• Cash back - A centerpiece of President Obama's $789 billion stimulus plan provides $400 tax credits for middle- and lower-income workers. The goal is to direct the break to those cash-strapped enough to turn right around and spend it. But since these credits are being given to people who earn so little that they don't currently pay income taxes, expect partisan wrangling over whether tax policy is being used as a back door to "welfare." The president also plans business tax cuts for creating jobs, though conservatives want more help in this area, such as lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. "President Obama is a more international guy, so we should be close to the European average [of 25 percent]," quips Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform.
  
  
• Simplify - Americans currently spend over $20 billion annually on software, accountants, and other ways to navigate the 4,333-page tax code. One idea popularized by presidential candidate Mike Huckabee would toss out the book (literally), getting rid of the IRS and replacing income taxes with a 23 percent national sales tax. Under this "Fair Tax," the Philadelphia family earning $50,000 would get a $5,612 rebate; their total tax bill would range from $8,600 to $12,500, depending on their spending.
  
  
• Debt management - Since 2000, government revenues have fallen and spending has risen. Future deficits will run over $1 trillion annually. Where's the tipping point? Worst-case scenario, says Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center: "In ten years, we can't pay our debt back at all without printing a whole lot of money." Better scenario: "In three or four years, when the economy is doing well again, we take measures to get the budget under control."

1765
The Stamp Act. British Parliament's tax against the American Colonies draws cries of tyranny.

1794
Gulp! President George Washington sends federal troops to Pennsylvania to suppress farmers rebelling against a whiskey tax.

1817-1861
Tax-free days!

1913
16th Amendment establishes income tax.

1917-1918
World War I spawns an enormous tax increase.

1935
During the Great Depression, the Social Security Act levies a 1% tax on the first $3,000 of earnings.

1941-1945
Tax hikes swell federal receipts from $8.7 billion to $45.2 billion.

1981-1988
Reagan's tax reforms (codename: Trickle Down) reduce the top tax bracket from 69% to 28%.

1989
"Only the little people pay taxes": hotel heiress Leona Helmsley's tax evasion trial.

1990
Read his lips now: President George H. W. Bush raises taxes.

2000
Presidential candidate Steve Forbes bases entire campaign on championing a 17% flat tax, just as he did in 1996.

2001-2003
President George W. Bush's cuts trim the top tax rate by 4.6%, the middle rate by 3%.

2009
While 138 million returns are filed, Congress rewrites the tax code via the stimulus bill and the president launches recovery.gov to show "how and where tax dollars are spent."