Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 6.1
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Army used information illegally
obtained from the Census Bureau to round up Japanese Americans.
(National Archives, file
#210-G-3B-414)
the Justice Department with information from the 1940 census about the general lo-
cation of Japanese Americans. The Army used this information to round up Japanese
Americans and send them to internment camps (Figure 6.1).
The United States enacted a national income tax in 1862 to help pay for expenses related
to the Civil War. In 1872 the income tax was repealed. Congress resurrected the national
income tax in 1894, but a year later the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. The
Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified by the states in 1913, gives the United
States government the power to collect an income tax. A national income tax has been in
place ever since. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) now collects more than $2 trillion
a year in taxes.
Your income tax form may reveal a tremendous amount of personal information
about your income, your assets, the organizations to which you give charitable contri-
butions, your medical expenses, and much more.
