Tax Law in British America
Letters From a Pennsylvania Farmer #6: No Precedence For AmericanTax
John Dickenson answered the objections that the British Parliament had a right to raise taxes to collect revenue because legal precedent had been established that allowed it. He argued that the duties being charged to regulate trade were legal but that legal precedent and the letter of the law actually maintained that taxes to raise revenue were not to be collected.
Letters From a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies - Letter #6
Did Parliament have legal authority to tax
There was a significant part of the colonial people who thought that since Parliament had legal authority to raise revenue through taxes because of its right to establish and collect duties on trade.
Dickinson:
This argument was specious at best. Great Britain had every right to impose duties on commerce. The colonies had an implied consent to duties on things shipped to the mother country. This was even more indicative of their right because the duties were charged and collected in the mother country. Past law made as early as the reign of King Charles II stated clearly that commerce between the colonies should be duty free and that England itself had “paid great customs and impositions for what of them [the colonies] have been spent here[England].” This is a natural check on the duties as being oppressive because if the commodities were shipped again with more duty than England would be paying double so it was in there immediate interest not to raise these kinds of tariffs.
Tax or Duty?
How can one determine whether or not a duty on commerce is actually a tax that is intended to raise revenue?
Dickinson:
In the first place it is important to know that we are not to rely on the lawmakers themselves to determine this for us. However, in the present case of the Townshend acts it is crystal clear by the wording of the act itself that its sole purpose is raise revenue. So, you may ask, what if they get smart and start wording these acts, calling them duties rather than revenues? The answer is easy. “Names do not change the nature of things”
Be On Guard
Be diligent and aware of any regulation that is imposed.
Dickinson:
While it is true that “impositions for raising revenue” could be changed to “regulations of trade”, what we need to do is make sure we read the fine print and look at the effect of the laws. If we do not, we will certainly know it when the unhappy consequences hit us in the pocket book with an even worse consequence to our notion of being a free people. “Unless a most watchful attention be exerted a new servitude may be slipped upon us” by parliamentarians who are trying to ease us into this slavery by using “usual and respectable terms”
The Pennsylvania Farmers Conclusion
Any new duty that is laid upon the colonies should be judged by its effect. The effect “must determine the design” no matter what words are used. It might be difficult to discover the true design at first but if it is doubtful than we should err on the side of the empire by observing the law until or if an unlawful design is discovered. There is one thing of which we can be sure. If the mother country is charging duties on commerce that is directed to the colonies themselves “it is not a regulation of trade, but a design to raise a revenue upon us.” It is hoped that the colonies will never lack “understanding sufficient to discover the intentions of those who rule over them, nor the resolution necessary for asserting their interests.”
Quocirca vivite fortes fortiaque >adversite pectora rebus.
(Wherefore keep up your spirits, and gallantly oppose this adverse course of affairs.)
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Source
Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies by John Dickinson, Esq.
