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 This tax was repealed and replaced by another income tax in 1862.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
Working Tax Credit in tax credits; so the true cost is only £41. Other concessions with regard to assessment of income (in contrast to means testing used elsewhere) include: Around 7 million people in the UK are entitled to claim Working Tax Credit or the companion Child Tax Credit, although around 2 million people do not do so. The levels of Tax Credit take-up in the UK have not risen in recent years, despite an increase of 100,000 children living in households classed as "below the poverty line" between 2004 and 2005. The introduction of the Working Tax Credit scheme was marred by