Fact Check: Americans Did NOT Keep All Of Their Earnings Up Until 1913 -- Some Were Taxed Before Then
Fact Check
Did Americans keep "100%" of their earnings up until 1913? Not exactly: While the 16th Amendment, which taxed individual income, was ratified in 1913, some higher-earning Americans paid income taxes between 1862 and 1872 to pay off the cost of the Civil War to the U.S. government. A tax expert with whom Lead Stories spoke listed additional pre-1913 taxes that…