In: Economics
The Internal Revenue Act of 1954 by Dwight Eisenhower, was the first comprehensive revision of the federal income tax system since its origin in 1913. It is significant, however, not for its important changes, but for the process by which reform was achieved. In less than two years, representatives from various groups, including Treasury, Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation, and the House Office of Legislative Counsel, coordinated a massive information-gathering and legislative drafting process that culminated in the enactment of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954. While the income tax was codified in 1939, the 1954 code fundamentally altered its organization and for the first time addressed many of the deficiencies that had plagued the income tax for years. The 1954 code remained the standard for more than thirty years, until a new code was adopted as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, and many of the features introduced in 1954 survive to this day.