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New Tax Page

Online Resources

 * 1760-1799 Early Up county Tax Lists
 * Copied about 1764 South Carolinas Colonial Quitrent Lists
 * 1800-1867 online index Comptroller General, Tax Returns, 1800-1867 (mostly 1860-1867); 1824 Tax Returns
 * 1864-1866 Internal Revenue assessment lists for South Carolina, 1864-1866, at FamilySearch.org. Images only
 * 1695-1925  Combined alphabetical index, 1695-1925 (Only a couple have been digitized so far, but worth checking back once in a while)
 * An extensive collection of who has county tax lists beginning about 1865.
 * Book Preliminary inventory of the records of the United States Direct Tax Commission for the District of South Carolina (click on view all pages)

Why Use Tax Records
By studying several consecutive years of tax records you may determine when a young men came of age, when individuals moved in and out of a home, or when they died leaving heirs. Authorities determined wealth (real estate, or income) to be taxed. Taxes can be for polls, real and personal estate, or schools.

Tax record content varies and may include the name and residence of the taxpayer, description of the real estate, name of original purchaser, description of personal property, number of males over 21, number of school children, slaves, and farm animals. Tax records usually are arranged by date and locality and are not normally indexed. Tax records can be used in place of missing land and census records to locate a person’s residence.

County Level
The counties of South Carolina levy taxes on real and personal property. Tax-related records are kept by the offices of the Assessor, Auditor, Sheriff, and Treasurer in each county.

State Level
Districts for South Carolina 1864-1866 taxes, District 1,2 on roll 1; District 2,3 on roll 2: District 1: Chesterfield, Clarendon, Darlington, Georgetown, Horry, Kershaw, Lancaster, Marion, Marlboro, Sumter, Wimmsburg District 2: Barnwell, Beaufort, Charleston, Colleton, Orangeburg District 3: Abbeville, Anderson, Chester, Edgefield, Fairfield, Greenville, Laurens, Lexington, Newbery, Pickens, Richard, Spartanburg, Union York

The South Carolina Department of Archives and History is the largest repository of South Carolina taxation records, including:


 * Quitrents (records of property taxes paid to a proprietor or the crown), receipts, and disbursements for 1733 to 1774. The quitrent lists for 1768 have been published and indexed in: Mary Bondurant Warren, Citizens and Immigrants: South Carolina, 1768 (Athens, Georgia: Heritage Papers, 1980). The lists for 1760-1764 are available online at www.ken-shelton.com.


 * Treasurer of the Lower Division, Tax Returns, 1783-1799. Lists for 1783 to 1786 were published in the South Carolina Magazine of Ancestral Research, beginning in Volume 2. (See South Carolina Periodicals.)



Tax Laws
Abraham Lincoln instituted the income tax in 1862, and on July 1, 1862, Congress passed the Internal Revenue Act, creating the Bureau of Internal Revenue (later renamed to the Internal Revenue Service). This act was intended to “provide Internal Revenue to support the Government and to pay interest on the Public Debt.” Instituted in the height of the Civil War, the “Public Debt” at the time primarily consisted of war expenses. For the Southern States that were part of the Confederate side of the Civil War, once Union troops took over parts of the Southern States, income tax were instituted on them.
 * To learn more about this Collection click here
 * To learn more about the Civil War taxes click here


 * Additional information on the history of South Carolina taxation and records can be found in Holcomb, Brent Howard, A Guide to South Carolina Genealogical Research and Records, (Columbia, SC:Brent H. Holcomb, 1998.) ;