ABSTRACT
The enactment of a federal income tax in 1913 was the culmination of nearly a century of effort. The notion of an income tax was anything but a novelty by the onset of the Progressive Era. The income tax was a worldwide phenomenon, having been adopted in such diverse nations as Switzerland, England, Austria, Italy, New Zealand, Tasmania, Japan, Prussia, and the Netherlands by 1910. The notion of taxing citizens at different rates, based upon their varying incomes, seemed inherently undemocratic, especially since so many would not be taxed at all. Tax assessments for New York City, with the greatest accumulations of intangible assets in the world, consistently estimated real property at about twice the value of personality. On the state level, the emerging consensus led to the adoption of income taxes in Wisconsin in 1911, and in New York, Massachusetts, and Missouri by 1919.
