History of Income Tax

First of all, the King was making the Colonists pay very high and unwanted taxes. In a time span of nine years there were three acts that raised the prices of taxes.

There we go again King George III strikes again. We need to put a stop to the taxes. The stamp act was passed by the British Parliament on March 22. It was that there had to be taxes on every piece of paper sold. The king wanted more money so he put taxes on everything. The money raised from the act was given to the King George. All the king wanted was money for him. To get the money he wanted he got in from the colonist.

The British were in debt because of its war, the king and the parliament believed that hey had the right to tax the colonies. They put several kinds of taxes to the colonies for they to help pay the debt of the war. Some

Taxes were passed by Parliament following the French and Indian War. To protect its colonies, the British were forced to fight against the French and the Native

The British government raised taxes to support the Revolutionary War. The British government created a law called the Stamp Act of 1765, where they started taxing food. As people started buying food, the taxes went up, but surprisingly the British government still didn't have enough money to support the war.

The war had greatly enlarged Britain's debt so the government decided to implement taxes on the colonists. While the colonists were resentful of these taxes, the British felt the colonists should pay for their own defense. George Greenville's Program contained a series of acts including the Stamp Act which said any document must have a stamp on it. This action enraged many colonists. The outrage over the taxes was justified by the British government as necessary because of the amount of land they now had. (Document 5) That the huge increase in territory and population drove them to regulate trade. The British also saw the taxes as fair because the British were “protecting” the colonists. Many colonists such as Benjamin Franklin wanted the Stamp Act repealed because of its unfair taxing. (Document 6) Franklin called for an immediate repeal of the act in a letter to a friend. The taxation of the colonists was a significant change that cause the shift between the British and the

Great Britain was taking an excessive amount of money from the colonists. They were in debt from the Seven Years War and they needed money. So their solution was to tax the colonists because they thought that they owned them at least that (Document 1). They were taxing them on ridiculous things, like the Stamp Act, Currency Act, and the Sugar Act. They were also taxing them on trade, so they had to pay a fee when imported and exporting goods. This trade tax was used to raise revenue for Great Britain (Document 2). They were imposing ridiculous taxes on the colonists and they were tired of it.

However, the colonists were used to the policy of Salutary Neglect which meant that the colonists didn’t have to pay taxes to Britain. When Britain’s policies changed, it took the colonists by shock because there was no warning, and they believed that they had no right to be taxed. Britain’s reason for taxing the colonists was to make up for the debt they got into from defending them in the French and Indian War (Seven Years’ War). Not only did their tax policies change, but they also tried to control the colonist’s trading routes as well. Britain established acts such as the stamp act, sugar act, and tea act to overall get more money and resources from the

The issues of taxation

The reason for taxing was to pay off their debt, in order to do this they had to charge the colonists which started up the trouble between the colonies and England.

As one of the British excuses to get taxes from the American Colonists, Thomas Whately Claims “The British justified taxes on the Americans because the British has not yet recover from the war” (Thomas Whatley DBQ1). The British was protecting the American Colonist so they expected taxes from the Colonist. The British was taking advantage of the Americans by some systems like the sugar and stamp act. The stamp act was when the British tax the colonies for newspapers and legal commercial documents, John Dickson explains how “ever since the Americans Settle into the New World there was no intention to raise the revue of taxes” (John Dickson DBQ2). Finally, the sugar act was intended to tax the American Colonists on molasses which was a huge impact cause the American Colonist Purchase Molasses quite a bit.

The enforcement of the British Tax Policies to the Americans greatly impacted the American Revolution. The constant enforcement of the policies stirred the emotions and brought out the hunger for freedom in the hearts of the Americans.

With the introduction of the direct tax in the Stamp Act, rebellion erupted. The historian Carl Degler pointed out that the actual money lost because of the tax was not the source of the rebellion, it was the “novelty” of the tax which aroused discord. The colonists felt that the British government had been tightening its mercantilism policy too much after the salutary neglect during the European wars by imposing such taxes. While Britain was involved in the European wars, the colonies had practiced much self-government, and often the colonial legislatures controlled the royal governors by refusing funds and salaries until legislation was signs; however, after the wars ended, Britain removed the “power of the purse” from the legislatures in the Townsend Acts, further inflaming colonial

“The Revenue Act of 1764 did not bring in enough money to help pay the cost of defending the colonies. The British looked for additional sources of taxation. Prime Minister Grenville supported the imposition of a stamp tax. Colonial representatives tried to convince Grenville that the tax was a bad idea. Grenville insisted in having the new taxes imposed and presented to the parliament. The parliament approved the tax in February 1765. The colonies responded with outrage. It was considered a “shocking act”.(2)

Tax system is a legal system of imposing and collecting taxes from the citizens of the country. As it has been stated by Albert Einstein, the hardest task in the world is to understand the tax system of a country. The United States’ tax system is so complicated that its tax code contains almost 3 million words and 6,000 pages. Moreover, the taxes implied by city and state governments add more complexity to the federal taxation system. In this case, we do not need to understand the complexity of tax code system in order to get acquainted with the significant role of taxes in American society.