Boston Tea Party by W.D. Cooper is licensed under Public Domain.

Excise taxes are targeted taxes imposed on particular goods, services, or activities. Americans for Tax Reform has recorded 210 federal excise taxes

The first federal excise tax was imposed on domestically distilled spirits, imposed in 1791 under President George Washington and Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. This tax led to the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, an armed revolt in southwestern Pennsylvania. This tax and all other internal excise taxes were repealed in 1802 under President Thomas Jefferson. 

Since then, the number of federal excise taxes has grown dramatically. Not even the federal government can provide an official number of federal excise taxes.

There are at least 210 federal excise taxes according to an Americans for Tax Reform tracker compiled from various IRS sources.

Many of them began as a “temporary” tax, with politicians promising the tax would expire as soon as the purported “crisis” used to justify the tax faded.

But “temporary” taxes have a tendency to become permanent. And steeper.

Americans had to pay the IRS $72 billion in federal excise taxes in 2024, the most recent tax year of published official statistics.

These taxes include taxes on fishing poles, archery equipment, guns, gas, indoor tanning and even the local portion of a landline telephone bill, a tax first imposed on a “temporary” basis in the late 1800s.

The Congressional Research Service wrote an extensive analysis of federal excise taxes, reporting the following:

  • “…they reduce economic efficiency by distorting what economists characterize as economically optimal consumer behavior” — Anthony Cilluffo, Congressional Research Service.
  • “All types of excise tax have some similar economic effects in a competitive industry… In the short run, an excise tax increases the price of the taxed product (by some fraction of the tax amount), and tax burden could be shared by producers or the consumers” — Anthony Cilluffo, Congressional Research Service.
  • Excise taxes tend to be regressive, meaning lower-income households pay a larger share in excise taxes.
  • Consumers bear the cost burden of federal excise taxes through higher prices.

Attached is ATR’s list of federal excise taxes as of June, 2026.