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 This tax was repealed and replaced by another income tax in 1862.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
State income tax property taxes were evolving toward the modern resale-value model, several states continued to collect faculty taxes. Between the enactment of the Constitution and 1840, no new general taxes on income appeared. In 1796, Delaware abolished its faculty tax, and in 1819 Connecticut followed suit. On the other hand, in 1835, Pennsylvania instituted a tax on bank dividends, paid by withholding, which by about 1900 produced half its total revenue. Several states, mostly in the South, instituted taxes related to income in the 1840s; some of these claimed to tax total income, while others explicitly taxed only specific categories, these latter