The year was 1913, and the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system.
The original Form 1040 listed the tax rate on incomes up to $75,000 at less than 2%, with the top rate being 6%.
In the years that followed the rates went up until Oct. 22, 1986, when President Reagan signed into law the Tax Reform Act of 1986, lowering the top bracket from 50% to 28%, the lowest it had been since 1916.
