Why Pay Taxes? A History And Timeline Of IRS Income Tax In The US

We can be forgiven, especially this time of year, for questioning a decision our predecessors made just over a century ago. In the 1910s, Americans decided to make personal and corporate income taxes a permanent feature of the US economy. Why did they start us down this road? And given that the taxes they endorsed started out small in scope and size but have multiplied by a factor of eight as a share of our economy, have we gone off course?