When Mainers file their federal income taxes next year, many of them will do so for free thanks to a new IRS program that was piloted in 12 states for tax year 2023 that will now be expanded nationwide.

Not every state will participate, but Maine Revenue Services announced its intention to join recently – in keeping with state policy, which has allowed free income tax filing since 2001.

It’s always been outrageous that low-income workers, many of who qualify for substantial refunds, had to pay private tax preparation companies for the privilege of accessing money that’s legally due them.

That reality stems from many separate decisions, decades apart, that illustrate the changing nature of the income tax system – the bedrock for revenue-raising by the federal government and many states, including Maine, where income tax proceeds have long since outstripped the sales taxes.

When the modern federal income tax was adopted in 1913 following passage of the 16th Amendment making it constitutional, the tax fell mostly on the wealthy, and was often described as a “luxury tax.” The brand-new Internal Revenue Service was solicitous, helping taxpayers understand and pay something they’d never encountered before.

By the 1920s, when Republicans dominated Congress, resentment among the upper classes against the progressive tax was growing, and – partly as a cost-cutting move – lawmakers eliminated this taxpayer assistance.

Still, tax filing was simple enough so most people could file on their own, even after the enormous need for revenue to finance World War II expanded the tax so it applied to middle class incomes as well as the wealthy, with top rates reaching 90%.

The consensus over the tax began disappearing in the 1970s, and the Reagan tax cuts of 1981 created huge peacetime deficits for the first time. Congress, amid rising demands for action, responded in various ways.

One decision was to create “workfare” instead of direct welfare payments: the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit.) It’s the primary reason why, though virtually everyone now needs to file tax returns, a far smaller number actually owe the government money.

Filings are required in most states, too. Maine converted the “circuit breaker” property tax reimbursement program to a tax credit, and added a “Sales Tax Fairness” credit as well.

Meanwhile, Republicans favored legislation that made the income tax more unpopular, or at least more confusing, through a variety of measures.

“Tax reform” in 1986 did simplify the bewildering range of tax shelters and preferences – many created by the earlier Reagan tax bills – but also made changes that distorted economic decision-making, such as collapsing a series of gradually rising progressive rates into just two brackets, 15% and 28%.

Naturally, this fueled the already thriving tax avoidance industry, and middle class payers tried to avoid the point where each additional dollar of earnings was taxed almost double.

Nowhere were the incentives for tax avoidance, and lightening the burden on those most able to pay, meaningfully opposed. As hotel heiress Leona Helmsley said at the time, “We don’t pay taxes, only the little people taxes,” though she did serve 21 months in prison from a 16-year sentence on tax evasion charges.

It’s only gotten worse. The Trump tax cuts in 2019 added new distortions, along with more cuts for big corporations and wealthy individuals.

Middle class payers long had an incentive for charitable giving because it would reduce their tax bill. Enter another “simplification,” a much higher standard deduction that means only the rich get any tax benefit for donating to charity.

This immediately reduced charitable giving, though it has since rebounded – the tradition of “giving back,” especially at the local level, may be stronger than the federal tax code, however perverse its incentives.

Throughout recent decades, there have been precious few legislators willing to advocate for fair taxation, and against the latest schemes that benefit one group or other, though most often those who can afford lobbyists.

Maine hasn’t been immune from making its income tax less progressive, even though extraordinary majorities in poll after poll shows that Americans, across the board, don’t think the rich are paying enough.

State tax brackets have been collapsed by eliminating those at the top and bottom, making it closer to a flat tax than is commonly recognized.

Nonetheless, we should celebrate small victories wherever they occur, and free tax filing is certainly one of them.

A long-ago presidential candidate vowed that, if elected, he’d make income taxes so simple that returns could be filed on a postcard; he lost.

Still, we can dream.

Douglas Rooks has been a Maine editor, columnist and reporter since 1984. He is the author of four books, most recently a biography of U.S. Chief Justice Melville Fuller, and welcomes comment at drooks@tds.net.