page_title: Internal Revenue Service
section_title: American Civil War (1861–65)
hierarchical_section_title: Internal Revenue Service / History / American Civil War (1861–65)
caption_attribution_description: English: George S. Boutwell, the first Commissioner of Internal Revenue Service
context_page_description: The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The government agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who is appointed to a five-year term by the President of the United States. The IRS is responsible for collecting taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of federal statutory tax law of the United States. The duties of the IRS include providing tax assistance to taxpayers and pursuing and resolving instances of erroneous or fraudulent tax filings. The IRS has also overseen various benefits programs, and enforces portions of the Affordable Care Act.
  The IRS originated with the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, a federal office created in 1862 to assess the nation's first income tax, which was to raise funds for the American Civil War. The temporary measure provided over a fifth of the Union's war expenses and was allowed to expire a decade later. In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified authorizing Congress to impose a tax on income, and the Bureau of Internal Revenue was established.
context_section_description: In July 1862, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln and Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1862, creating the office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue and enacting a temporary income tax to pay war expenses.
  The Revenue Act of 1862 was passed as an emergency and temporary war-time tax. It copied a relatively new British system of income taxation, instead of trade and property taxation. The first income tax was passed in 1862:
  The initial rate was 3% on income over $800, which exempted most wage-earners.
  In 1862 the rate was 3% on income between $600 and $10,000, and 5% on income over $10,000.
  In 1864 the rate was 5% on income between $600 and $5,000; 7.5% on income $5,000–10,000; and 10% on income $10,000 and above.
  By the end of the war, 10% of Union households had paid some form of income tax, and the Union raised 21% of its war revenue through income taxes.
caption: George S. Boutwell was the first Commissioner of Internal Revenue under President Abraham Lincoln.
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