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<title>An Empirical History of the U.S. Income Tax</title>
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<h1>An Empirical History of the U.S. Income Tax</h1>
<h2>
Federal income tax analysis based on primary-source data and explicit arithmetic,
from constitutional foundations through the modern era.
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This site hosts an empirical analysis of the United States federal income tax, beginning
with constitutional debates and early fiscal ideas that predate the Sixteenth Amendment,
and extending through the major statutory regimes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The project relies on original IRS Statistics of Income tables, statutory rate schedules,
exemptions, filing thresholds, and contemporaneous macroeconomic aggregates. Claims are
evaluated through direct computation and comparison rather than narrative inference.
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The analysis examines how tax systems operated in practice: who filed, what was taxed,
at what rates, under what definitions, and with what observable behavioral responses.
Particular attention is paid to changes in tax bases, reporting incentives, and
participation thresholds that complicate simple comparisons over time.
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The project studies tax mechanics and their relationship to reported income, taxable
bases, and broader measures of economic activity. Analysis is confined to quantities
directly reported or computable from primary tax records and statutory definitions.
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Draft site. Content subject to revision.
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