Administrative History

The United States Office of Internal Revenue was created during the Abraham Lincoln administration to enforce the income tax imposed to pay costs associated with the American Civil War. By 1877, the agency was known as the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Among its duties, the Bureau was charged with ensuring that alcohol products were produced in accordance with Federal law and collecting taxes on those products. In 1919, the United States enacted a nationwide ban on the "manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes," and the Bureau was responsible for enforcing the law until the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. (In Southern Appalachia and other rural areas, the Bureau's revenue agents would become very active in pursuing and apprehending producers of moonshine liquor.) Today (2008), the taxation and regulatory control of the alcohol industry falls within the bailiwick of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

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