The Great Tax Wars

A major work of history, The Great Tax Wars is the gripping, epic story of six decades of often violent conflict over wealth, power, and fairness that gave America the income tax. It's the story of a tumultuous period of radical change, from Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War through the progressive era under Theodore Roosevelt and ending with Woodrow Wilson and World War I. During these years of upheaval, America was transformed from an agrarian society into a mighty industrial nation, great fortunes were amassed, farmers and workers rebelled, class war was narrowly averted, and America emerged as a global power. The Great Tax Wars features an extraordinary cast of characters, including the men who built the nation's industries and the politicians and reformers who battled them -- from J. P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie to Lincoln, T.R., Wilson, William Jennings Bryan, and Eugene Debs. From their ferocious battles emerged a more flexible definition of democracy, economic justice, and free enterprise largely framed by a more progressive tax system. In this groundbreaking book, Weisman shows how the ever controversial income tax transformed America and how today's debates about the tax echo those of the past.

Examines the years between the Civil War and World War I as a period of significant change, tracing a rise of wealth and power, the bitter war between the Populists and Progressives, and the birth of America as a global power.

The truth is that the people of the United States are at the present time dominated and driven by two kinds of officially propagated fear: fear of the Soviet Union and fear of the income tax. These two terrors have been adjusted so as to complement one another and thus to keep the citizen of our free society under the strain of a double pressure from which he finds himself unable to escape -- like the man in the old Western story, who, chased into a narrow ravine by a buffalo, is confronted with a grizzly bear. If we fail to accept the tax, the Russian buffalo will butt and trample us, and if we try to defy the tax, the federal bear will crush us. The 60,000 officials who are appointed to check on us taxpayers are checked on, themselves, it seems, by another group of agents set to watch them. And supplementing these officials -- since private citizens are paid by the Internal Revenue Service to report on other people's delinquencies, and their names of course are never revealed -- there is a whole host of amateur investigators. . . Does this kind of spying and delation differ much in its incitement to treachery from that which is encouraged in the Soviet Union?

Over the past few decades, the concentration of wealth and property in the hands of a few has been facilitated by tax evasion, tax avoidance, and above all by tax competition. Fortunately, a determined move toward international cooperation among tax authorities is gathering its forces to do battle. This invaluable book shows how the globalization of trade, the digitization of the economy, tax competition between sovereign states, the erosion of the tax base, and the transfer of pro ts have all revealed the weaknesses of a traditional tax system that has reached its limits, and how numerous states and groups of states have joined efforts in creating a new international tax system designed to restore fairness and stability in the levying of taxes worldwide. Stemming from a 2016 conference initiated by the Canadian non-pro t organization TaxCOOP, convened by the World Bank and bringing together well-known taxation experts from prominent international organizations, the book presents outstanding contributions highlighting the impacts of tax competition and viable solutions. Among the issues and topics covered are the following: – electronic commerce and electronic money; – transfer pricing; – derivatives and hedge funds; – protecting tax whistle-blowers; – offshore tax investigations; – possibility of an international tax court; – impact of tax competition on developing countries; – carbon pricing; – tobacco taxation; and – effective taxation of the ultra-wealthy and their nancial capital. The chapters include details of country experiences and results, in some cases analyzed by key protagonists themselves. Collectively, the contributions take a giant step toward reinforcing the power of sovereign states in sectors such as the environment, education, and health. As an authoritative guide to increasing the level of transparency and accountability of private and public economic actors and restoring citizens’ trust in the fairness of our global governance systems, this peerless volume will be warmly welcomed by tax lawyers, taxation authorities, and interested academics worldwide.

