W. Marc Gilfillan, CPA, NC, individual and business CPA and Tax expert, shares about the history of taxes…
Ah…. now we have an event in history obviously about abusive taxes. Was the Boston Tea Party a protest against the British tax on tea, as we were all taught? No, not at all. The colonies had continuously been boycotting English tea for 5 years before to the Boston Tea Party! They had actually smuggled in Dutch tea and were quite prosperous. There was tea for everyone and no British tea tax paid. Obviously, the British did not like the boycott. So, the British forgot the duties back home. The Parliament told British tea sellers to disregard the import tax of getting the tea to England and then pass the savings along to the colonies when they shipped the tea over and thereby sold British tea at a price that was lower than the smuggled Dutch tea. If you’re feeling the pressure with today’s taxes, call a CPA for Tax Preparation in Raleigh, NC for all your tax-related needs!
But who would sell this British tea?
They did it through loyal British merchants in the colonies. But would the colonists buy the cheaper British tea even though it included a tax? Yes. They bought so much that what ended up happening was loyal British merchants were getting all the business and a tax was still be paid to England. Obviously the colonists did not care about the tax very much; they ended up getting more inexpensive tea. BUT, the non-British MERCHANTS didn’t enjoy this process. The British merchants, gaining the help from England, had essentially established a monopoly on tea sales. The native merchants feared it would only be a matter of time before more monopolies would be established with the same mechanism and they would be forced out of business. Go here if you want help with a modern-day Tax Return in Raleigh, NC.
So, a collection of MERCHANTS who appeared to be Natives, boarded a ship loaded with British tea and dumped it into the water. Was this a crowning moment in American tax protest? No, it was not. The Boston Tea Party was looked at as the meaningless destruction of private property at a period when private property was viewed as very important. This Boston Tea Party was very grave and didn’t sit well with the colonies. Ben Franklin was abhorred and demanded that complete repayment would be paid immediately to the owners of the tea. Anyway, it turned into war.
However, the colonies would quickly learn that fleets of war vessels, battalions of redcoats, and cannons were much scarier than a few tax collectors. The funny thing is, America won the war, primarily due to the fact that England found it too expensive to wage war so far from England. BUT after the war, America faced astounding debts and taxes, and even with representation they were enormous.
Keep an eye out for W. Marc Gilfillan’s next chapter in his History of Taxes series: Taxes and Slavery and the Civil War.
http://www.marccpa.com/