes imposed, but the attempt to tax tea was the last straw. The result was the Boston Tea Party (1773). This was one of the acts that lead to the start of the American Revolutionary War. The war started in 1775 and continued through 1783. The fight between America and England was rough; the American soldiers didn’t have much and were greatly

The United States tax system is in complete disarray. Republicans and Democrats agree that the current tax code is complex, unfair, and costly. The income tax system is so complex; the IRS publishes 480 tax forms and 280 forms to explain the 480 forms (Armey 1). The main reason the tax system is so complex is because of the special preferences such as deductions and tax credits. Complexity in the current tax system forces Americans to spend 5.4 billion hours complying with the tax code, which is more time than it takes to manufacture every car, truck and van produced in the United States (Armey 1). Time is not the only thing that is lost with the current tax system; Americans also lose

The United States tax system is a vastly complicated, with almost six thousand pages and a little over three million words, the federal tax code can impede anyone trying to comprehend it. With annual changes and jurisdictional complications, even with some understanding of the federal tax code, its complexity grows. American’s spend enormous amounts of time filling out and filing taxes every year but, many citizens have no idea what their taxes are actually contributing to. Is the current tax system benefitting the United States economy and if not, in what ways are the system failing and how can it be improved?

In the early years of our nation, the federal government levied very few taxes. They got by with just the taxes from alcohol, carriages, and some basic household goods like sugar and tobacco. Sales taxes were placed on various luxury items when we went to war against Great Britain in 1812 to cover the costs. In 1817, with Great Britain defeated, Congress did away with all internal taxes and used tariffs on exports to fund the government. In 1861, to raise funds for the Civil War, Congress passed a bill assessing a 3% income tax. Evidently misery loves company and the Confederate states decided to follow suit and enact their own version as well. By the time the war was over, in 1872, the populace had begun to show their displeasure with an income tax and the political class eliminated it yet again. Then came the panic of 1893 and the income tax returned. As it turned out, this 2% tax on incomes over $4000 (that President Grover Cleveland called unconstitutional) started a chain of events that would eventually culminate in a constitutional amendment and our current tax system.

Taxes are something the people of America have had an issue with since the very creation of this nation, and it is one of the main reasons the Revolutionary War was fought. The issue of taxes has morphed over time, and in our current time period, people are debating which tax system should be implemented. Even though this is a broad topic and a national issue, this paper will only cover the income tax version of these systems, and which income tax system would be most beneficial to the state of Texas specifically. Currently, there are three main types of income tax systems, and they are the progressive income tax system, the flat income tax system, and the no income tax system. By analyzing research from reputable economists and academic journalists,

Tax system is a legal system of imposing and collecting taxes from the citizens of the country. As it has been stated by Albert Einstein, the hardest task in the world is to understand the tax system of a country. The United States’ tax system is so complicated that its tax code contains almost 3 million words and 6,000 pages. Moreover, the taxes implied by city and state governments add more complexity to the federal taxation system. In this case, we do not need to understand the complexity of tax code system in order to get acquainted with the significant role of taxes in American society.