South Carolina Taxation

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)
 * 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
Tax-related records are kept by the offices of the Assessor, Auditor, Sheriff, and Treasurer in each county.

Other than a single tax list from 1733 and a few lists of tax collectors, no colonial tax records of South Carolina have survived. Parishes and townships functioned as tax districts until 1800; circuit courts, districts and their counties also functioned as tax districts from 1785-1800. About 16 "parishes" with various years have survived and can be found in the South Carolina Department of Archives and History.

Most districts/counties have some tax records dating from 1800 to the present with the majority of tax records from 1865. A fairly complete series from 1824, mostly of the low Country districts, is available at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, along with originals and microfilmed copies of county tax records.

Voter registration lists, 1867, 1868, and 1898 are another valuable substitute for tax records, The lists from 1867 and 1868 are particularly useful for African American research because the newly freed slaves registered to vote; many African Americans make their first appearance in the voter registration lists. The originals of the 1867, 1868, 1898 lists are at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History.

The best available substitutes for colonial tax lists are jury lists The jury lists include men eligible to serve on juries and were compiled from tax lists. See Mary Bondurant Warren, Comp., South Carolina Jury Lists, 1718-1783 (Danielsville, Ga.: Heritage Papers, 1977). Ge Lee Corley Hendrix and Morn McKoy Lindsay, comps., The Jury Lists of South Carolina, 1778-1779 (1975; reprint, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1980) is accepted as proof of the identity of Revolutionary War patriots.

Directories for the city of Charleston date from 1782. These directories may help locate a Charleston ancestor who does not appear in other records. They are housed at the Charleston Library Society.

Charleston Library Society Address: 164 King St, Charleston, SC 29401 Phone: (843) 723-9912 Link to home page: Charleston Library Society

State Level

 * An extensive collection of who has county tax lists beginning about 1865.

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 lists for 1760-1764 (also linked above)

South Carolina Department of Archives and History 8301 Parklane Road Columbia, SC 29223 803-896-6196


 * 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 taxes 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.) ;