Unhappy Portraits of Taxpayers in New York in 1944

LIFE’s photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captured the most dreaded rite of spring filing tax returns seven decades ago, and except for the style of clothes on display, these pictures might have been taken last April, or the April before that.

Eisenstaedt’s candid shots of taxpayers, taken with a telephoto lens from around 40 feet away from his subjects at an Internal Revenue information center in 1944 New York, reaffirm the old adage that the more things change, the more they remain — for better or for worse — very much the same.

Unhappy Portraits of Taxpayers in New York in 1944

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