Word of the Day
T-men
Common clues: Revenuers; IRS agents; Govt. investigators
Definition: Treasury-Men. Special law-enforcement agents of the US Department of the Treasury.
Eliot
Ness, Treasury Agent 1927-35
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the United States government agency that collects taxes and enforces the tax laws. It is a part of the Department of the Treasury.
In 1862, during the Civil War, President Lincoln and Congress created the Commissioner of Internal Revenue and enacted an income tax to pay war expenses. The agency created to enforce these taxes was named for the internal revenue they would collect in contrast to U.S. government institutions that collected external revenue through duties and tariffs. The income tax was repealed 10 years later. In 1894, Congress revived the income tax, but the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional the following year.
In 1913, the states ratified the 16th Amendment, which gave Congress the authority to enact an income tax, removing the restrictions on income taxes. In 1918, to finance World War I, the top rate of the income tax rose to 77%. During the post-war years, the top rate was lowered to 24%, but rose again during the Great Depression. During World War II, Congress introduced payroll withholding and quarterly tax payments.
In the 1950s, the patronage system was replaced with career, professional employees. Currently, only the IRS Commissioner and Chief Counsel are selected by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Bureau of Internal Revenue name also was changed to the Internal Revenue Service to emphasize service to taxpayers.
The main headquarters of the IRS is located at 1111 Constitution Avenue, N.W. in Washington, D.C.
The IRS is one of the government agencies which nearly all Americans must deal with on an annual basis; the other is the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
In fiscal year 2004, the IRS collected $43.1 billion in enforcement revenue. This is $5.5 billion or a 15 percent increase from fiscal 2003.
Recently, the IRS has altered its policies. The current Service plus Enforcement equals Compliance motto has lead to more investigations of abusive tax schemes.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "U.S. Internal Revenue Service".
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