The IRS: A Historical Perspective

A review today in the Washington Post talks about a recent lecture by Donald Korb, a former Chief Counsel for the IRS and former Assistant Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.

He talked about some of the changes in our federal income tax system over the years and how the system of taxation has evolved.

Here are some interesting highlights from his talk:

• Today the highest income tax rate for an individual is 43.4% and for a corporation its 35%. Although there is still a lot of whining about our rates, in 1974 the top rates were 70% for individuals and 48% for corporations.
• There are over 5,000 pages in today's Internal Revenue Code when in 1974 there were only about 1,500 pages.
• In 1974 the IRS administered approximately 12,100 pages of Treasury Regulations. Today they have over 44,000 pages of regulations to work with.
• The IRS had about 78,000 employees in 1974. Today there are about 89,500.

Mark S Gleason CPA
- www.lakes.cpa.com