However, the federal income tax—a “progressive” income tax—was a central goal of the Progressive movement. And in 1909, President William Howard Taft urged its adoption through the passage of a Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution. It was passed quickly by Congress the same year. By 1913, three-fourths of the states ratified it. Then, as now, much of the political debate for the federal income tax was based on shifting the burden of taxation from the broader population to a much smaller segment of society.
