Is it really fair to place the words “tax” and “fun” next to each other? We’ll let you decide, but with April 15th bearing down on us, here are some interesting–if not fun–tax facts to divert your thoughts for a few minutes and hopefully lift your spirits.
- The first property tax in the United States was in 1798.
- The first US income tax started during in the Civil War to help raise money back in 1862.
- The first federal tax office in the US was the Office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue in 1862.
- The 16th Amendment, ratified in 1913, established the first permanent US income tax. Four states rejected the amendment: Connecticut, Florida, Rhode Island, and Utah, and two never considered/discussed it: Pennsylvania, Virginia.
- The Gettysburg address, one of the greatest speeches in U.S. history, has 269 words. The Declaration of Independence contains 1,337 words. The Holy Bible consists of 773,000 words. Yet there are over 7,000,000 (not a typo that is 7 million) words in the U.S. Tax Code (laws and regulations).
- There were 402 tax forms in 1990, by 2002 that number jumped to a staggering 526.
- The number of pages in the tax code and regulations went from 26,300 in 1984 to an astonishing 54,846 in 2003. There are 500 pages in a ream (standard package) of paper–that’s nearly 110 reams of paper! A ream is about two inces thick, so if you stacked all 54,846 pages on top of each other, you would have a stack of paper 220 inches high, or about 18 feet tall!!
- The IRS sends out over 8 billion pages in forms and instructions every single year, that’s nearly 300,000 trees. (Thankfully, they now use recycled paper).
- The easiest form, the 1040EZ, has 33 pages of instructions–ridiculous.
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