Harmon’s Histories: ‘Wild horses’ of Congress enacted 1st income tax

By Jim Harmon

It’s that time again – income tax season. It rolls around every spring, just in time to ruin this perfectly splendid time of warmth and sunshine with its dark, menacing requirements to fill out forms and mortgage the farm in order to write a check to the IRS.

Who’s to blame? We always want to blame someone, right?

Well, in 1894, Democrats as a whole opposed the income tax. “Representative Black, of Illinois, said of it: ‘It corrupts the public morals; every man who can will avoid it, and perjury awaits on its collection.' ”

Representative Barnes Compton of Maryland told reporters, “I should vote against the income tax. It is a vicious measure!”

But “the Democratic wild horses in the House of Representatives” prevailed.

According the press reports out of Washington, D.C., “Those wild horses have taken the bits in their teeth, (as) the driver (President Cleveland) sits helpless and unable to stop them in their mad rush for the bluffs which overhang the bottomless chasm of oblivion!”

An editorial in the Missoulian newspaper on January 11, 1894, asserted “Cleveland has managed, by will power, cajolery, and patronage, to absolutely control the Democratic majority.”

“But the control ended when a majority of one compelled the eleven Democrats of the ways and means committee to decide in favor of a two per cent tax on all incomes, individual and corporate, of $4,000 and over.”

The editorial concluded, “The adoption of the individual income tax was a direct revolt against Mr. Cleveland’s rule, as he has been from the first opposed to it.” Cleveland let it become law without his signature.

The 1894 Income Tax was short-lived. On April 8, 1895, the U.S. Supreme Court struck it down.

Now let’s fast-forward to the 1930s. A new federal income tax measure, this one an amendment to the constitution, was ratified by the states. Montana was the 14th state to vote favorably. Wyoming put it over the top as the 36th state (three-fourths of the Union) to ratify.

But we can’t really blame Wyoming. The measure was already approved by one house in both New Jersey and New Mexico. So it was just a matter of time, anyway.

Meantime, we fill out our 1040 tax forms, while (according to a report by CNBC) “the nation’s millionaires and billionaires are evading more than $150 billion a year in taxes, according to the head of the Internal Revenue Service.”

A couple of years ago, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, told a Capitol hearing, “Many of the very wealthiest Americans play by different rules. Empowered by a tax code that is rigged in their favor, they rob the public of revenue, and leave everyone else to foot the bill.”

He continued, “The super wealthy account for a large, and disproportionate share of tax evasion, and cost the American people perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars every year.”

So, here I sit, pen in hand, ready to do the right thing, and write a hefty check to the IRS. After all, someone has to help fund our government. I await my personal letter of thanks from the nation’s super wealthy. You’re welcome.