What Did The Colonies Pay In Taxes?

[BFritz21]

I was thinking about this and everyone knows the reason for the war: taxation without representation, but what were the colonies being taxed in?

Did they have silver coins as money that they had to send back? Were the coins over here the same as they were in England? When did we get our own coins?

Were they taxed in livestock or crops? Was it even sent back or was it just collected and kept over here?

Was it not even coins but just silver and gold?

Anybody know?

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(07-04-2019, 07:44 PM)BFritz21 Wrote: I was thinking about this and everyone knows the reason for the war: taxation without representation, but what were the colonies being taxed in?

Did they have silver coins as money that they had to send back?  Were the coins over here the same as they were in England?  When did we get our own coins?

Were they taxed in livestock or crops?  Was it even sent back or was it just collected and kept over here?

Was it not even coins but just silver and gold?

Anybody know?

I would assume the taxes would be paid via currency to the governor/tax collectors/whomever and then they would have some of that currency to spend on their operations (pay soldiers, etc) in the colonies and likely have to spend the rest into shipments of goods back to the UK. Farmers would sell their crops/animals and then pay their taxes with that money.

I know the British wanted the US for furs, lumber, cotton, sugar, molasses, etc.

Pure assumption on my part, but logically makes sense to me. It would be absurd to take currency and ship it to the UK, just for the UK to ship that currency back to the colonies in order to buy goods to ship back to the UK. 

Would be interested to hear if there's an expert on the board who knows for certain.

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EDIT: Did a bit of looking...

https://www.thoughtco.com/why-britain-attempted-tax-american-colonists-1222028

Quote:The Stamp Tax
In February 1765, after only minor complaints from the colonists when the idea was floated due to confusion and disbelief, Grenville’s government imposed the Stamp tax. To him, this was just a slight increase in the process of balancing expenses and regulating the colonies. There was opposition in the British parliament, including Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Barré, whose off the cuff speech made him a star in the colonies and gave them a rallying cry as the “Sons of Liberty”, but not enough to overcome the government vote.

The Stamp Tax was a charge applied on every piece of paper used in the legal system and in the media. Every newspaper, every bill or court paper, had to be stamped, and this was charged for, as were dice and playing cards. The aim was to start small and allow the charge to grow as the colonies grew, and was initially set at two thirds of the British stamp tax. The tax would be important, not just for the income, but for the precedent it would set over sovereignty: Britain would start with a small tax, and maybe one day levy enough to pay for the colonies’ whole defence. The money raised was to be kept in the colonies and spent there. A second act followed, the Quartering Act. This dealt with where troops would be billeted if there were no rooms in barracks, and was watered down after discussions with colonial representatives. Unfortunately, its provisions included costs to the colonists that were open to interpretation as taxes.

Apparently the taxes weren't even enough to pay for the costs of running/defending the colony. So looks like no taxes were sent back to Britain. It was all spent in the colonies.

[BFritz21]

(07-04-2019, 08:21 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: I would assume the taxes would be paid via currency to the governor/tax collectors/whomever and then they would have some of that currency to spend on their operations (pay soldiers, etc) in the colonies and likely have to spend the rest into shipments of goods back to the UK. Farmers would sell their crops/animals and then pay their taxes with that money.

I know the British wanted the US for furs, lumber, cotton, sugar, molasses, etc.

Pure assumption on my part, but logically makes sense to me. It would be absurd to take currency and ship it to the UK, just for the UK to ship that currency back to the colonies in order to buy goods to ship back to the UK. 

Would be interested to hear if there's an expert on the board who knows for certain.

I considered that after I had posted that they collected for the soldiers and officials over here but didn't even consider the lumbers, furs, etc.

[BmorePat87]

There was British currency and the colonies printed their own paper currency. Like in the US before the standardization of currency, different entities printing their own currency meant the value was not always what was stated on the bill. While one bill might say it was worth so many shillings, private entities did not always accept it as being worth that. Value decreased when we went further away from the colony that issued it, so someone in England wouldn't want to be paid with a colonial note. This meant Parliament had to then address the issue and start putting rules on how currency could be printed in the colonies.

There were limits on what could be paid for with colonial bills and some taxes required coins. For the most part, the money stayed in the colonies and was a way to prevent the British from directly paying the cost of keeping troops in the colonies following the French Indian War.

[GMDino]

I thought this might be a good place to post this episode of a podcast I listen to.

http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/33-tempest-in-a-teacup

EPISODE 3Tempest in a Teacup

are this episode on LinkedIn[url=http://leopard.megaphone.fm/DGT4024959315.mp3][/url]
Bohea, the aroma of tire fire, Mob Wives, smugglers, “bro” tea, and what it all means to the backstory of the American Revolution. Malcolm tells the real story on what happened in Boston on the night of December 16, 1773.


It was very interesting.

[CJD]

The British threw taxes on a lot of goods too. So, you'd buy something with your money, and then they'd just charge you an additional amount. The Stamp Act (a tax added to every piece of paper printed), the Tea Act (established a monopoly on tea sales to the colonies in addition to the taxes already imposed on British imported tea) among many other taxes laid at the feet of the colonies.

[Dill]

(07-04-2019, 07:44 PM)BFritz21 Wrote: I was thinking about this and everyone knows the reason for the war: taxation without representation, but what were the colonies being taxed in?

Did they have silver coins as money that they had to send back?  Were the coins over here the same as they were in England?  When did we get our own coins?

Were they taxed in livestock or crops?  Was it even sent back or was it just collected and kept over here?

Was it not even coins but just silver and gold?

Anybody know?

BPat has a good response to this in post #4, but I want to add something.

During the 17-1800s, the British economy was organized according to the precepts of MERCANTILISM, which treated the national economy on very simplistic terms, rather like a household economy. The goal was to increase the amount of wealth (gold) flowing into Great Britain and decrease the amount flowing out.

So taxes were not the only problem for the colonists. Owing to a series of Navigation Acts passed between 1651 and 1673, if a colonist wanted to sell lumber to the French, he had to ship it first to London on a British ship, where a duty would be paid on it by any French who bought it.  It would have been cheaper and easier for the French to simply sail into Charleston or Boston in their own ships and buy the timber directly, at market prices. This meant the colonists could not directly sell timber, or tobacco, or cotton or furs to any other nation.  They could not buy textile and paper products other than from Britain, and tea from any other source than the British East India Company. 

Thus Great Britain could insure a monopoly over raw materials from the colonies, and in return had a "captive" market for goods produced in GB. There was trade between Britain and other countries, so colonial products did not all remain in Britain, but the Crown got a piece of that action, since all that trade went through British ports.

1776, the date of the US Declaration, was also the year of publication for Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, which argued against mercantilism in favor of free markets in which individual investment was unrestricted.  The US colonists thought they could do very much better if so much of the value they produced were not being extracted by Britain, not only by taxes but by control of trade and markets.

Virtually all European colonies since have recognized this problem and fought for independence, most winning it.