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War and Taxes Paperback – May 9, 2008

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Steven A. Bank (Author)
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Steven A. Bank (Author), Kirk J. Stark (Author), Joseph J. Thorndike (Author)
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 238 pages
  • Publisher: Urban Institute (May 9, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0877667403
  • ISBN-13: 978-0877667407
  • Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 6 x 9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,837,652 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4.0 out of 5 starsWars Used to Cause Taxes and Now Cause Debt and Recession
By David C N Swanson on April 22, 2011
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
It turns out that "war and taxes" have a lot more in common than "death and taxes." War and taxes are both optional and are joined at the hip. Or, as these authors put it:

"War has been the most important catalyst for long-term, structural change in the nation's fiscal system. Indeed, the history of America's tax system can be written largely as a history of America's wars."

Alexander Hamilton argued in Federalist No. 30, as he and his allies argued elsewhere, for the federal power to tax precisely because the federal government might need to fight wars. Between 1789 and 1815, tariffs produced 90 percent of government revenue. But taxes were needed for wars, including wars against protests of the taxes -- such as President Washington's quashing of the Whiskey Rebellion. A property tax was put in place in 1789 in order to build up a Navy (some people in what is now Libya allegedly needed killing for the good of humanity, oddly enough). More taxes were needed in 1798 because of the troublesome French. But taxation really got going with the War of 1812.

Remember, this was to be an easy cakewalk kind of war with Canadians welcoming us as liberators. But mistakes were made, as they say, and the bill grew hefty. Congress passed a tax program in 1812 that included a direct tax on land, and excise taxes on retailers, stills, auction sales, sugar, bank notes, and carriages. And in 1815, our representatives added a new direct tax and restored that controversial whiskey tax as well, plus taxes on all kinds of items, luxurious and otherwise. The idea of an income tax was raised but rejected.

The income tax was brought to you courtesy of that glorious act of mass stupidity that began 150 years ago this month: the Civil War.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsHistorical perspective on how to increase spending for a war while reducing the revenues to pay for it
By Grover Hartt, III on July 17, 2008
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
The authors of this thoughtful work begin with the proposition that there is no precedent for the expenditure of blood and treasure for the last six years of warfare in the Middle East while cutting taxes at the same time. Then, by going all the way back to the War of 1812, they candidly demonstrate that Americans have not always been especially willing to pay higher taxes to finance the nation's wars. Only with the two World Wars and the Korean War were most Americans readily prepared to make the financial sacrifices required to pay for these major wars. Implicit, but not as explicit as it might have been, is the conclusion that citizens are more easily persuaded to pay for wars involving national survival than limited wars with more ambiguous aims.

One of the authors' central themes is explaining how the income tax assumed a role of primacy among the various other forms of revenue raising. They note how during the Civil War a perception arose that the income tax was the fairest means of financing that war in response to complaints the rich were exempt from sacrifice. Even after the income tax was legitimized by the Sixteenth Amendment just before the United States entered World War I, it remained a tax imposed on upper income citizens until World War II. This book includes a good description of FDR's successful resistance to a national sales tax to pay the skyrocketing costs of that war in favor of a broader use of the income tax. The authors also provide excellent background on how withholding and the standard deduction first appeared at this time.

In the interest of a balanced view, there appears to be an error on page 95. The percentages of the income tax as a share of total revenue match exactly the dollar figures in the next sentence.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsAn enlightening work for the tax geek and the history buff
By SAN People on July 15, 2008
Format: Paperback
While acknowledging the Bush tax cuts marked an "abrupt departure" from our tradition of wartime fiscal sacrifice, the authors of War and Taxes demonstrate that such sacrifice hasn't always been all that willing. (Typically, business interests have patriotically chest-thumped while acting sub rosa to minimize any tax effect.) Now often, the Civil War serves to open our tax history, with the establishment of the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the imposition of a recognizable income tax, but the authors appropriately focus on the War of 1812 in pushing the nation toward increased reliance on internal taxation, as opposed to tariffs and loans, thereby placing war finance on a sound footing. The contrasting fiscal strategies of the Union and Confederacy are clearly laid out. Further, the recurring relationship between conscription and taxes is well introduced in the Civil War chapter. (One frequent populist refrain: Draft wealth, not just boys of 18.) The authors deserve particular credit for sorting through the various iterations of the excess profits tax proposals in both world wars, as well as for highlighting the tax forgiveness feature of the Current Tax Payment Act of 1943, which was effectively a wartime tax cut. Naturally, we learn the critical impact of World War II in laying the foundation for our current tax system, especially withholding, but also how close we came to a national sales tax. Hardly a dry text, the Vietnam chapter, for example, is almost sad to read as Lyndon Johnson's presidency unravels from a tax/budgetary perspective. War and Taxes is an important contribution to this field of study and one that succeeds in ably interweaving decisive historical events (e.g., the New York Draft Riot, unrestricted submarine warfare in 1915-17, Chinese entry into the Korean War) with the contemporary legislative atmosphere and the pertinent technical tax issues.
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