Note one very important aspect of this story, for all those who claim Americans could not be voluntarily persuaded to contribute to government, that is in essence what happened in this case, since the government did not have enough resources to enforce compliance. The government used advertising to bring in more revenue. Just more proof that an income tax is not necessary. American citizens would contribute more if there were a crisis and the money was needed by government:

"Donald's shout of "Taxes to beat the Axis" underscored the patriotic need to pay taxes. Walt ordered a full-scale publicity campaign to coincide with saturation bookings at theaters. The New Spirit was an instant success and Walt had agreed to make it "without profit" as he had for all the war related work the Disney Studios did. The Treasury Department estimated that 60 million Americans saw the film, and a Gallup Poll indicated that voluntary submission to the income tax increased 37 percent. A Treasury official summarized the tax explosion to Congress in 1943:

Up until 1941 we never received as many as 8,000,000 individual income-tax returns in a year. In 1941 that number increased to 15,000,000; in 1942 it increased to 16,000,000. This year we expect 35,000,000 taxable individual income-tax returns.

According to tax historian John Witte, “In 1939 about 15% of the people paid income tax. That’s all, period. At the end of the war, we had 80% of our families paying income tax.”

From:

Walt Disney and the Income Tax

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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Schopenhauer