Selective Consumption Taxes in Historical Perspective

Document Type

Contribution to Book

Journal/Book Title/Conference

For Your Own Good: Taxes, Paternalism, and Fiscal Discrimination in the Twenty-First Century

Publisher

Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Publication Date

1-3-2018

First Page

19

Last Page

39

Abstract

Until the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment to the US Constitution in 1913, which authorized the collection of taxes on incomes, the federal government of the United States relied heavily on indirect taxes (import duties and selective excises) to generate revenue.1 In 1912, for example, internal tax receipts (90.4 percent of which were generated by various excise taxes) represented just over half (50.8 percent) of all federal revenues; customs duties accounted for most of the rest (40.8 percent of the total) (Yelvington 1997, 44, 47). As a matter of fact, until 1862, following the outbreak of the War between the States in April 1861 and the disruption of the nation’s international trade triggered by the secession of the Confederacy’s thirteen member states, import duties comprised all or nearly all of the US government’s revenues (Yelvington 1997, 45–46).

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