Encyclopedia > United States Internal Revenue Service

  Article Content

U.S. Internal Revenue Service

Redirected from United States Internal Revenue Service

The Internal Revenue Service is the United States government branch that collects taxes and enforces the tax laws. It is a part of the United States Department of the Treasury.

For most of its first 138 years (1776-1913), the United States did not have a federal income tax. An income tax was enacted during the latter half of the 19th century, but it was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court. In 1913 the United States Constitution was amended ( see Sixteenth Amendment) to permit the enactment of an income tax, which was promptly accomplished and remains in effect in an increasingly complicated form. Prior to the establishment of the income tax, all government taxes were collected as excise taxes on products, import/export taxes, and revenue taxes on items such as photographs, bank cheques, stock certificates, wills, deeds, and other legal documents.

Also see Taxation in the United States.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Kuru Kuru Kururin

... has gotten through a level there are bonuses to collect, record times to beat, and a gold star for getting through the level without any accidents. Kururin was ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 73.5 ms