Guess What Your Income Tax Would Have Been in 1862

Sarah Jean Seman

4/15/2014 6:56:00 PM - Sarah Jean Seman


In 1862 only two brackets existed:


These rates have fluctuated greatly over the years. The first income tax dates back to 1861, when Congress passed the Revenue Act to help pay for the expenses of the Civil War. The tax was repealed a decade later, according to the Library of Congress:


The Federal government has been reaching into the pockets of Americans all across the nation, ever since. In the the 1950s the statutory top marginal tax rate rose to more than 90 percent! Thankfully this is not currently the case, however the government is still claiming a huge chunk of our paychecks, and an increasing amount of it is going towards entitlement programs.

The Heritage Foundation used the following graphic to reveal that almost 50 percent of tax dollars go towards entitlement programs: