A History of Taxation, Section 8: Tax Law and The Boston Tea Party
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 clearly about abusive taxation. 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 five years prior to the Boston Tea Party! Instead, they smuggled in Dutch tea and were doing quite well. There was tea for all and no British tea tax paid. Obviously, the British did not like this boycott. So, the British forgot the duties back home. The Parliament allowed British tea merchants to disregard the import tax of getting 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 did it with the loyal British merchants located in the colonies. But would the colonists take the cheaper British tea with an included tax? Yes. They bought so much that the result was loyal British merchants got all the business and a tax was still be paid to England. However, the colonists did not care about the tax very much; they ended up receiving cheaper tea. However, the non-British MERCHANTS didn’t enjoy the process. The British merchants, gaining the assistance of England, had basically established a monopoly on tea sales. The colonial merchants thought it would only be a matter of time before more monopolies 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 group of MERCHANTS dressed up as Natives, walked on a vessel containing British tea and dumped it into the water. Was this a shining peak in American tax protest? No, it wasn’t. The Boston Tea Party was looked at as the senseless desecration of private property at a time when private property was viewed as very important. This event was extremely grave and did not sit well with the colonists. Ben Franklin was abhorred and demanded that full repayment would be paid at once to the owners of the tea. However, it turned into war.
However, the colonies would soon realize that masses of war vessels, battalions of redcoats, and cannons were much more terrifying than a couple tax collectors. The ironic part is, America won the war, primarily due to the fact that England realized it was too expensive to fund war so far from home. BUT after the war, America faced astounding 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/

