Unfair Taxation Quotes
At that period of American History, the Republicans supported high tariffs and protectionism for American companies and it was the Democrats who were the advocates of free trade. Later each of the parties would flip flop their positions and then say that they were advocating their traditional principles.
The speech was never actually delivered, but instead the Bishop published it. It received wide distribution including in America where it was published by the Maryland Gazette on September 29, 1774.
Tax breaks and deductions had become so prolific and complex that most of the larger corporations paid not only a smaller percentage of taxes than many small businesses, but also paid a smaller amount.
An income tax had been instituted during the Civil War but had lapsed. Existing taxes were all excise or head taxes—very regressive. Later there was a political movement to bring back the income tax with the intention of taxing all income equally. There was a titanic struggle which culminated in a Constitutional Amendment allowing the income tax. None of the original politicians, for or against, the income tax could never imagine an income tax that would charge lower rates for investment income. That was the entire purpose of the income tax at the beginning—to tax investment (unearned) income. The “capital gains tax” was the creative way of the rich getting back some of what they thought the lost when the income tax was instituted.
No one would be surprised to read this same editorial today. Some attitudes simply are impervious to change.
