American Tax Resisters

by Romain Huret

“The American taxpayer”―angered by government waste and satisfied only with spending cuts―has preoccupied elected officials and political commentators since the Reagan Revolution. But resistance to progressive taxation has older, deeper roots. American Tax Resisters presents the full history of the American anti-tax movement that has defended the pursuit of limited taxes on wealth and battled efforts to secure social justice through income redistribution for the past 150 years.

From the Tea Party to the Koch brothers, the major players in today’s anti-tax crusade emerge in Romain Huret’s account as the heirs of a formidable―and far from ephemeral―political movement. Diverse coalitions of Americans have rallied around the flag of tax opposition since the Civil War, their grievances fueled by a determination to defend private life against government intrusion and a steadfast belief in the economic benefits and just rewards of untaxed income. Local tax resisters were actively mobilized by business and corporate interests throughout the early twentieth century, undeterred by such setbacks as the Sixteenth Amendment establishing a federal income tax. Zealously petitioning Congress and chipping at the edges of progressive tax policies, they bequeathed hard-won experience to younger generations of conservatives in their pursuit of laissez-faire capitalism.

Capturing the decisive moments in U.S. history when tax resisters convinced a majority of Americans to join their crusade, Romain Huret explains how a once marginal ideology became mainstream, elevating economic success and individual entrepreneurialism over social sacrifice and solidarity.

384 pages, Hardcover

First published April 15, 2014

Reviews

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went through this slowly over the course of a year, but Huret's overview of resistance to taxation in the U.S.--abetted by a fair amount of work in the primary sources--offers a starting point for more focused studies of particular periods (his works on the teens and 20s, for example, is excellent, but he rushes through the Contract with America/Tea Party era). It's not especially stylish or fun reading, but it's useful historical scholarship and ought to find its way onto various U.S. history comprehensive exam lists, particularly as we recognize the importance of taxation and state finance as the means of constructing a society (pace M. Thatcher, who said there was no such thing!). I'm polishing off Isaac Martin's related book, so I'll let you know how that one goes, too.

[Mills College Library]

336.20097 H963 2014