Comments on: Research Into The Amount Of Tea Tax Inspiring Boston Tea Party

By: robbie

robbie — Thu, 21 May 2009 16:33:49 +0000

it's amazing that a mere tea tax can trigger a revolution to free US from European imperialism Can you imagine if americans at the time are forced to plant tea, not paid for the work, the tea was taken away by british without any payment. well that's what happen in many asia and african communities at the same century under European imperialists robbies last blog post..Understanding Supply Side of Coffee Trading

By: Tax Day TEA Party - Oklahoma State Capitol : Thinking it through… or Just something to think about…

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:31:01 +0000

[...] The Boston Tea Party was a revolt over taxation without representation in British Parlament. The tax was actually very little, some say less than 3%. Why are Americans now willing to pay 20% to 50% in their income taxes, or even more taxes IF Obama [...]

By: txvoodoo (txvoodoo)

txvoodoo (txvoodoo) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:11:54 +0000

@peterkay FYI, here’s some research into the tax #s – it’s not percentages, but informative: http://tinyurl.com/8sf8ev

By: The_Anti_Guru (Tim Owensby)

The_Anti_Guru (Tim Owensby) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:56:34 +0000

@peterkay At that time, income was not taxed, consumption was. The tax rate is debated: http://tinyurl.com/8sf8ev #teaparty #tcot #topprog

By: mAximo

mAximo — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 10:16:05 +0000

Oops, I meant it became 5p per shilling, not pound.
And that Cuban cigars were able to undercut PR ones on the Mainland after Smoot-Hawley was passed.
My web article takes a hardline approach on grammar, since we should be a nation of laws, and not of Congressional intent, and then of Supreme Court mind reading of their intent, esp. when they can’t agree on what the intent was.
Congress did intend a 1040 to derive income tax from sources of income, but it worded the 16th amendment to make derived sources liable for income taxes, rather than to derive the taxes from the source.

By: mAximo

mAximo — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 09:56:51 +0000

your welcome, Aahz.
2B more clear: a shilling then was 1/20 of a pound, like our nickel is 1/20 of a dollar.
However, it was 12 old pence (d) to a shilling then, not as today: 5 new pence (p) per pound.
I should have said: Your “4s per pound weight” only applied to Britain, not the colonies, where the consumer wouldn’t know how much they were paying in tax, since it was an indirect tax, i.e. paid by the source of the taxable item.
Being an indirect tax, even the tea merchants wouldn’t see how much the tax was, since it was paid by their source: the E.India Co.
So the Tea Partiers dressed up as Indians must have been merchants protesting the corporate welfare.
Check out my web article on how income tax was intended by the 16th Amendment to be indirect, and still is so in Puerto Rico where only sources of income must pay income tax.
Congress continues to implement income tax there as intended in order to make amends for Smoot-Hawley protectionist tariffs in the Depression, which was a violation of Art.I Sec.8 requiring all Excises to be uniform throughout the US.
PR had already been incorporated as a part of the US during WWI, in order to make everyone born there citizens, and so make the draft legal there.
Thus, it was subject to US minimum wage laws, which meant that PR cigars could no longer compete with Cuban ones abroad.
After PR had to pay import tariffs to the mainland, it meant that Cuba could then undersell its cigars.
Needless to say, the PR tobacco industry was destroyed, which was a primary factor leading to many revolts eventually culminating in the Palm Sunday PoncE Massacre.
History is now being reversed by trying to right a wrong to PR via a wrong to Mainland employees, who also shouldn’t pay income tax.
On irs.gov there was a copy of the pre-WWII 1040, which was virtually identical to the current federal 1040 for PR.
check it out. In effect, the Mainland working class is having to pay for today’s “Crown Corporations”.

By: Aahz

Aahz — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:36:52 +0000

@mAximo:
Thanx for the info/clarification mAximo! As I wrote, I really don’t know nearly as much about the events as my schooling led me to believe. With the popularity of this post over the last year I should probably schedule another followup for the next anniversary.

By: mAximo

mAximo — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:02:21 +0000

The Tea Tax was not an ‘ad valorem’ tax, nor a sales tax.
Instead it was a tax by weight, and a wholesale tax.
It was 3d per pound avoirdupois, not sterling.
A pound of tea from the wholesaler sold for 1s 9d, or 21d, according to Labree.
If there had been no duty, it probably would have sold for 18d.
Therefore, the tax was 16 & 2/3 percent on the net value to the wholesaler

Also, your “4s per pound weight” should say ’sterling’.
A shilling is the British nickel, so 4s was owed for every 20s in sales.
The wholesaler thus netted 16s for every pound sterling on its books.
Therefore, the tax was 25% on the net value, the same amount Humphrey reports.

Thus, a 25% tax was reduced to a 16% duty for the equivalent wholesale value of a pound of tea.

Such a reduction was not large enough to outweigh giving a Crown corporation yet more
corporate welfare, which is what really got the colonial merchant class upset.
Great Wal-mart is the modern version: the gov’t built a private freight airport in Arkansas,
at taxpayer expense, to lower the cost of airfreighting goods built in China. Sam Walton is a
CIA subcontracter. I heard that Target is similar. Anyway, Wal-mart is an example of ‘gook to
spook economics’ in practice in order to export our inflation, jobs, pollution and debt
abroad, while importing child labor, unemployment, etc.

At least you realised the problems in interpreting ‘pound’ and so calculated the lower &
upper limits on the tax rate. As usual the true answer lies between the extremes.

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By: weblog.histnet.ch » Blog Archive » History Carnival: Geschichtsblog des Monats Dezember 2007

Mon, 19 May 2008 14:24:11 +0000

[...] zu den Piratenbräuten Anne Bonny und Mary Read im interessanten Weblog Scandalous Women. Oder der Beitrag zur Boston Tea Party, dem Auftakt zur Unabhängigkeitsbestrebungen der USA, der sich mit eindrücklicher Einarbeitung [...]