How did we collect revenue before the IRS existed? I really don’t know. But I know we did it somehow.
RE: How did we collect revenue before the IRS existed? I really don’t know.
SOURCE:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/history/item/14268-before-the-income-tax
Prior to ratification of the 16th (income tax) Amendment in February 1913, the federal government managed its few constitutional responsibilities without an income tax, except during the Civil War period.
During peacetime, it did so largely — or even entirely — on import taxes called “tariffs.” Congress could afford to run the federal government on tariffs alone because federal responsibilities did not include welfare programs, agricultural subsidies, or social insurance programs like Social Security or Medicare.
After the Civil War, tariff revenues sometimes suffered under a protectionist policy ushered in by the Republican Party that supplemented federal income via excises on alcohol, tobacco, and inheritances.
But before the war, the need for tariff revenue to finance the federal government generally kept the tariff at reasonable levels. During wartime throughout early American history, the Founding Fathers were able to raise additional revenue employing a different method of direct taxation authorized by the U.S. Constitution prior to the 16th Amendment.
These alternative taxing methods gave the young American nation embarrassing peacetime budget surpluses that several times came close to paying off the national debt.
But then, we had no such thing as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Department of Education, Energy, Commerce, EPA, etc.
As soon as you start a government program... it never dies.