For a long time, Americans didn’t see presidential tax returns. The first president to file them at all was Abraham Lincoln, after Congress temporarily instituted federal income taxes to help pay for the Civil War. No public proclamation accompanied Lincoln’s payments — at just under $1,300 he paid more in 1864 than Trump did 152 years later, no inflation adjustment necessary — and he filed voluntarily, as it wasn’t clear that taxation of presidential salaries was constitutional. Five years after Lincoln’s death, the courts ruled that it wasn’t. The U.S. Treasury returned Lincoln’s taxes to his estate.

A Brief History of the Taxpayer in Chief

Interesting post David on several levels David. Thank you!

(10-03-2020 05:57 AM)LincolnMan Wrote:  Interesting post David on several levels David. Thank you!

Your comment of being "interesting on several levels" made me think immediately of a Lincoln story published in Lincoln Talks (pages 590-91), by Emanuel Hertz, admittedly a very dubious source of factual Lincoln history. The source is stated as being from the author's personal collection described as "a collection of 120 volumes of newspaper clippings (1858 - 1938)."

When I Googled "A. Couch", I got a number of Lincoln furniture stories but no reference to the person specifically mentioned in the President Lincoln story; thereby, casting additional doubt on the authenticity of the story. But, on the other hand, there have to be a lot of true Lincoln stories unfortunately lost to history for this "authenticity" reason. But the story is so "President Abraham Lincoln" that I felt that I should post the story with the caveat as stated.

On the other hand, would unscrupulous people make up such a story? The answer is an emphatic "yes".

A. Couch, whose husband joined the Union army in Kentucky, came North with her family of little children to escape the persecution of her neighbors, and settled as near neighbor to my home. She had little education and called on her neighbors to do her writing. At one time her husband had sent her $5.00 in a letter which she never received, so she asked a neighbor to write President Lincoln about it, and a few days later she received an answer from Mr. Lincoln telling her that the only way to trace the letter was through the Post Office Department, and as the money had not been sent by registered mail it was hardly likely that she could ever recover it. So in order to insure her of not losing this much-needed money, he just enclosed $5.00

I read somewhere that the Treasury at the time didn't required the President to pay taxes. But Lincoln wrote the revenue office he wanted to, like any other American.