Beware the ides of April

Policy Review, Spring 1994 by Adams, Charles

By 1789, however, no tax collector was safe in any province. Numerous tax revolts throughout the 17th century, which generally were not anti-regime, became intensely so by the late 18th century. Tax rebellions that had always been localized and tied to specific taxes suddenly culminated in a national upheaval.

This occurred, ironically, because Louis XVI called all classes of French society to Versailles, to reform the tax system. This brought the overtaxed commoners together for the first time. They took control of the state and soon thereafter the king's tax men were herded together, tried en masse for treason, and beheaded. They were condemned for fleecing the French people out of 300 million livres, about $1 billion in 1994 dollars. The final irony is that the king's tax men hadn't collected more than the law permitted. The problem was that the tax law was so rotten and so inequitable, angry taxpayers took their rage out on every tax man in sight.

BUYING TIME

It's a pity the French aristocracy was not better attuned to the lessons of history--particularly those from ancient Egypt. In the 3rd century, B.C., Egypt was near total collapse from the toll of excessive taxes and tax enforcement. The Egyptian kings taxed everything at least 20 percent, setting off land confiscations, flight to avoid taxes, massive arrests, and civil war.

Out of this chaos came the Rosetta Stone, the most important Egyptian archaeological discovery of all time, for it provided the key to understanding the lost languages of Egypt. But the story on the Rosetta Stone was of great significance as well, for it painted the picture of a dying Egypt, racked with civil disorder over taxation. Before the Rosetta Stone, the king's orders to control a rogue tax bureau went unheeded. Those orders were written on papyrus.

Finally, the king made one last effort to bring the tax bureau under control and end civil strife. He issued a broad decree, called a "Proclamation of Peace." It ordered all tax debts cancelled; all confiscated lands returned; all taxpayers freed from prison; and all tax fugitives invited to return to their lands and jobs. To make sure the tax bureau got the message, it was chiselled in stone, in three languages, one of which was the familiar Greek. Apparently, it worked, bringing peace for more than a century.

If the French could be forgiven for neglecting the hard lessons of the Egyptians, they can hardly be excused for ignoring the example of their contemporary rival to the north, Great Britain. In the 18th century, British parliamentary government, with its approach to taxation, remains a model for our day. Taxes were, primarily, the people's business--and they let their will be known peacefully through the House of Commons or not so peacefully to the Crown through rebellion.

Government spending was restricted by a tight purse, which resulted more from uncooperative taxpayers and downright evasion than the wishes of an enlightened Parliament and Crown. For example, throughout the 17th and most of the 18th centuries, Britain was the only major European country without extensive excise taxes. Britons simply rejected them, along with the hearth tax on fireplaces, (which would have allowed tax men to invade private homes), the poll taxes, and a burdensome land tax.