I have had through the years a large number of immigrants in my practice who worked very hard. Many saved the money to start businesses and have done extremely well financially. By the way, Elon Musk is such an immigrant.
One uneducated immigrant went to work cleaning a Catholic high school downtown and later started her own janitorial company. Another immigrant I know trained as a mechanic at Delta without any college and is making $200,000 a year supervising aircraft maintenance by a contractor in El Salvador.
Hard work and initiative still pays off in the USA. That is why so many people still wish to immigrate to this country. Meanwhile, many native-born Americans lament that there is no social mobility.
The ITC went away in 1981 I think. My father needed the tax deduction so bought the dental equipment for my first office and then leased it to me. I had no income at the time. The purpose was to get businesses to invest in upgraded capital equipment during an inflationary time. You have to remember what a bad time the late 1970s was.
It’s not always apples to apples. For example, things that were deducted back then that are not deductible today:
State excise Taxes
State Gasoline Taxes
“Deductions were allowed for “personal” interest, Federal excise taxes, taxes paid to State and local governments, casualty or theft losses, and business expenses.”
A deduction for unusually large medical expenses was introduced for 1942
“An “income-splitting” concept was intro-duced for 1948 for married couples, permit-ting them to treat their joint incomes as half earned by each spouse and taxed as if each spouse were taxed separately, usually resulting in a lower combined tax.”
Unemployment compensation was not taxabe until 1979
Social Security benefits were not taxable until 1984 (increased significantly in 1994)
Deductions for “personal” interest and mortgage real estate loan interest were limited, and those for investment interest could only be applied against investment income, starting with 1987. In otherwords, these things were deductions.
Passive losses were deductible
Sales taxes were deductible and were done away with in the 1987 changes
Personal Insurances were deductible. This was in the 1990s only allowing corporate insurance deductions
“In addition, for 1948 through 1986, extra personal exemptions were allowed for taxpayer(s)
who were elderly or blind. Starting with 1987, these latter exemptions were replaced by additional “stan-dard deductions” for these individuals”
Mortgage interest was deductible back then
Also, “Tax was collected at the source in the case of salaries and wages, interest, rents, and annuities, with an exemption of $3,000 for single persons and $4,000 for married couples”
We have to make sure we’re discussing apples to apples. Yes, taxes were higher, much more things were deductible.