Jack Kingston: “I thank the gentleman, and knowing the interest of the gentleman from Mississippi in this death tax and the repeal of…”

“I thank the gentleman, and knowing the interest of the gentleman from Mississippi in this death tax and the repeal of it, and I certainly appreciate his leadership, as do most taxpaying Americans, I wanted to bring an article sent to me by Dr. Bert Loftman of Atlanta, that was in the Human Events magazine on April 18 of this year, written by Terence Jeffrey, and in that he goes into the history of the death tax. The article points out that Lincoln imposed an emergency inheritance tax during the Civil War but that it was repealed in 1870, and the reason he did it was because of the national emergency of the Civil War. Also this article points out that in 1894 we had a temporary income tax, as well, but that was also repealed. I guess the crowning blow that made this permanent was under President Wilson in 1913 when he ratified the 16th amendment that, of course, started the income tax law, but it also gave Congress the power to lay and collect taxes on income. Wilson followed that by cutting U.S. tariffs in half; to pay for or offset the revenue lost by imposing progressive taxes on the incomes of rich Americans. So here we have historically how this tax came about, to give foreign traders a tax break, and how we increased the taxes on Americans.”