On Feb. 3, 1913, Congress ratified the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, allowing the government to tax individual incomes. Delaware, Wyoming and New Mexico were the last three states to approve the amendment.
To commemorate the 98th anniversary of that day, here's a taxing look back at the history of the federal income tax:
* Civil War expenses prompted the first real federal income tax. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Revenue Act of 1862 into law, which also created the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
* Income taxes were unpopular from the very beginning, prompting a repeal in 1872.
* In 1894, the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act revived the federal income tax and created an income tax division within the Bureau of Internal Revenue. The Supreme Court declared this new income tax unconstitutional in 1895.
* President William Howard Taft first recommended a constitutional amendment for a federal income tax in 1909.
* After the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913, the first 1040 form appeared. Individual taxpayers with incomes above $3,000 paid a one percent flat tax.
* April 15 was not always the day when taxes were due. After ratifying the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, Congress originally chose March 1 as the deadline for filing returns. The date was moved to March 15 five years later and, in 1955, April 15 became the tax filing deadline.
* During World War I, the top taxpayers paid a whopping 77 percent to help fund the war effort.
* Legendary gangster Al Capone was a slippery character to catch, but the U.S. Treasury Department finally brought him down. In 1931, Capone pled guilty to tax evasion charges, which was the beginning of the end of his reign of terror.
* Electronic tax return filing has made life easier, especially on the trees. In 2006, the Internal Revenue Service issued a press release about the nation's largest tax return. On paper, General Electric's return would have filled an estimated 24,000 pages, but the 237 megabyte electronic return was uploaded within an hour.
* Richard Hatch may have been the last one standing on the original edition of "Survivor," but the I.R.S. was the true winner. In 2006, Hatch was convicted of failure to pay taxes on his winnings.
* Speaking of tax evasion, each year, protest groups argue that the 16th Amendment is unconstitutional because it was not ratified by all states. In truth, an amendment does not have to be ratified by all 50 states, so a tax protest is still tax evasion.
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