A Brief History of Tax Reform in American Government

As president of West Liberty University in Wheeling, West Virginia, from 2007 until 2015, Robin Capehart presided over one of the oldest and most prestigious schools in the region. Today, he serves as a senior fellow with the Public Policy Foundation of West Virginia. In this position, Robin Capehart also uses his extensive experience as a government advisor on tax reform to conduct research and author papers on issues of importance to the economic and social well-being of the state and the nation.

Tax reform in the United States has a lengthy and complex history. For almost a century after its founding, the country funded its operations largely through tariffs, only establishing a limited income tax during the Lincoln administration. Just seven years after the Civil War concluded, Congress rescinded that tax.

Thinking on the issue changed in 1913, when legislation permitted the imposition of a new federal income tax. Tax rates burgeoned during World War I, with the very top rate hovering in the 90 percent range until John F. Kennedy pushed through a significant tax cut. Since then, presidents have initiated major tax cuts about once in a generation.

Major successes in tax reform include a report by William Simon, treasury secretary under President Gerald Ford. The Department of the Treasury’s 1977 Blueprints for Basic Tax Reform had long-lasting policy effects.

The Reagan administration achieved a high point in tax reform in the 1980s, when it not only slashed taxes, but also anchored reform in a thoroughgoing simplification and consolidation of the tax code.