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The History of Taxation, Part Eight: Tax Law and The Boston Tea Party
By plrprousers | December 23, 2009
W. Marc Gilfillan, CPA, NC, individual and business CPA and Tax expert, shares about the history of taxes…
Ah…. finally a historical event clearly about abusive taxes. Was the Boston Tea Party a protest concerning the British tax on tea, as we were all taught? No, not one bit. The colonies had already been boycotting English tea for 5 years prior to the Boston Tea Party! Instead, they smuggled in Dutch tea and were doing quite well. There was tea for everyone and no British tea tax paid. Naturally, the British did not like this boycott. So, the British forgot the duties back home. The Parliament told British tea sellers to disregard the import tax of shipping the tea into England and then pass the savings along to the colonies when they shipped the tea over and then sold British tea at a price that was lower than the smuggled Dutch tea. If you are feeling the pressure with today’s taxes, call a CPA for Tax Preparation in Raleigh, NC for all your tax-related needs!
But what people would sell this British tea?
They sold it with the loyal British merchants located in the colonies. But will the colonists buy the cheaper British tea even though it had a tax? Yes. They bought so much that the result was loyal British merchants got all the business and the tax was still be paid to England. However, the colonists did not care about the tax very much; they ended up getting more inexpensive tea. BUT, the non-British MERCHANTS didn’t like the process. The British merchants, with 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 many British enterprises would be established with an identical 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 dressed up as Indians, boarded a ship loaded with British tea and tossed it into the harbor. Was this a shining moment in American tax protest? No, it was not. The Boston Tea Party was viewed as the senseless desecration of private property at a period when private property was viewed as very important. This event was extremely grave and didn’t sit well with the colonies. Ben Franklin was abhorred and demanded that full repayment would be paid at once to the owners of the tea. However, it escalated into war.
However, the colonies would soon find that masses of war vessels, battalions of soldiers, 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 fund war so far from home. BUT after the war, America had huge debts and taxes, and even with representation they were going to be huge.
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/
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