A History of Tax Law, 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 obviously about oppressive taxes. Was the Boston Tea Party a protest concerning the British taxation on tea, as we were all taught? No, not at all. The colonies had already been boycotting English tea for 5 years before to the Boston Tea Party! Instead, they smuggled in Dutch tea and were quite prosperous. There was tea for all and no British tea tax paid. Obviously, the British did not like the boycott. So, the British bypassed the duties at home. The Parliament told British tea merchants to avoid the import tax of shipping the tea into England and then pass the savings along to the colonies when they sent the tea over and thereby sold British tea at a price lower than the Dutch smuggled 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 sold 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 didn’t care about the tax very much; they ended up getting cheaper tea. However, the non-British MERCHANTS did not enjoy this process. The British merchants, gaining the help from England, had essentially established a monopoly on tea sales. The native merchants thought it was only a matter of time before additional monopolies would be created 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 Natives, boarded a vessel loaded with British tea and tossed it into the harbor. Was this a shining peak in American tax protest? Not at all. The Boston Tea Party was viewed as the wanton destruction of private property at a period when private property was viewed as very important. The event was extremely looked down upon and did not sit well with the colonists. Ben Franklin was shocked and demanded that full repayment would be paid at once to the owners of the tea. Anyway, it turned into war.
However, the colonists would quickly learn that fleets of war vessels, battalions of redcoats, and cannons were much scarier than a few tax collectors. The ironic part is, America did not lose the war, mostly because England realized it was too expensive to wage war so far from home. BUT after the war, America had huge 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/
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