Plucking the goose to get the maximum number of feathers for the minimum number of squawks. This view of taxation is partly, but only partly, correct. The total volume of taxation is certainly related largely to what the taxpayer thinks is worth paying for, and how much he or she is prepared to pay. Both of these items have changed enormously over three and a half centuries, but there is a good deal more to it than that. The growth of taxation has not been regular throughout the period. For much of the time, taxation has been rising almost continuously; but for a large part of the nineteenth century the total volume of taxation extracted, as well as the tax burden on the individual citizen, actually declined. Patterns in taxation change may be discerned. In particular, wars have always resulted in taxation increases, and when the war is finished taxation never settles down to a level as low as it had been before the war began. This book seeks to understand and explain the reasons for these changing patterns, and should be of interest to the general reader, as well as the historian or economist.
- ISBN10 0312222173
- ISBN13 9780312222178
- Publish Date 1 June 1999
- Publish Status Unknown
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Palgrave MacMillan
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 174
- Language English