The United States has a unique history with taxes. It was founded because the people were sick of being taxed for things without having any sort of representation in the government, so of course you can imagine that the founders of our nation were pretty wary about putting too many taxes on things. This is an attitude you can still see objectively in the US today, as most states have lower taxes than other first world nations around the globe. The first taxes were really “sin” taxes on things like booze, sugar and tobacco, but even from the start people didn’t like that! There were rebellions and stories of tax collectors getting their houses burned down!

The rest of the taxes in the US came mostly through war, which is an expensive endeavor. The first tax was put upon the people in 1790 when there was a war with the French. This was a simple property tax. Then there was the War of 1812 which saw a few more taxes being added to the plate. It wasn’t until the Civil War when any income tax was added. This was only put upon people who were earning more than $800, which was a solid income at the time! Later on the constitution had to actually be amended to allow for a solid income tax that wasn’t based on the Constitutional law that taxes had to be levied proportional to the number of people who lived in a state. At the time, the income tax was raised for those who earned more than $3000 per year which was only 1% of people!

It’s always interesting to think of a time that taxes were different, since we’ve known the way it is for over 100 years. Taxes aren’t always everyone’s favorite thing, but we can’t deny they are important and have been for all of history.