[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mrbeast

Or not depending on which cerial packet you get your history from.

The back of my packet says that income tax was first levied by PM William Pitt, the younger in Britain, in 1798 to pay for the Napoleonic war.

Long before Karl Marx was even a twinkle in big daddy Marx's eye.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax

tz-tz, another attempt to label anything one does not like as socialism and communism. It's a verbal overkill-super-wonder-weapon, it seems. the ultimate win-the-lottery-without-even-buying-a-ticket- argument. Even blanks win the jackpot, or what? Just say "Communism!" without stuttering, and smile - and you already have won!

Don't remember the names and year exactly, but can confirm yes, it was Britain against Napoleon, sometime late 18th century. Potentially, France was the wealthiest nation of Europe of that time, but it made bad use of it's rich agriculture, and the French leaders - including Napoleon - did not put much emphasis on financial politics regarding the banking system, and still they became wealthy enough to finance Napoleon's european ambitions, and the reforming and re-equipping of Napoleon'S armies. Britain, on the other hand, was isolated, fought hard not to get cut off from trade and the incomes from that, and had to "invent" new ways to reorganize it's state incomes to survive the long struggle with the French - if they would have stuck to their old system and would not have reformed their private banking system, they would not have endured the resistance against finacially superior France, even more so since in population and agriculture Britain was smaller than France. Their reforms went far beyond just implementing an income tax. It more compares to an almost new financial economy system.

The struggle against Napoelon was not only won on the battlefield at Waterloo. It was prepared by the somewhat reforming of the English bank system and a new system of raising state finances in Britain, and the mechnaism by which the state lend money from private banks. without Britain doing that, Prussia, Austria and/or Russia would probably have been unable to finally defeat Napoleon and throw France back to it's own borders - it would have continued to dominate Europe. From a British perspective, it was not "Wellington at Waterloo holding out until the Prussians came" being the deciding factor, but the British financial reforms. Without them, Wellington never would have been able to lead a British army to the fields at Waterloo. Britain would have become bancrupt much earlier.

A very rough and short summary only, I know. But in principle, that'S it. For more details I would need to re-read my history book.

One could even go back much further, into the medieval. The churche'S "decimae personales", that ruoled that 10 percent of all earnings by traders and farmers had to be given to the church, could be seen as the first form of income taxes. In Prussia, the first "tax per head" also was raised in the 18th century, I think even before the English came with their income tax. China had the first form of income tax two thousand years ago (Mao was not born, then ).