Tax Trivia

|| Interesting Things That Have Been Taxed ||
|| Tax Firsts || Other Tax Trivia Links ||

• Bachelors (England in 1695 A.D., and Missouri in 1820 A.D.)
• Beards (Russia, 1702 A.D.)
• Cooking Oil (Ancient Egypt, approximately 2000 B.C.)
• Souls (Russia, approximately 1682 A.D.)
• Urine (Rome, 1 A.D.)

Besides taxing beards and souls, Peter the Great of Russia also taxed: hats, boots, beehives, basements, chimneys, food, clothing, birth, marriage, and burial.

Tax Firsts

• World's first documented use of imprisonment for tax evasion: 306 A.D. by Emperor Constantine of the Holy Roman Empire.
• World's first excise tax: 5-percent tax in Spain, under the Moslems (approximately 8th-11th centuries)
• World's first tax haven: 4th century B.C., a tax-free port built by the Romans at Delos.
• World's first income tax: 1404 A.D. in England (it was so hated that Parliament later had all records of it burned)
• First U.S. federal tax office created: Office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, in 1862 (to raise funds for the Civil War.)
• First U.S. peacetime income tax: 2-percent tax on the rich (top 2-percent of Americans)
• First U.S direct property tax: Tax on lands, houses and slaves, in 1798.
• First U.S. permanent income tax: 1913 A.D., with ratification of the 16th Amendment.

Other Tax Trivia Links

Tax Trivia from Henry Bloch of H and R Block
http://utahonline.sltrib.com/96/apr/15/tci/02444126.htm

Tax History Project: Presidential Tax Returns Archive
http://www.taxhistory.org/presidential/

Tax History Project: Tax Cartoon Gallery
http://www.taxhistory.org/cartoons/cartoon_static.htm

• Adams, Charles. For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization. Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1993. UIC Call Number: HJ 2250 A323 1993.
• Adams, Charles. Those Dirty Rotten Taxes: The Tax Revolts That Built America. New York: The Free Press, 1998. UIC Call Number: HJ 2362 .A3 1998
• Brownlee, W. Elliot. Federal Taxation in America: A Short History. New York: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Cambridge University Press, 1996. UIC Call Number: HJ 2362 B76 1996.
• Rolly, Paul and JoAnn Jacobsen-Wells, "Tax Relief." Utah Online, The Salt Lake Tribune, April 15, 1996. [http://utahonline.sltrib.com/96/apr/15/tci/02444126.htm].