https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/20...ists-to-rebel/
The tax rates that led American colonists to rebel
April 17, 2017 by philg
As part of my tireless campaign to be defriended by every user of Facebook, I posted the following:Less than three months into the Trump Administration and already our neighbors are stocking up on guns and threatening violence against foreigners. #BritishLivesMatter [video]
As the British are vilified locally and our wars against them celebrated as just causes, I think it is worth remembering the actual situation. In “Tea, Taxes, and the Revolution” (Foreign Policy, 2012), we learn that there were big disparities in tax rates among the colonies:By 1714, British citizens in Great Britain were paying on a per capita basis 10 times as much in taxes as the average “American” in the 13 colonies, though some colonies had higher taxes than others. Britons, for example, paid 5.4 times as much in taxes as taxpayers in Massachusetts, 18 times as much as Connecticut Yankees, 6.3 times as much as New Yorkers, 15.5 times as much as Virginians; and 35.8 times as much as Pennsylvanians.
Tax rates were low by modern standards, but seemingly destined to be raised:By 1775, the British government was consuming one-fifth of its citizens’ GDP, while New Englanders were only paying between 1 and 2 percent of their income in taxes. British citizens were also weighed down with a national debt piled up by years of worldwide warfare that amounted to £15 for each of the crown’s eight million subjects, while American local and colonial governments were almost debt-free. Against this backdrop, Americans watched as the British monarchy attempted to raise taxes on the colonists to pay down its war debt and pay for the 10,000 British soldiers barracked in the colonies.
Happy Patriot’s Day to American readers. Happy Traitor’s Day to those in England.
Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm
https://www.quora.com/How-much-in-ta...ndence?share=1
How much in taxes did Americans pay in comparison to British before the American war of independence?
6 Answers
Stephen Tempest, qualified amateur historian
Answered 5 years ago · Author has 4.1K answers and 34.3M answer views
In 1765, the average amount of tax paid by someone in Great Britain itself was 312 pence (26 shillings) per year.
In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New York, the average tax was 12 pence per year, or 4% of the amount paid by people in Britain. People in Virginia only paid 5 pence, or less than half that amount.
In the years between 1765 and 1775 Britain greatly increased the tax burden on the American colonists by raising customs duties. This increased the tax burden by a massive 8 pence per head, to 20 pence per year — or 6% of the taxes that people in Britain itself had to pay, rather than 4%. This injustice drove the American patriots to rebellion.
Source: Palmer, R R: The Age of the Democratic Revolution (1959), Princeton University Press
