The Wisconsin magazine of history: Volume 21, number 1, September 1937

              genesis of wisconsin's income tax law an interview with d o kinsman twenty-five years ago in march 1912 individuals and corporations of wisconsin were for the first time pre sented with blanks requesting them to report their income for taxation this was required by the now well-known in come tax law of 1911 the measure so successfully tapped a new source of revenue for the state and attained such equity in the distribution of the tax burden that professor william j shultz in his american public finance and taw ation declares it started a new chapter in american fiscal history and dr alfred g buehler in his public finance refers to the act as wisconsin's epochal income tax pro fessor harley l lutz of princeton in his public finance declares that wisconsin's law was so emphatically success ful that by 1935 twenty-seven states had followed her ex ample failure upon failure had marked all previous attempts of the sixteen states that endeavored to tax incomes since 1643 when massachusetts began the movement so complete and so dismal were these failures that the highest authorities on taxation were agreed and had repeatedly declared that a successful state income tax could not be framed they not only insisted that any attempt would be futile but enumer ated the reasons why failure was inevitable in the light of this record a question both pertinent and interesting arises how was the wisconsin law made to attain such marked success this question was recently put to professor d o kins man now head of the department of economics at ameri