Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act
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The Revenue Act or Wilson-Gorman tariff of 1894 slightly reduced the U.S. tariff rates from the numbers set in the 1890 McKinley tariff. It is named for William L. Wilson Representative from West Virginia, chair of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, and Senator Arthur P. Gorman of Maryland.
Supported by the Democrats, this attempt at tariff reform is important because it imposed an income tax of two per cent to make up for revenue that would be lost by tariff reductions. The bill introduced by Wilson and passed by the House would have made significant reforms. However, by the time the bill passed the Senate, it had more than 600 amendments attached which nullified most of the reforms.
President Grover Cleveland, who had campaigned on tariff reform and supported Wilson's version of the bill, declined to actively support Gorman's revision, although he allowed the bill to become law without his signature, believing that it was better than nothing and was at the least an improvement over the McKinley tariff.
The income tax provision was struck down in the U.S. Supreme Court case Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Company 157 US 428 1895. Ultimately, the 16th Amendment made the income tax constitutional when it was finally ratified in 1913.
The tariff provisions of Wilson-Gorman were superseded by the Dingley Tariff of 1897.
External links
- U.S. History (http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h794.html)