1040 1913

The first tax form, the 1040 for 1913, already had some complexity to it, but most of the details were laid out right on the form. It was three pages long, plus another page for instructions. That's right, just one page of instructions. The 2011 1040 instructions are about 100 pages long, not including the instructions for the additional schedules such as Itemized Deductions. In 1913 there were no additional schedules. The General Deductions, forerunner of today's Itemized Deductions, took up about 1/3 of page 3. The instructions say that people who made less than $3,000 did not need to file at all. Since the average salary that year was about $750 per year, that meant that most people were not bothered by income tax. Another interesting side note is that dividends of corporations subject to income tax were subtracted from taxable income on this form 1040. Nowadays dividends are subject to what is famously called "double taxation." The dividends are paid from corporate profits that have already been taxed at the corporate level. Then when the dividends are received by individuals, they are taxed again. This was not the case in 1913.