- The word
“tax” is from the Latin word “taxo”, meaning “I estimate.”
- The number
of words in Atlas Shrugged is 645,000. The Bible has about 700,000 words. The
number of words in the Federal Tax Code: 3,700,000.
- Excise
taxes are also called “sin taxes.” They are taxes on alcohol, tobacco, and
gambling.
- Roman
emperor Vespasian placed a tax on urine in the 1st century A.D. Urine at that
time was collected and used as a source of ammonia for tanning hides and
laundering garments.
- A window
tax in England eventually led to health problems 19. In 1691, England taxed the number of windows
on a house. Consequently, houses began to be built with very few windows or
people would close up existing windows. When people began to suffer health
problems from lack of windows/air, the tax was finally repealed in 1851.
- Russian
Emperor Peter the Great placed a tax on beards in 1705. He hoped that the tax
would encourage men to have a clean-shaven look that was popular in Western Europe.
- Over 1
million accountants are hired each year in America to help with taxes.
- England
has a tax on televisions. Color TVs are taxed more than black-and-white TVs.
However, if a blind person has a television, he or she has to pay only half the
tax.
- Americans
spend over $27.7 billion every year doing their taxes.
- In Texas,
cowboy boots are exempt from sales tax. Hiking books are not.
- Following
Jimmy Carter, every U.S. president has released their tax returns.
- The first
income tax in the U.S was imposed in July 1861 to help pay for the Civil War.
In 1862, it was repealed and replaced with the tiered income tax. The current
income tax system was made into law in 1913, before the start of WWI.
- There are
at least 480 tax forms on the IRS website.
- In 2007,
the IRS reported that 99,316,995 taxpayers called, wrote, or walked into an IRS
office for help. That is roughly 1 in 3 Americans.
- Albert
Einstein once said: “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income
tax.”
- Alabama is
the only state in the United States to impose a 10¢ playing card tax for decks
of cards purchased in the state. In contrast, Nevada issues free decks of card
with every tax return filed.
- In 2011,
the IRS collected over $2.4 trillion from around 234 million tax returns (which
included corporate, individual, and employment income tax returns). The IRS
also provided approximately $416 billion in refunds.
- The IRS
estimates that in 2007, Americans who didn’t pay their taxes collectively owed
more than $345 billion in taxes.
- The Stamp
Act of 1765 was the first tax imposed directly on the American colonies by
England. The new tax required the American colonists pay a tax on every piece
of printed paper they used.
- The most
famous protest of taxation by the America colonies was the Boston Tea Party. On
December 16, 1773, colonists dumped 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor to
protest the Tea Act and other oppressive tax measures. They argued there should
be no “taxation without representation.”
- WWII led
to the creation of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, which later became the
Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The IRS is the world’s largest accounting and
tax-collection organization.
- In
Britain, Lady Godiva made her famous au naturel ride as a tax protest.
- Cortez was
able to defeat Montezuma largely because he incited a tax revolt among the
peasants.
- England
rose to power under Elizabeth the Great in large part because of her low tax
policies. Concomitantly, Spain was losing power because of the onerous tax and
religious policies of her brother-in-law, King Philip.
- According
to one historian, plane geometry was not invented by Euclid but by ancient tax
collectors who wanted to determine land size for harvest taxes.
- Newspapers
have such large-sized sheets of paper because of a British 1816 tax on
newspapers. The “knowledge tax” was levied by page. In response, newspapers
started using larger paper size to accommodate more text, thereby reducing the
number of pages taxed.
- In
Switzerland, William Tell shot the apple off his son’s head as punishment for
tax resistance.
- Over the
entrance to the IRS building in Washington D.C. is a quote by Oliver Wendell
Holmes: “Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.”
- When
Americans started paying annual federal income tax in 1913, they would save
money in anticipation of paying a lump sum to the federal government. It wasn’t
until WWII, when the government needed a more consistent stream of income to
fund the war, that taxes started being withheld from paychecks.
- The Cayman
Islands do not impose income or property taxes on its citizens. Instead it
raises money through import and export taxes, tourist fees, work permit fees,
and transaction fees.
- The
largest tax evasion case in the history of the U.S. is the 2006 case of Walter
Anderson, a telecommunications executive. Other famous tax cheats include
mobster Al Capone, Girls Gone Wild creator Joe Francis, Wesley Snipes, and
hotel operator Leona Helmsley, who once quipped, “We don’t pay taxes. Only the
little people pay taxes.”
