The joint tax return originated in 1948 from a wealthy white couple’s lawsuit.

Evidence

Meet Henry and Charlotte Seaborn, the rich white society couple whose lawsuit led the Supreme Court to establish the joint tax return in 1948. Henry and Charlotte were married in 1902, before we even had a progressive income tax system. As noted in the introduction, when that system was enacted in 1913, taxpayers were required to file as individuals. That meant the same rate schedule applied whether you were married or single. There were different exemption amounts for individuals and married couples—3,000 versus 4,000, on the grounds that it cost less to maintain one household for two people, than two separate households—which had the potential to provide a small tax cut when you got married. In 1913, however, only 1 percent of Americans had income high enough to have to pay taxes. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 83

Categorization

• DEFINE: Pinpoints the specific origin and year of the joint return — a named provision the reader needs to cite precisely.
• XREF: connects to: Wealthy interests financed a staged lawsuit against the income tax — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3223