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W. Marc Gilfillan, CPA, NC, individual and business CPA and Tax expert, shares about the history of taxes…

Ah…. now we have a historical event obviously about oppressive taxes. Was the Boston Tea Party a protest concerning the British taxation on tea, as we were told? No, not at all. The colonies had already been boycotting English tea for 5 years before to the Boston Tea Party! They had actually smuggled in Dutch tea and were quite prosperous. There was tea for everyone and no British tea tax paid. Naturally, the British did not like the boycott. So, the British forgot the duties at home. The Parliament told British tea sellers to avoid the import tax of getting the tea into England and then transfer the savings along to the colonies when they shipped the tea over and thereby sold British tea at a price that was lower than the smuggled Dutch 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 did it through loyal British merchants in the colonies. But would the colonists take the cheaper British tea with an included tax? Yes. They bought so much that what ended up happening was loyal British merchants got all the business and the taxes were still being given to England. However, the colonists did not care about the tax very much; they ended up getting cheaper tea. However, the non-British MERCHANTS did not like this process. The British merchants, gaining the help from England, had basically established a monopoly on tea sales. The colony merchants feared it would only be a matter of time before additional 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 Natives, boarded a vessel containing British tea and dumped it into the harbor. Was this a shining moment in American tax protest? Nope. The Boston Tea Party was looked at as the meaningless destruction of private property at a time when private property was viewed as very important. The Boston Tea Party was very looked down upon and didn’t sit well with the colonies. Ben Franklin was shocked and demanded that full restitution would be paid immediately to the owners of the tea. However, it escalated into war.

However, the colonies would quickly find that fleets of warships, legions of soldiers, and cannons were a lot scarier than a few tax collectors. The ironic part is, America didn’t lose the war, primarily because England realized it was too expensive to wage war so far from England. 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/