The Internal Revenue Act of 1864, 13 Stat. 223 (June 30, 1864), increased the

income tax An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Tax ...

rates established by the

Revenue Act of 1862 The Revenue Act of 1862 (July 1, 1862, Ch. 119, ), was a bill the United States Congress passed to help fund the American Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln signed the act into law on July 1, 1862. The act established the office of the Commissio ...

. The measure was signed into law by President

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

Provisions

Section 116 of the Act imposed the tax on "the gains, profits, and income of every person residing in the United States, or of any citizen of the United States residing abroad, whether derived from any kind of property, rents, interest, dividends, or salaries, or from any profession, trade, employment, or vocation, carried on in the United States or elsewhere, or from any other source whatever

. . . The ellipsis (, also known informally as dot dot dot) is a series of dots that indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning. The plural is ellipses. The term origin ...

The measure created a third

tax bracket Tax brackets are the divisions at which tax rates change in a progressive tax system (or an explicitly regressive tax system, though that is rarer). Essentially, tax brackets are the cutoff values for taxable income—income past a certain point ...

and increased taxes overall from the rates set in 1862. Tax brackets under the Act were as follows: * 0%: under $600 (under in 2013 dollars, or the about the same as the average of $13,425 in combined personal exemption + standard deduction for single and married taxpayers in the year 2008) * 5%: from $600 to $5,000 (from to in 2013 dollars) * 7.5%: from $5,000 to $10,000 (from to in 2013 dollars) * 10%: $10,000 and above ( and above in 2013 dollars) In addition to raising income tax rates, the act established stamp taxes on such items as matches and photographs. This act was allowed to expire as the populace mainly viewed it as an emergency measure for war-time situations. The Act ultimately expired in 1873 in the face of increased deficit spending. Congress readdressed reform of the tax law in 1893, eventually passing the

Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act The Revenue Act or Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894 (ch. 349, §73, , August 27, 1894) slightly reduced the United States tariff rates from the numbers set in the 1890 McKinley tariff and imposed a 2% tax on income over $4,000. It is named for Wi ...

of 1894.

Interpretation

In '' Springer v. United States'', 102 U.S. 586 (1881), the Supreme Court upheld the Federal

imposed under the Revenue Act of 1864. The opinion was authored by Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

Noah Haynes Swayne Noah Haynes Swayne (December 7, 1804 – June 8, 1884) was an American jurist and politician. He was the first Republican appointed as a justice to the United States Supreme Court. Birth and early life Swayne was born in Frederick County, Virg ...

.Biography of Noah Haynes Swayne, Sixth Circuit

United States Court of Appeals United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two fi ...

Notes

United States federal taxation legislation {{US-hist-stub