If you live in the United States, you are probably aware that today is tax day. This is the day when Americans are expected to file their income tax returns, and to pay Uncle Sam his due. Every year at this time, the right-wingers in the country rail about the evils of the federal income tax, question the legal ground for taxation, and generally make idiots of themselves. They blame the Democrats for the entire income tax system, and one local newspaper columnist in my home town went so far as to blame the Democratic party for the passage of the 16th amendment, stating that the “Democrats reintroduced the beast by way of an amendment to the Constitution to be sure an income tax was legal”.

The 16th amendment does give Congress the legal ability to levy income taxes; he was correct in stating this. Unfortunately, his attempts to blame the Democrats for this are incorrect. President William Howard Taft, a Republican, sent a message to Congress on June 16th, 1909, requesting that a constitutional amendment be created to legalize federal income taxes. Republican congressman (and Majority leader) Sereno Payne of New York introduced the amendment in the house, where it was approved 318 to 14. Republican senator Norris Brown of Nebraska introduced the bill in the Senate, where it passed 77 to zero. The legislative branch was overwhelmingly under Republican control at the time; Republicans outnumbered Democrats 219 to 172 in the House, and 60 to 32 in the Senate.

There is a bit more to the story, and it shows the duplicity of the Republican party in general. In 1909, Democrats were in fact proposing an income tax… I believe the incarnation at the time was the Bailey Bill, and the Republicans by and large hated the idea… as most people with larger incomes did. Taft stated that the only way an income tax would be allowed would be to amend the constitution. Had the Bailey Bill passed, it would have been met with a Supreme Court challenge, and likely been declared unconstitutional (as had many tax bills that had come beforehand).

The Republicans were known as the “party of the rich” back then, a title that caused the Republican party a lot of political damage, and really moved the progressive movement forward around the turn of the 20th century. Republicans could see the way the wind was blowing, and were eager to lose that image… appealing more to the common man. Taft and the Republican leadership got together and thought up the amendment idea as a way to delay any bill that proposed new taxes. They never seriously thought that the amendment would get passed, much less be ratified by the states. When Payne, who was of course the house majority leader, realized that the bill was going to overwhelmingly pass the house, he made an impassioned plea to his colleagues to vote against the amendment he himself had introduced. I guess he “supported the amendment before he didn’t support it”… an early example of Republican flip-flopping.

One would have to question the motives of the Republican Party at the time. They held a solid majority in both the house and the senate, had a Republican president, and completely controlled the legislative process. Their lead was even more significant than the Republican controlled congress over most of the Bush years. Why put forward an agenda that alienates most of the people that put you in office? Remember the state of the populist movement at the time. In order to appeal to the common man, the Republicans in power had to say things and make promises they never expected to deliver. Unfortunately, their lies proved to be their undoing, and their duplicity backfired… big time.

A short three and a half years later, the 16th amendment was ratified, certified by Taft’s secretary of state, and Congress passed the first legal income tax in history. It is also noteworthy that around that time, the Republicans lost control of both the house and the senate, and lost the White House too… Wilson had won the presidency.The conclusion? The Republican Party laid the foundations of our current tax code, not the Democratic Party. When you drop your check in the mailbox, keep this in mind.