A flat tax? Tax cuts? Complete elimination of the income tax? These ideas have most certainly been advocated by members of the Republican Party during the past few decades. Party leaders such as George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich expressed disdain for the income tax and utilized their power to remove it as a revenue source. At the time of the Civil War, many Republicans, mainly in the Northeast, were opposed to the new Federal Income Tax. Initially used to finance that war, the Federal income tax became a hotly-debated issue at a time when America was trying to put back together a fractured nation. The issue split the party, with Midwestern and Southern Republicans wanting to continue the income tax, and Northern and Western Republicans championing its demise. In the end, the anti-income tax wing took control of the Republican Party and shaped its economic principles for the future. The book is an in-depth look into how the Republicans in Congress dealt with the creation of the United States' first income tax and how it affected the party for the future. The author argues that the anti-income tax faction of the Republican Party won the debate and took over the party – and to this day, the Republican Party typically promotes either cutting taxes or eliminating them altogether. The author gives a brief history of the formation of the Republican Party and how they developed their economic views in distinction from the declining Whig Party, who mostly sought to fund the federal budget through tariffs and not by taxing the people directly. The second half of the book looks at the different income tax legislations and how Republicans in Congress responded to them. Each chapter begins with a brief historical context at the time when an income tax bill was being discussed in Congress. The views of Republicans on the income tax were altered throughout the war and its aftermath. In the beginning, Republicans enthusiastically supported the income tax as a measure needed to sustain the fighting. As the war came to a close, however, many Republicans began to change their view. They originally backed progressive rates, then they wanted just one flat tax rate, and, by 1870, many wanted the tax to be ended. There was a divide in the Republican Party, though. Western Republicans wanted to keep the income tax intact while Northern Republicans called for its repeal. The last chapter of the book looks at the Republican Party and the income tax since 1872. Many of the arguments made by current and past Republicans (e.g., George W. Bush, Eisenhower, Elihu Root and even Earl Warren) against the income tax are shown to be the same ones made by many Republicans in the debate over the Civil War income tax. Apparently, the Northern anti-income tax wing won the debate and took over the party 140 years ago.

"This book features a series of essays and contributions from leading tax figures - including politicians, policy-makers and practitioners - who consider the key factors that have shaped the UK tax code."--Book jacket.

In War, Wine, and Taxes, John Nye debunks the myth that Britain was a free-trade nation during and after the industrial revolution, by revealing how the British used tariffs—notably on French wine—as a mercantilist tool to politically weaken France and to respond to pressure from local brewers and others. The book reveals that Britain did not transform smoothly from a mercantilist state in the eighteenth century to a bastion of free trade in the late nineteenth. This boldly revisionist account gives the first satisfactory explanation of Britain's transformation from a minor power to the dominant nation in Europe. It also shows how Britain and France negotiated the critical trade treaty of 1860 that opened wide the European markets in the decades before World War I. Going back to the seventeenth century and examining the peculiar history of Anglo-French military and commercial rivalry, Nye helps us understand why the British drink beer not wine, why the Portuguese sold liquor almost exclusively to Britain, and how liberal, eighteenth-century Britain managed to raise taxes at an unprecedented rate—with government revenues growing five times faster than the gross national product. War, Wine, and Taxes stands in stark contrast to standard interpretations of the role tariffs played in the economic development of Britain and France, and sheds valuable new light on the joint role of commercial and fiscal policy in the rise of the modern state.

Why have the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq lasted longer than any others in American history? The conventional wisdom suggests that the move to an all-volunteer force and unmanned technologies such as drones have reduced the apparent burden of war so much that they have allowed these conflicts to continue almost unnoticed for years. Taxing Wars suggests that the burden in blood is just one side of the coin. The way Americans bear the burden in treasure has also changed, and these changes have both eroded accountability and contributed to the phenomenon of perpetual war. Sarah Kreps chronicles the entire history of how America has paid for its wars-and how its methods have changed. Early on, the United States imposed war taxes that both demanded sacrifices from all Americans and served as reminders of their participation. Indeed, thinkers from Immanuel Kant to Adam Smith argued that these reminders were exactly the reason why democracies tended to fight shorter and less costly wars. Bearing these burdens caused the populace to sue for peace when the costs mounted. Leaders in a democracy, responsive to their citizens, would have incentives to heed that opposition and bring wars to as expeditious an end as possible. Since the Korean War, the United States has increasingly moved away from war taxes. Instead, borrowing-and its comparatively less visible connection with the war-has become a permanent feature of contemporary wars. The move serves leaders well because reducing the apparent burden of war has helped mute public opposition and any decision-making constraints. But by masking accountability, however, the move away from war taxes undermines the basis for democratic restraint in wartime. Contemporary wars have become correspondingly longer and costlier as the public has become disconnected from those burdens. Given the trends identified in Taxing Wars, the recent past-epitomized by our lengthy wars in Afghanistan and Iraq-is likely to be prologue.