Income tax in the United States or property "per se." What seemed to be a straightforward limitation on the power of the legislature based on the subject of the tax proved inexact and unclear when applied to an income tax, which can be arguably viewed either as a direct or an indirect tax. The first income tax suggested in the United States was during the War of 1812. The idea for the tax was based on the British Tax Act of 1798. The British tax law applied progressive rates to income. The British tax rates ranged from 0.833% on income starting at £60 to 10% on
Working Party on the Reorganisation of the Income Tax Act 1976 Following on from these reports the government in 1995 established a review process for rewriting the income tax legislation, overseen by an advisory panel drawn from the private and public sectors. The Income Tax Act has since been largely rewritten in a plain English style with a radically re-organised structure, including a unique (for New Zealand) alpha-numeric section referencing system (as opposed to the more usual numeric system. It was re-enacted as the Income Tax Act 1994 and again as the Income Tax Act 2007 as the various parts of the legislation was progressively rewritten. The Rewrite Advisory Panel was