For most Americans, midnight tonight is the deadline to file your federal taxes. It’s a tradition that goes back more than 100 years with the enactment of the 16th Amendment back in 1913. Now, before that, the only individual income tax that existed in the U.S. was actually put in place in 1861 to help ease the financial burden of the Civil War. It started with a flat tax, 3% tax on all incomes, over 800 bucks. That’s the equivalent of around $25,000 today. But that was later modified to include a graduate of tax. It was wildly unpopular, as you can imagine. And the federal government didn’t even really have the infrastructure to enforce and collect those payments.
