Income Tax Rates.

Its that time of year again when in less than two weeks, people's income tax and any payments are due.  Some people have to file an extensions while others have theirs done and in as soon as possible.

While researching the history of Income Tax, I came across some great information for mathematical activities.

For instance, this site has every income tax form published by the government from 1913 to 2018.  The first couple of forms had a maximum tax of 7 percent for income over $500,000.  Over the next few years, the maximum tax rate jumped to 77% due to having to finance WWI.

This site gives a quick look at how the top rate bounced up and down according the the needs of the government.  Students could use this information and a spread sheet to create a graph visually showing the history of tax rates.  At the bottom of the page, they have their own graph showing the top tax rates which students can read and interpret.  They can determine if the tax rates are going up due to a major event such as war or dropping due to a depression.  Integration of social studies and math.

This site has all the years with tax rates for 1913 to 2013 so students could easily make graphs for each year showing the break down of percentages with income, perhaps even use stacked graphs to show the information.  The information is clear and easy to read to it would be easy to utilize the data to analyze.  The same information is available here in pdf form.

What is interesting is that taxes rates up till 1948 applied to everyone regardless of their marital status.  In 1949, married filing jointly appeared and they were charged less while everyone else paid the higher amount.  In 1952, Head of Household appeared as a new category so they had one rate, married filing jointly a different rate and married filed separately and single paid the same higher rate.

Up until 1955, married filing jointly was stated to be half of married filing separately.  In 1955, they got their own column with rates while singles still paid the same as married but filing separately.  In 1971, singles got their own column.

Every year provides rates based on percent and taxable income so you can see what the maximum amount charged each year.  This provides all the detailed information. If you just want students to look at maximum amounts, these tables have all the information needed to produce a graph.

Use this site to provide information on corporate tax rate since 1909 so students can do a compare and contrast of personal vs corporate tax rates. They can also create a spread sheet to show the rates in comparison with personal tax rates.

When I started looking at tax rates, I never knew I could find the information on tax rates from the beginning of the 20th century till quite recently, nor did I know it would be enough to create a social studies connection.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.