How We Got Here · 1787–1945
The Documented Timeline
Statutes, cases, and amendments — in the order they happened.
The Constitution is drafted and ratified.
Article I, § 8, cl. 1 enumerates four taxing powers. Article I, § 9 requires apportionment for any direct tax.
U.S. Const., art. I, §§ 8–9 (ratified 1788)
1791
The Whiskey Tax.
The first federal excise on a domestic activity — distilling. Establishes that excises can attach to activities, not only articles of commerce. 1 Stat. 199
1794
Tax on private carriages.
Contested expansion of the excise concept beyond transactional goods. Madison characterizes such measures as “pernicious innovations.”
1 Stat. 373
1796
Hylton v. United States.
Supreme Court upholds the carriage tax as an indirect tax. Stipulated test case argued by Hamilton, then Treasury Secretary, for the government.
3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 171 (1796)
1861
Revenue Act of 1861.
First federal income tax, enacted to fund the Civil War; recast the following year as an excise on gains, profits, and income.
12 Stat. 292, § 49; 12 Stat. 432, § 90
1871
Civil War income tax repealed.
Congress lets the wartime levy expire. Federal revenue returns to tariffs and excises.
16 Stat. 256
1881
Springer v. United States.
Supreme Court upholds the Civil War income tax on narrow grounds. Minimal engagement with Article I, § 9. Later limited by Pollock.
102 U.S. 586 (1881)
1894
Wilson-Gorman Tariff.
Revives the income tax as part of a tariff overhaul. Challenged the following year.
28 Stat. 509, § 27
1895
Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.
Supreme Court strikes down the 1894 income tax: a tax on income from property is a direct tax on the property itself and requires apportionment.
157 U.S. 429 (1895), aff'd on reh'g, 158 U.S. 601 (1895)
1909
Sixteenth Amendment proposed.
Proposed at President Taft's urging as a response to Pollock.
36 Stat. 184
1911
Flint v. Stone Tracy Co.
Corporate income sustained as an excise on the state-granted privilege of operating in corporate form.
220 U.S. 107 (1911)
1913
Sixteenth Amendment ratified.
Ratified 3 February 1913. The Amendment removes apportionment for income taxes — but only to the extent they are already indirect.
U.S. Const. amend. XVI
1916
Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R. Co.
Chief Justice White: the Amendment “conferred no new power of taxation.” Companion case Stanton v. Baltic Mining reiterates the point.
240 U.S. 1 (1916); 240 U.S. 103 (1916)
1920
Eisner v. Macomber.
Defines “income” for Sixteenth Amendment purposes: “gain derived from capital, from labor, or from both combined.”
252 U.S. 189 (1920)
1933
Twenty-First Amendment.
The Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition) is repealed by state conventions under Article V's second clause — the only amendment repealed in American history. A precedent.
U.S. Const. amend. XXI
1943
Current Tax Payment Act.
Automatic wage withholding becomes the permanent architecture of federal revenue collection. The annual, individualized relationship is now routine.
57 Stat. 126
1955
Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co.
“Income” is expanded to “undeniable accessions to wealth, clearly realized, over which the taxpayer has complete dominion.” The modern statutory reach is set.
348 U.S. 426 (1955)