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Hopefully everyone has filed their taxes already. Hopefully you got a small yet decent refund. And if you owed money… my apologies!

If you haven’t filed taxes yet, make sure to file for an extension. Here is the IRS page that explains how to do so.

Fun Facts About Taxes

• Taxes throughout history are quite interesting. When the British levied taxes on the colonies, we were not happy… to say the least. But England did need to fund a war, right? We all know how this ended up…
• When we finally separated ourselves and created the Articles of Confederation we made sure to not include a national tax system. Isn’t that an argument from many… that donations will take the place of taxes if tax rates are lowered? But I digress, the states soon realized they were going bankrupt.
• Once we adopted our constitution 8 years later the US government was given permission to levy taxes. What did they levy taxes on? Mainly vices.
• President Washington learned the hard way that people do not like their vices being taxed. His lesson came in the form of the Whiskey Rebellions. Alexander Hamilton was said to have pushed this tax not as much for debt repayment reasons but to exert the power of the new federal government. Nice try Alex, but leave our liquor alone!
• The US government took a long break from collecting income taxes between 1817 and 1861.
• Why did we start again in 1861? The Civil War, duh! The first income tax was implemented at 3% for people who made more than $800/year. Throughout the war the tax was expanded. Once the war was over the tax was abolished in 1872.
• So we are developing a trend… taxes are usually based loosely around war efforts. The next tax was placed on chewing gum in order to fund the Spanish-American war. They sure must have loved their chewing gum if that funded the war!
• When did we break from this tradition? In 1913. Congress passed the 16th amendment, allowing income taxes on legal income.
• In 1916 Congress decided it would be a good financial decision to tax illegal income, too. If you can’t beat it might as well profit from it, right?!
• In 1935 the Social Security taxes began in order to provide for unemployment and those in need.
• The top tax bracket has been as high as 94% and still America blossomed. In 1981 it was cut down to 50%. Currently it sits at 35%… but this is just for income. Capital gains are a different story.
• The internal revenue code is 1.4 million words+. That makes it 6x longer than War and Peace and 2x longer than the King James Bible. Could YOU make it through War and Peace six times and absorb most of it?
• There are 2x as many tax preparers as cops, totaling in at about 1.2 million.
• Between 1940 and 2004 the instructions for Form 1040 went from 2 pages to 79 pages. Either we left people in the dark in 1940, we overload people with information now, or the tax code has expanded beyond belief.
• Billions of dollars have been lost by people who choose the standard deduction rather than itemizing. If you don’t know what you are doing, get a professional!

There’s a lot more… but Happy Tax Day.

If you have not filed yet take a look at this post and see if it is of any benefit to you:

All-Inclusive Tax Guide for a Recent Graduate (or otherwise curious person!)