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Tax expert Justin Morrill headed the Ways and Means subcommittee on taxation and brought his genius for finance to bear on the problem of funding the Union's Civil War effort. The series of internal revenue bills that Morrill prepared inspired the basic legal machinery behind today's Internal Revenue Service and its tax-collecting powers. As a member of the Ways and Means, the Vermont congressman also authored the Morrill Tariff Act of 1861. Its main provisions increased existing tariff rates in order to provided for payment of outstanding treasury notes. Morrill became Ways and Means chairman in 1865, and on three different occasions between 1877 and 1898 he served as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. |
