Tax Day

Since 1955, April 15 has been Tax Day. Federal income taxes began during the Civil War, when  the Revenue Act of 1861 was passed. The Revenue Act was repealed in 1871. The first peacetime income tax was imposed in 1894, when the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act was passed. One year later, the Supreme Court ruled that the tax was unconstitutional in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company. The Sixteenth Amendment (passed on 2 July 1909 and ratified on 3 February 1913) gave the United States Congress the right to impose a federal income tax. From 1913 10 1918, the deadline for filing tax returns was March 1. It was then changed to March 15. In 1955, April 15 became the deadline.

Other taxes have been collected in the United States since colonial times. In 1800, my 5th-great-grandfather Andrew Russell was listed as a taxpayer in Pulaski County, Kentucky. He was the only white male over 21 in his household. (He had married my 5th-great-grandmother Hannah Hardgrave a year earlier.) He had two horses.

1800 Tax List, Pulaski County, Kentucky. Pulaski County (Kentucky). Tax Assessor. Tax books 1799-1822. Frankfort, Kentucky: Kentucky State Historical Society, 1952-1953. Family History Library microfilm 8209.

In 1811, my 6th-great-grandfather Francis Hardgrave (the father of Hannah, Andrew Russell's wife) was listed as a taxpayer in Davidson County, Tennessee.

1811 Tax List, Davidson County, Tennessee. Ancestry.com. Tennessee, Early Tax List Records, 1783-1895 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Original data: Early Tax Lists of Tennessee. Microfilm, 12 rolls. The Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee.

References
April 15: More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Tax Day
A Century of Income Taxes: The History of Tax Day
History of the US Income Tax 
Lincoln imposes first federal income tax
Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company
Revenue Act of 1861
16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Federal Income Tax (1913)
United States Taxation
Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act