Whew! Thank Goodness Tax Time is Over!

There are at least 480 different tax forms, each with many pages of instructions.

The 1040EZ has 33 pages of official instructions.

The IRS sends out 8 billion pages of forms and instructions each year. Laid end to end, they would stretch 28 times around the earth.

Nearly 300,000 trees are cut down yearly to produce the paper for all the IRS forms and instructions.

American taxpayers spend $200 billion & 5.4 billion hours completing federal tax forms each year.

The IRS employs 114,000 people - twice as many as the CIA and five times more than the FBI.

60% of taxpayers must hire a professional to get through their own return.

President Lincoln and Congress enacted the first income tax in 1862 to pay Civil War expenses. The Civil War income tax was repealed in 1872, revived by Congress in 1894, and ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1895.

In 1913, Wyoming was the deciding vote in the 16th Amendment which gave Congress the authority to collect income tax.

The first income tax was 1 percent on net personal income above $3,000. There was a 6% surtax on income over $500,000.

During World War I, the highest rate of income tax was 77 percent. Taxes were used to help finance the war.

In 1954, the tax filing date changed from March 15 to April 15.