Why does our POTUS refuse to celebrate the end of World War 1?? If WW1 was the war to end all wars, explain WWII, and all the other wars? POTUS has refused to attend the annual celebration on 11 Nov each year. "President Trump returns to Washington where he again misses a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I claiming that he was unable to do so because he was 'extremely busy on calls for the country'."
Revenue Act of 1913
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1913
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Instituted by the Democratic Party
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Lifted tariffs and duties on most goods
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Created Income Tax
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Upon implementation <1% of Americans had a tax liability (3K exemption = 66K exemption in 2010 dollars)
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Genesis of IRS and Social Welfare System
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Prelude to 100 years of global conflict.
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Followed by Federal Reserve Act 2 months later. Same Congress, same President.
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Followed by onset of WW1 following year.
Who pays for the wars? Who profits?
In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson re-imposed the federal income tax after the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment and lowered basic tariff rates from 40% to 25%, well below the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909. It was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on October 3, 1913 and was sponsored by Alabama Representative Oscar Underwood.
Wilson requested an address of the congress, which was eagerly granted. The joint session was a spectacular event. A huge crowd gathered, and every seat in the House chamber was taken. Newspaper coverage was intense. Wilson spoke only briefly but made it clear that tariff reform was needed and that he would not be a party to a repeat of the embarrassment of the thwarted reform of 1894. The burden was clearly on the shoulders of the Democrats, as they controlled both houses of Congress for the first time in 18 years
The duty on woolens went from 56% to 18.5%. Steel rails, raw wool, iron ore, and agricultural implements now had zero rates. The reciprocity program wanted by the Republicans was eliminated. Congress rejected proposals for a tariff board to fix rates scientifically, but it set up a study commission.
The Underwood-Simmons measure vastly increased the free list, adding woolens, iron, steel, farm machinery, and many raw materials and foodstuffs. The average rate was approximately 26%.
The Act also provided for the reinstitution of a federal income tax to compensate for the anticipated loss of revenue from the reduction of tariff duties. The most recent effort to tax incomes, the Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894, had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court because the tax on dividends, interest, and rents had been deemed to be a direct tax not apportioned by representation. That obstacle, however, was removed by ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment on February 3, 1913. The Act, which was declared to be constitutional later that year by the Supreme Court in Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad, provided:
"…subject only to such exemptions and deductions as are hereinafter allowed, the net income of a taxable person shall include gains, profits, and income derived from salaries, wages, or compensation for personal service of whatever kind and in whatever form paid, or from professions, vocations, businesses, trade, commerce, or sales, or dealings in property, whether real or personal, growing out of the ownership or use of or interest in real or personal property, also from interest, rent, dividends, securities, or the transaction of any lawful business carried on for gain or profit, or gains or profits and income derived from any source whatever…."
The incomes of couples exceeding $4,000, as well as those of single persons earning $3,000 or more, were subject to a 1% tax. Also, the measure provided a progressive tax structure; those with high incomes were taxed at higher rates.
In only a few years, the income tax became the federal government's chief source of income and greatly exceeded tariff revenues.
Less than 1% of the population then paid federal income tax.
The international economic picture was soon upset by the outbreak of World War I. American products were in great demand throughout the world, making the question of protectionism moot. The next reordering of national tariff policy would not occur until after the war ended, and the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922 raised the rates.
The top marginal income tax rate of 7% in the 1913 Act was mentioned in Ronald Reagan's remarks on the South Lawn of the White House on October 22, 1986, when he said that the top rate was for "the equivalent of multimillionaires today."
The Act also created a new group of tax-exempt organizations dedicated to social welfare. The provision was a precursor to what is now Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(4).