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Income Tax Facts for the Weary

If you feel that preparing your taxes or writing a check to the U.S. government ranks up there with getting a root canal, then read on. You might enjoy some of these interesting income tax facts:

• When income tax made its appearance during the Civil War, it was considered a temporary war measure! (However, it remerged in 1913 after the 16th amendement of the Constitution was adopted).

• The tax rate during the early 1900s was only 1 percent of net income over $3,000. By World War I, though, the maximum tax had soared to 77%

• At one point, the government hired Donald Duck to encourage people to pay their taxes. The famed cartoon character appeared in the short film, The New Spirit.

• An effort to sell wallets through Woolworths and other department stores ended up causing a Social Security card nightmare in 1943. The wallet manufacturer E. H. Ferree Company wanted to demonstrate how a Social Security card would fit into its wallets, so the company created a sample card, with an employee's Social Security number donned on it. Even though the card sample was half the size of a real Social Security card, and was written in red, many Americans confused this sample card to be their own, after they purchased the wallets. The result: More than 40,000 people reported using the sample card number when they filed their taxes.