Income tax By the 1860s, the progressive tax had become a grudgingly accepted element of the English fiscal system. The US federal government imposed the first personal income tax on August 5, 1861, to help pay for its war effort in the American Civil War - (3% of all incomes over US$800) (equivalent to $ in ). This tax was repealed and replaced by another income tax in 1862. It was only in 1894 that the first peacetime income tax was passed through the Wilson-Gorman tariff. The rate was 2% on income over $4000 (equivalent to $ in ), which meant fewer
Hall income tax and 1960, the court rejected proposals for a general personal income tax. However, in 1981, 1991, and 1999, three different Tennessee Attorneys General issued opinions that a general income tax would not violate the state constitution. In December 2004, a commission established to study the state's tax structure said the Hall income tax was regressive, anti-competitive, and "unfairly selective." However, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) said the Hall Tax is actually the only major progressive tax levied in Tennessee—amounting to 0.4 percent of income for high-income taxpayers compared to 0.0–0.1 percent for less affluent Tennesseans. The Tennessee